> published formal specification of CFML is a two-edged sword
I am going to research, develop and publish the "Official ColdFusion
Language Specification". The specification will be a formal notation on the
language, CFL. This is something that does not exist. So it will be new
work. I will own the copyright on the specification.
The work to research and develop the CFL specification will be
collaborative effort. Members of the collaboration will have rights to the
specification. Others will have to pay for rights.
Joseph
At 07:35 AM 8/6/2005, you wrote:
>From a business perspective, published formal specification of CFML
is a two-edged swordd formal specification of CFML
is a two-edged sword. The reasons to publish a formal spec are: (1) to allow
the possibility of alternate implementations; and, (2) to allow the
possibility of "others" to contribute to the evolution of the specification.
The negative to (1) is that you open the door wider to competition (as
BlueDragon demonstrates, that door is already open even without a formal
spec). The worst-case scenario from a commercial software vendor's
perspective is that someone uses the published spec to create an open source
implementation that puts you out of business. The negative to (2) is that
you lose control of the spec, though I think that Sun has demonstrated a
good way to allow outsiders to participate in development of Java specs
without losing control of the process.
The positives to having a published formal spec is that you remove the
stigma of CFML being a proprietary language supported by only a single
vendor. For example, there would have been no wailing or gnashing of teeth
when Macromedia acquired Allaire, or when the Adobe acquisition of
Macromedia was announced, because the future of CFML would no longer be so
dependent on a single company. Another positive is that you can more openly
allow your customers to contribute to the language specification process.
I've made several proposals over the past few years (though not recently) to
people fairly high up in Macromedia to move to a more open, formal process
for specifying CFML. They're not interested, and that's fine--they need to
make decisions based on their own perceived best interests. But, I think
their decision to keep CFML closed and proprietary ultimately means CFML
will always be a niche technology that probably won't grow in market share
much beyond what it has today.
On a sort of related note, I'm always puzzled when people who embrace "open"
technologies, such as Linux and Java, can also embrace ColdFusion, which a
"closed" technology; there seems to be a contradiction here. In fact, this
contradiction seems to exist within the ColdFusion development team itself,
which relies heavily on open source technology (Axis, JasperReports, iText,
various Jakarta projects), but is resistant to opening CFML.
It seems to me that if "openness" is a good thing at the operating system
and platform levels, then it's also a good thing at the application server
level. Or maybe the embrace of Linux and Java is less about "openness" and
more about "not Microsoft", in which case there's no contradiction in also
embracing ColdFusion.
Vince Bonfanti
http://blog.newatlanta.com
New Atlanta Communications, LLC
http://www.newatlanta.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Barney Boisvert
> Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 8:44 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [CFCDev] WOT: CFML as XML
>
> On 8/5/05, Joseph Flanigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> <snip />
> > A much better energy would be asking how to make CF better
> business choice.
>
> I'm interested (as an unaffected bystander) in why you think
> CF not having a formal language spec that is available to the
> public makes it a poor business choice. This might be better
> taken off-list, but I'm definitely interested. I don't know
> about you, but I'm buying a language implementation, not a
> langauge specification.
>
> cheers,
> barneyb
>
> --
> Barney Boisvert
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 360.319.6145
> http://www.barneyb.com/
>
> Got Gmail? I have 50 invites.
>
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