ColdFusion 10 EULA
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There have been a few changes to the EULA in ColdFusion 10. Here is a post that should clarify most of the changes in the EULA.
Definition of CPU
The definition of the CPU now includes cores as well. Software industry has embraced a core based licensing for many years now. We have decided to stick to the CPU based licensing, but introduced the notion of cores in the definition of a CPU.
Four Cores is deemed a CPU and ColdFusion license is still a 2 CPU license
The power of a CPU has grown enormously over the last few years and we now see individual core in a CPU itself being as powerful as a CPU. Few companies treat every group of two cores as a CPU and also change their licensing based on the power of processing core involved. We decided to take a lighter stand on this. Our idea was not to penalize our customers just because we now have cores in the CPU definition. Four cores in a CPU is the norm these days. So we decided to chose four cores to be deemed as a CPU.
What this would mean is, if you are running ColdFusion on a 2 quad core CPU (8 cores in total, which would be deemed as 2 CPUs), you can still continue to run ColdFusion 10 on it.
Testing, staging and development still free
ColdFusion 10 continues to be free for testing, staging and development. The defintion of staging has been altered to ensure that staging is actually a true staging server within an internal network and not a hot standy for production.
1.8 “Staging Server” means a Server used to assemble, test and review new or newer versions of
applications and that is used to deploy such applications over Licensee’s Internal Network and only to
be accessed by Authorized Users before, the applications are moved into live, stand-by production, or
production environments.
Disaster Recovery continues to be free
Servers purely used for disaster recovery only in the event that the primary copy has failed or is destroyed, continues to be free.
2.3 Backup and Disaster Recovery. Licensee may make and install a reasonable number of copies of the
Software for backup and archival purposes and use such copies solely in the event that the primary copy
has failed or is destroyed, but in no event may Licensee use such copies concurrently with Production
Software or Development Software.
Virtual Machine Licensing continues to be same
There is no change in the way VMs are licensed. As long as all the underlying cores and CPUs that run the software are licensed, there is no restriction on the number of VMs you could run for an Enterprise license of ColdFusion.
For a standard license, every VM that runs ColdFusion needs a license of its own.
Cloud Network License
Cloud differentiates itself from a VM from its elasticy and on-demand nature as laid out in the definition of the cloud in the EULA.
1.3 “Cloud” means a technical environment operating one or more instances of the Software to deliver
hosted services and resources over the internet or intranet in which the services and resources can be
accessed in a manner that permits such services and resources to be made available “on demand”,
scaling up or down, to the processing needs of the user over time
One Enterprise license allows you to run on as many instances such that the total computing power of all the instances put together does not exceed 16 GHz. There is a reason behind chosing 16GHz. A non-cloud license allows you run a license on 8 cores. Today a general processing core has a processing capacity of 2 GHz. In order to stay consistent on the cloud we chose 16 GHz (8 cores multiplied by 2 GHz of processing power/core) as the total computing power that the license can be applied to on the cloud.
To put things in perspective, consider using the ColdFusion 10 license on Amazon EC2. Amazon defines the power of its large and small instance in the following manner:
1. small instance: processing speed is 1 EC2 Compute Unit (each EC2 Compute Unit or ECU is defined as being almost equal to 1 GHz) or 1 GHz.
2. large instance: processing speed is 4 EC2 Compute Unit (each EC2 Compute Unit or ECU is defined as being almost equal to 1 GHz) or 4 GHz.
So effectively, since the small instance has a processing speed of 1 GHz, you can run one Enterprise license on 16 small instances of Amazon EC2.
And since large instance has 4 ECUs, you can run one Enterprise license on 4 different large instances of the Amazon EC2.
For the ColdFusion standard license on cloud, you can run ColdFusion standard on just one instance of the cloud with the condition that the processing capacity of the instance does not exceed 5 GHz.
I hope this clarifies all the changes in the EULA.
38 comments so far ↓
I realize adobe doesn't have a vested interest in helping people max out their licensing - but doesn't this seem to be all over the place? A single CF10 Standard license in the cloud can only run at 5GHz (and probably this would be 4 threads on amazon?) - but I can install it on the example dual/quad machine and have 8 3.6GHz cores + another 8 hyperthreaded - giving us something like the equivalent of 43GHz of processing power spread out over 16 threads.
I suppose though not everyone is lucky enough to be co-locating their own servers so for some it might not be much of a choice.
The enterprise licensing isn't quite as bad as it's 16GHz vs the 40+.
Also for anyone running an actual server, I think 2GHz average for new purchases has to be on the low side - intel doesn't even make any CPU's that aren't of the low power version under 2.2GHz and unless cost is your top priority most people will choose to bump up the proc by a few dollars - so 2.4 or 2.6 is probably closer to reality (I might buy that the average of the installed base is closer to 2GHz).
Thanks for clarifying - I'm on CF8 but will be jumping to CF10. If i could scatter cores on an enterprise license over my own VM's and amazon I would buy that, but likely I'll be sticking with standard licenses (I'd love to play with some of the enterprise features, but I simply can't justify buying more than 2 enterprise liceneses).
This just sealed it. We will NOT be upgrading or deploying CF10. We will begin migrating to Railo or other languages like Php.
@Mark - your comment somewhat runs to what I was getting at with my original post. The entire industry is having a problem coming to terms with licensing in a world of cloud instances/vm's/dedicated servers.
I think a very progressive viewpoint for adobe to take would be something more along the lines of "equivalent power". I can build a dual proc/quad core (intel) machine with the fastest processors I can get - (3.7GHz xeons) I can load it up with fast disks, put a couple of 10 gig interfaces in it and push out a whole hell of a lot of traffic even with a complicated back end.
