On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Brian Kotek wrote: > > The reality is that Railo and Open BlueDragon are not growing the market for > CFML. No one is *switching to* CFML from PHP, .NET, Ruby, or Java because of > the OSS engines. To the extent that this might happen, it is an > infinitesimally small number of projects. If any of the OSS engines have > data to contradict that assertion, I'd love to see it.
Railo publishes stats rather regularly. Mailing list activity, survey results, etc.. I'm thinking they said that in 100 people who complete the survey on download, 17 say they're coming from other language. Not /exactly/ infinitesimal, but it ain't no flood of newbs, neither. I predict that this number will increase over time. Maybe even exponentially! > The OSS engines, particularly Railo, were initially touted as a gateway for > people working on other platforms, which is why their partnership with JBoss > created such hope and expectation. This has not happened. What *has* I for one, was not expecting thousands of new converts within the this time-span. =) JBoss already had Seam, which is in a similar (but not as awesome) space. As the quality open source CFML applications mature, I think we'll see more converts. I have been *very* pleased with the number and quality of open source CFML projects hitting the streets in the last couple of years though. I don't know how much that has to do with the entrance of the open source engines as viable alternatives, but I feel it's factor. It was for me, anecdotal-y. I see the availability of quality open source CFML software as a forerunner to wider adoption. Maybe Ray can publish some numbers from RIAForge? I know Sean put some data out there, not too long ago, which painted a pretty picture of the transition from like 5 open source CFML projects to like 50 over the span of a year, or whathaveyou. I attribute some of that to CFers realizing the *awesome* power of open source, but again, I think the engine alternatives have gone a long way towards helping as well. CFML devs are no longer beholden to some commercial entity's well-being, which adds a *huge* bit of stability to the language that was just plain *not there* prior. > happened is that a small but noticeable number of existing ColdFusion users > have moved to the OSS engines. As an Adobe Community Professional, I'm privy > to more "internal" information and direct communication with the Adobe > employees. The primary drain on the Adobe ColdFusion user base is people > moving to one of the OSS CFML engines. Not people leaving for PHP or .NET. > People do leave for other platforms, and new people do come in, but that > just means that the total size of the CFML community as a whole is fairly > static in size. And now that total pie is being divided between CF, Railo, > and OBD. Perhaps. Personally, I was about to ditch CFML. If it wasn't for the open source engines, I would have. I don't know how often my story is repeated with others, but I know I'm not alone. I don't think we would have been (if indeed we are) "static" in number without the open source alternatives. > I personally like most of the individual people involved in the OSS > projects. I've known many of them for years. So this is not personal at all. > But if the biggest drain on the ColdFusion user base is coming from the OSS > engines, then Adobe is absolutely right to treat them as their top > competitors. To NOT do this would be foolish. If the OSS engines were > actually pulling in droves of new users from other platforms, this whole > dynamic would probably be much different. But that is simply not the case. I don't know about "top". Unless the "target" is the existing "static" community, which would seem a rather backwards plan, IMHO. I look at is as more of a break dancing crew scenario: We battle each other to push ourselves, so that we can go out there and form like Voltron when battling the other "crews" (PHP, .NET, etc.). It doesn't need to be contentious. Friendly competition is where it's at, yo. Anyways, an open engine alone isn't going to pull in droves of people. We need that eye-candy (which, I'll add, I feel we're getting, in the form of quality open source applications) to rope 'em in. I dunno. I look at it from a CFML developer's perspective. If I had stock in Adobe, perhaps I'd see things differently... but I doubt it. For me, it's not about the engine, or sales, or popularity, even. It's about *us*. And open source CFML engines are *nothing* but good for us, as CFML devs, in my opinion. Somehow, I feel that makes it good for Adobe, too. But I could quite possibly be mad as the hatter. :) :Den -- God made me and broke the mold. Jean-Jacques Rousseau ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:341685 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
