I’ve been a long-time advocate for ColdFusion. There have been several threads prematurely referencing ColdFusion’s demise that I have chimed in. But now in dealing with our Adobe account management representative, I am left dumbfounded.
Background: We have purchased and are using 40+ Standard CF licenses. These license purchases and use started with CF5 when Allaire still owned CF and have been upgraded to mostly CF9 but just starting CF11 -- and then the wheels fell off.
Like idiots, we wanted to determine if Enterprise pricing might now work for us as were starting to incorporate a VM environment (from an all pizza box environment). In asking some simple questions our sales rep is now claiming that we are violating the acceptable usage portion of their license agreement:
2.6.4 Prohibited Use. Except as expressly authorized through a separate custom hosting agreement, Licensee is prohibited from: (a) using the Software on behalf of third parties; (b) renting, leasing, lending, or granting other rights in the Software including rights on a membership or subscription basis; (c) providing use of the Software in a computer service business, third party outsourcing facility or service, service bureau arrangement, time sharing basis, or as part of a hosted service; or (d) using any component, library, or other technology included with the Software other than solely in connection with its use of the Software. For more information about how to obtain a custom hosting agreement, please see: http://www.adobe.com/go/ColdFusion_Hosting_Agreement.
Apparently, since our customers are businesses, CF cannot be used -- any business that sells products or services to other businesses is considered a service bureau -- EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT A HOSTING PROVIDER. This requires a custom hosting provider agreement in place even if you don’t provided hosting services, and I’m assuming at additional “negotiated” fees -- but we have not got that far because we’re not a hosting provider.
Right now I’m actively researching ColdFusion alternatives which is very disappointing.
I’ll post updates if this thread does not get deleted but for now, CF users beware: If you sell to businesses you are probably in violation of the Adobe license agreement -- at least our sales rep’s view.
Sigh...