Ben Forta Lied to Me!

No, he didn't.  Not really.  But I made you click!

I was using hyberbole when I said it in #coldfusion a little while ago, and I should've known better, because sometimes jokes don't travel well over the internet, particularly when you're referring to the much loved Ben Forta.  Hey, I go out of my way to see Ben when he comes to town too.

Here's what happened.

You all know there's a lot of confusion in the CF world regarding Flex Data Services.  Or Livecycle Data Services.  Or BlazeDS.  Might as well through in Flex Remoting too.

Well a week or so ago, Ben presented about Flex 3 and AIR at the Triangle User Experience group (ie, the local flex user group), and talked some about BlazeDS, the open source version of LCDS - with yet another name.

I asked whether or not I could install BlazeDS on a Coldfusion server, and Ben asked "Are you using CF8?"  I said that we were, and he said I didn't need BlazeDS because CF8 comes with a "full version" of LCDS.  This surprised me because I thought it came with some kind of limited version of LCDS.

Well, it's a full version only in the fact that it's exactly the same as the commercially licensed "full version" of Livecycle Data Services.   But it's the EXPRESS edition, which means you can only use it on a single CPU.  Legally.  Technically you can run it on a dual CPU machine - nothing will stop it - but you'd be in violation of the license agreement.

So it's really only a full version if you don't consider the licencing limitations.  And in the real world, aren't most people buying dual CPU machines for production purposes?

And actually, read this, from the Adobe web site:

LiveCycle Data Services ES Express is a free limited-production version of LiveCycle Data Services ES (formerly Flex Data Services 2) that allows the deployment of any single application on a single, nonclustered CPU.

If that's the same version that's included with CF, not only is it limited to a single CPU, but it can only be used to deploy a single application.

No, Ben didn't lie to me.  But the fact is, I cannot LEGALLY use the included version of LCDS without doing some very funky things to restrict the process to a single CPU, and I could only deploy a single application with it.

For clarity, here's how I understand things.

• BlazeDS - unrestricted, open source version of LCDS that includes "remoting" and "messaging" components.  Suitable for connecting any Flex/AIR app to just about any back-end that it gets ported to.  For sure right now it supports Coldfusion and Java remote objects, maybe others.
• LiveCycle Data Services - commercial product which includes remoting and messaging modules, as well as "Data Synchronization" and "Data Management" modules.  This was formerly known as Flex Data Services.  There are three editions/versions of LiveCycle Data Services:
  • Trial Edition - free, unrestricted, time-limited version. No technical limitations beyond the time limitation.
  • Express Edition - free, full-featured version that is limited by the licence agreement to a single CPU, and deployment of a single application.  It is a separate product that you can download free, and it is included as an optional product with Coldfusion 8.
  • Regular Edition (not titled such, it's just "LiveCycle Data Services ES") - unrestricted commercial version.  In the past there was a pricing model that allowed you to have 100 connections or unlimited connections.  I'm not sure if that pricing model still applies.

I hope that's right, someone feel free to correct me.