BlueDragon Blog
Here you'll find tips and information about making the most of BlueDragon, which offers several compelling implementation alternatives for your CFML applications. This blog was created originally by Charlie Arehart, who was New Atlanta CTO from 2003-2006.,He has since moved on to become an independent consultant but continues to answer comments raised in existing blog entries. BlueDragon continues, and you should look to the newer BlueDragon blog, from New Atlanta president, Vince Bonfanti, for more updated information.

FAQ: "I've heard BlueDragon has a version free for deployment. Is that true?"

« H E FAQs :: Charlie Arehart :: email
posted Tuesday, 1 July 2003

We get this all the time, "This free version of the server, do you mean free for production?" Yes, BlueDragon Server is available free for production. Go to town! Install it on your server and sell your widgets, tell folks about your charity, run a blog. Do whatever you'd like (subject to the terms and conditions of the licensing agreement shown when you download it).

Our free server edition, while it's somewhat limited compared to our commercial offerings (Server JX and the J2EE and .NET editions), is vastly superior to the free offering Allaire once offered as CF Express, back in the 4.5 timeframe.

The old CF Express didn't even allow things such as CFMAIL, CFLOCK, CFHTTP, CFTRANSACTION, CFSCRIPT, CFMODULE, CFSTOREDPROC, CFFORM, CFERROR, CFFILE, CFDIRECTORY, CFCONTENT, CFCACHE, and lots more. (You can read more about what CF Express didn't offer by viewing the CFML Language Reference from that edition, available online at Macromedia's site. See Chapter 1, page 7.) We offer all those and lots more.

So what do we not allow in the free BlueDragon Server edition that we do allow in the other editions? Do you have a free hand to count along? :-)

Note: The following information about restrcted features has changed and all these things previously not in the free edition have been made available. See this entry for an update.

CFEXECUTE, CFGRAPH, CFOBJECT, CFWDDX, CFSCHEDULE, and CFSERVLET. OK, that's 6 but CFSERVLET is deprecated in CFMX anyway. Speaking of servlets, we also don't offer servlets/JSP integration in the free edition, nor CFX Java custom tags. Still, for free, we're still giving you an awful lot! Just a couple other limitations to note: the number of included DB drivers is limited, and you can only run it with Apache on Linux and IIS on Windows. 

A complete grid of supported and unsupported tags in the 3 currently released editions is at http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/product_info/cfml_tag_support.cfm. See also http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/product_info/features.cfm#FCMatrix for other feature comparisons.  

What if you're a reseller interested in using the free Server edition for your application? Well, if you point your clients to our site to download it, there's no problem. Enjoy the dramatic cost reduction for the total cost of your product. No more need to make them buy ColdFusion ($1300 for CF5 or MX, currently).

What if you prefer to bundle BlueDragon Server along with your product, so that one installation takes care of it all? Then the user doesn't even need to know about an underlying "server". You can even hide the administrator, bundle your app into a BlueDragon archive (BDA), and lots more. We offer many options for vendors wanting to license the Server edition for redistribution. And we can offer a price and form of compensation that's very cost-effective and works with your business model. W can even help you create the bundled installation of your product and our server. Contact Richard Baker and he'll be happy to discuss the program and options with you.

In fact, you may want to check out our partners program, at http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/partners/overview.cfm as well. We have partnering programs for ISVs, hosting providers, and system integrators. As with the free Server, we're working to make CFML continue to be your web application language of choice and solve key challenges that may keep you from making the most of it.


comments (2)


1. a reader left...
Saturday, 5 July 2003 10:21 pm

Ah yes.... I remember asking that question... To my delite, it was true.

:-)

Yves [yves@carrefour.peicaps.org]


2. Charlie Arehart left...
Monday, 6 February 2006 6:26 pm

Ok, a reader has asked me to clarify that with the change in licensing in BlueDragon 6.2, you can no longer use the free edition to "sell your widgets".

Again, and as stated in the sentence that follows that, you should read (and are subject to) the licensing agreement, which has indeed changed in the 6.2 release.

Here's a comment from New Atlanta's VP of Sales, Dan Ganter, that helps clarify the spirit of the licensing agreement:

"If you are acting as part of commercial organization where CFML server technology like BlueDragon would normally be part of the overall economic food chain for that organization, then we'd like to partake in that greater corporate revenue stream via a license fee."

Further, I should note that as of 6.2 the free Server edition also does not support use of SSL at all.

All this said, it's worth clarifying that ALL the other editions (Server JX, J2EE, and .NET) are certainly free for 30 day trial and beyond that for ongoing single-IP testing with no expiration.