The OpenBD Issue - My Reply to Alan Williamson
Alan,
I am responding to your recent post and attempt to introduce yourself to the CFML community. I think it's a good start but I think it's still lacking and you've not addressed the most pressing matters adequately.
I've been a long time advocate of New Atlanta and BlueDragon. In fact, I was one of the original Team BlueDragon members and had frequent chats w/ Vince about BD. I've even openly come down on Macromedia and Adobe for what I considered poor stewardship of the ColdFusion application server.
With that said, the issues that you and the OpenBD project are experiencing are directly correlated to recent comments that were posted by Sean Corfield outlining your supposed views of the ColdFusion community.
To quote from Sean's blog, he asserts that these are your feelings:
"He's "sick and tired of hearing about the 'CF community'". He feels the "so called 'rock stars' within the CF community are just a lot of empty vessels"."
Now in reading this, I look at it as either something you said was taken out of context or these are your true feelings about developers who have been using ColdFusion-based technology and have invested time and effort in promoting the technology. Just to be clear, Adobe ColdFusion developers are the predominant users of the CFML language and while BD & Railo developers developers also enjoy the language, Adobe ColdFusion developers make up the majority.
I am truly hoping that your comments were taken out of context because it would be hard for me to understand how someone who admittedly has such a massive disconnect from the CFML community would call the top talent in the ColdFusion community "empty vessels". After 10 years as a member of the CF community, I consider myself in this top tier and I wouldn't call myself an "empty vessel".
Your post has done nothing to address these assertions and while I can understand you've been disconnected from the CF/CFML community, I believe that until you've properly addressed those comments, the OpenBD project will continue to have a black eye.
So for the sake of the volunteers that are so committed to the OpenBD effort, please provide an adequate explanation of the comments posted by Sean. They were supposedly made in the OpenBD private mailing list so at the moment we're all going on hearsay, albeit hearsay from one of the top talents and most reputable people in the CFML community. Brushing it off as not fitting your personality or attitude isn't a sufficient answer.
To the OpenBD Steering Committee, I would urge you to once again press this issue with Alan and ensure proper transparency.
I have not read Sean's blog post, and I have no plans to do so. To do so would continue the cycle that isn't helping anyone. I think you are right, they are indeed taken out of context. I possibly tarred everyone with the same brush by saying "community". For that I apologise.
Accept that I do not know each and everyones standing, and to be honest, from what I have read from some (those that have been emailed to me) they do have a complete misunderstanding of what open source is, and really what we are trying to achieve with OpenBD. Yet none of them ever thought to ask me or us as to what we were doing.
Rey, I do not do gossip. I hate gossip. Gossip spreads like wildfire, and of course anything that is email/posted, can be twisted and read completely different from the sentiment that was meant. I therefore get very frustrated with gossip. To the point, where sometimes you feel as if you are continually pandering to those that don't want to engage in a civilised conversation.
If you have a conversation with me Rey, you will not see it being quoted on a blog. If you have an email exchange with me, you will not see it copy and pasted or quoted anywhere. I believe strongly in personal respect and respecting the views of the other person. However, not everyone plays by these rules. So as you can appreciate its difficult at times to keep ones calm.
I have since emailed Sean, and we had an email exchange. As far as I am concerned we are still friends and have arranged to go out to the San Jose Tied House next time I am over in California.
In terms of the specific remarks, it was a gross generialization, something I am sure we are all guilty of at times. There were specific names I was referring to, and as the email thread grew older and longer, it soon became the "CFML community". My mistake.
There is a lot of noise out there and that is the nature of the blog world I guess. I generally tune this noise out most of the time, but some people, who believe they speak for the community as a whole are putting out FUD regarding OpenBD. I cannot and will not tolerate that. These people should know better.
I hope this answers your question Rey, and please, feel free to email me and we can talk and chew over the future of CFML. Healthy debate never hurt anyone.
While I wasn't privy to the email thread that prompted my post (nor do I want to be), my main intention is to ensure that the interests of everyone in the CFML community, including developers from *all* of the various engines, are properly represented.
The availability of alternative CFML engines is extremely important to me as it helps to push the CFML language in terms of features, performance, and price points. With open source options, the benefits are that much more amplified as well as providing a new avenue for much broader acceptance of CFML. I consider OpenBD & Railo a critical part of that growth and have no qualms about voicing my opinions on areas that need to be addressed.
With that said, I think that OpenBD has a talented steering committee in place and that the steps taken by them and yourself to reach out to Adobe are a great start. At the end of the day, it has to be acknowledged that Adobe's influence over CFML is without question and any efforts to standardize CFML needs to include them. I truly hope that your team can build some bridges with Adobe and Railo so that the CF community can benefit as a whole.
I urge you to continue getting involved in the CFML community so that they can get a feel for who Alan Williamson is and how he will impact the future of CFML. To be direct, it won't be acceptable going forward to not be in tune with the community and it's critical thinkers.
Thanks again for your reply and I will definitely email you in the future with my views.
how incestuous... Just how hard/long did Ben and boys court Sean?
how obvious...
how humorous...
The CF language has forever passed from the hand of a single vendor and into the hands of the world. See the horse run.
If you're happy being complacent and not stirring the pot, that's perfectly fine. Some people prefer to lay low and just go with the flow. That's not me. This was something quoted by Sean, a respected member of the CF community, and it's something that needed to be addressed.