A bit over 9 years ago I launched RIAForge (Announcing RIAForge). The brainchild of Ben Forta, the idea was to make it easier for people using Adobe technologies to create open source projects. At the time, that made a lot of sense. I believe GitHub was around then, but it certainly wasn't as popular as it is now. Sourceforge was there, but at least for me it wasn't the easiest solution in the world. RIAForge made it incredibly easy. You could launch your project and get a blog, forums, a bug tracker, even a wiki.
I was - and still am - rather proud of the site. Over thirteen hundred projects are hosted there and there have been over two million downloads since the site launched.
That being said - the benefits that RIAForge provided are not necessarily as valuable now in 2015 as they were back in 2006. While there are more options than GitHub, let's be honest, GitHub has "won" for the most part. If you are hosting an open source project that you want others to work with, there really is no reason not to be there. Also, Git in itself has become the most popular version control system and RIAForge's Subversion server really isn't up to date.
After getting a few error emails from the site last week, I really began to think about the site and came to the conclusion that it is time for my involvement with the site to end. I reached out to Rakshith on the ColdFusion team and asked him if they wanted to take it over. While RIAForge isn't just for ColdFusion projects, ColdFusion (and ColdFusion Builder) dominates the site. If Adobe had said no, my plan was to set RIAForge to read only mode and then eventually move it to static, but, that is not to be. Rakshith, and Adobe, have agreed to take over management of the site. I handed over login info today and "officially" I'm no longer in charge.
Ben, and Adobe in general, deserve a lot of credit for launching this initiative and funding it. (Yes, I was paid to develop the site initially!) Going forward though I'd probably recommend people just use GitHub, even if you are launching a ColdFusion project. If you have projects on RIAForge now, don't forget you can edit the project to point to external (like GitHub) sites. I'd set up on GitHub and then edit your RIAForge listing to point to the new location. Or just stay on RIAForge; it's up to you. :)
Archived Comments
Phew! If Riaforge was to disappear, how would I be able to check how many downloads JavaLoader has over BlogCFC? ;)
Word. ;)
First, thank you for the creation and management of the project all these years (hard to believe it has been nine). Second, I am glad Adobe picked up the ball. While GitHub is where the files and projects should live, I like RIA Forge as a central library.
I occasionally search RIAForge for a solution or inspiration instead of having to re-invent the wheel. It was *and still is* a valuable resource. I hope Adobe keep it open and don't degrade it like they have with the CF docs to a point where you just don't want to use it. RIAForge is unique and thank you Ray for all the work you did building and maintaining it.
+1 - I also like RIA Forge as the central library and files/projects on GitHub. Thanks Ray! And thanks Adobe for keeping it going!
-Aaron