Or for the same cost i can run a crappy 5GHz amazon instance - that just doesn't compute. I should be able to run at least 8 of those to get an equivalent install.
It would be great if adobe would make an example for the rest of the world (and honestly considering the size of their server business compared to a place like VMWare - they could take a small hit in exchange for the goodwill).
Even if they just made the enterprise licensing more flexible - so those that are running enough servers/instances could make the jump to enterprise rather than 4 or more standard licenses.
On a side note I don't understand how the licensing is enforced at all - if an intel box can run 16 threads but an AMD box can only run 8 - basically the licensing has to be self policed no?
(contrary to your example about MS - MS sql server comes in a few variants and when you buy one for 2 procs and limited to 4 cores each - it really is limeted to 4 cores(hyperthreaded) it wont run on all 6 cores if you have them (it'll still run it just wont use the other cores).
Back on the top of the limits of the CPU defined as 4 cores. I see it as a way for companies to make more money when it really comes down to it.
Rakshith, I know you say "The power of a CPU has grown enormously over the last few years" However couldn't that has also been said 5 years ago or 10 years ago?
I see Multi-cores as just another evolution of increasing processing power. Maybe it is just me but the Clock speeds seem to not increase nearly like they used to. But adding Extra cores and code that supports them have continued to push overall processing power.
Clearly others do not see this the same as me but this is my personal view point.
Perhaps Rakshith / Adobe can comment on this?
@juggler314 - 10 Cloud instance. VPS was per CPU and not core limited.
Annoying that I'll have to make my purchasing decision in the next 8 days re: CF9 vs CF10...
Right now we have CF 9 running just fine on this box. Does this mean we cannot upgrade to 10 on this box?
I'm really sad that this seems to be mirroring what happened with VMWare's licensing change...for those that don't know about that - basically with the recent version upgrade - they limited the free version to less memory and changed to a memory based pricing model rather than a processor based one - because people need way more memory in big VM servers than they do cores (and as discussed above - cores are only getting cheaper and cheaper). The effect it had was many customers licensing costs doubled or tripled - after a huge amount of negative publicity they backed off some so that it wasn't quite as large a change.
You know if Adobe had more of a market share I might think it would be ok, to some degree but the Enterprise version of ColdFusion is so niche that they are going to alienate more than the people who but the licenses.
For example, so far it is majority hosting who have these licenses, and that means increased hosting fees, which in turns means more people moving away from ColdFusion.
I hate to say that last statement, but Adobe don't make it easy as it is now. If the CFML engine was open sourced, updated frequently so that people who are running COldFusion 4 or ColdFusion 5 could upgrade without any costs. Then I might see a price increase viable, but at the moment until Adobe think about the actual engine, and focus on their features as plugins to the engine then there will be a point where Adobe will be so niche it would be too expensive to host or develop with it.
Virtualization (not just cloud) needs to be fully embraced with licensing.
I've made plans for moving to CF10 Enterprise based on the CF9 EULA (which I was totally STOKED about!), and this new licensing is really throwing a wrench into things. It's hard to justify doubling my costs.
I'm not trying to be a cheapskate or anything, I want Adobe to make money on their product, but the licensing just seems to not be too consistent in terms of NET usage.
What would make the most sense is to license it for cores - if they want to call a "license" 2 CPU's and each CPU can have 4 cores and can be hyperthreaded (since I think most virtualization is done on intel) - they should simply limit you to running either enterprise or standard on 16 cores worth of computer - wherever that may be.
Considering that most of the languages that competer with CF are free...this is an awfully tough pill to swallow.
(and seriously what's up with the captcha on this page, sometimes i can't even see the full letters...it's too hard! This is my third try submitting...)
We've just purchased a new server and a CF10 upgrade license, would we still be able to leave CF8 running on the older server?
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_coldfusion_mutli_20120302_1201.pdf
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/eula/coldfusion10.html
The first link is to the production EULA, That is the one you want to look at.
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_coldfusion_mutli_20120302_1201.pdf
To start with read section 1.5
"The total number of CPUs in a Computer will then be calculated by dividing the total number of cores operating the Software by 4, rounded up to the next whole number in case the quotient of the division by 4 is not an integer."
Next Section 1.16
"“Production Software” means Software licensed for productive business use. Production Software is licensed on a 2-CPU basis."
Lastly in section 3.1.1
"For example if a Computer has four (4) CPUs and the Production Software license is for two (2) CPUs, Licensee must obtain 2 Production Software licenses for such Computer."
I think this should clarify it. If not let us know.
Sincerely,
Mark
I want to make a master image, so I add can servers on demand as needed (up to the maximum number of licenses my organization owns).
How does this work logistically if I have 4 licenses (so 4 different keys), and I want to make a master image? Is there a way to automate the application of a license key to an instance?
Again, I apologize for dragging this off-topic, but I really need to get some of the features in CF9/10 implemented as part of PCI compliance. If I can use my CF10 Ent license on CF9 Ent, at least I can get something working.
I added the following comment on 3426811:
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CF10 made corrections to the CGI scope.
I believe CGI.SERVER_PORT should return getPageContext().getRequest().getServerPort(). Based on 3426811, CF10 correctly does this but pre-CF10 it incorrectly returned getPageContext().getRequest().getLocalPort().
Adobe, is there an ER for adding the now-necessary CGI.LOCAL_PORT => getPageContext().getRequest().getLocalPort()? When fixing bugs, orphaned functionality should be restored.
Thanks!,
-Aaron
More info on the difference between getLocalPort() and getServerPort() in servlets: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2184286/difference-between-getlocalport-and-getserverport-in-servlets
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@Aaron: Thanks for the input. I have passed this to the engineers working on the fix.
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