Cumulative Hot Fix 2 for ColdFusion 8.0.1?

[brentil]

We've been feeling a little leery about Adobe's stance with CF8 for a while now
due to the lack of patches and updates compared to what we've been used to
expecting from Macromedia. We've been checking the patch and security pages a
couple times a week looking to see if there have been any changes. I noticed a
change date on the CF8 patch page the other day but no new patches showed up.

http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads_updates.html

Then today I noticed the date changed again at the bottom and now there was a
new patch at the top replacing the 2 that were there before. Cumulative Hot
Fix 2 for ColdFusion 8.0.1

The patch says it's from 10/20/2008 and if you decompress the file it gives a
date of 10/17/2008 on the file. This patch was new to the public as of this
week though. The reason I'm posting is to try to understand why this patch has
been sitting unreleased for nearly 5 months now? There clearly have not been
any changes to the file in that time frame so that was either the best written
patch with the most exhaustive testing ever or someones been neglecting posting
the patches that have been completed.

[carehart]

@brentil, are you referring instead to the page with the 8/8.01 hotifxes
(http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402604)? That does show the updated date at the
bottom, and the chf2 at the top from 10/20.

So you seem to be raising a couple of issues: why did that page footer's date
change? I don't know, but I wonder if it may not be significant.

You also seem to feel that the pace of updates has slowed. Well, there were
plenty of hotfixes in the months/year after 8.0 came out. 8.01 rolled those up
and added a few more features. There have been several more fixes in the months
after 8.01 came out.

But the fact that it's slowed since then isn't quite as curious to me. I
figure it's just that the release (8.0 and 8.01) has been out long enough to
have stabilized (not many new fixes to worry about).

Also, since you open with a concern about the stance of CF, it seems worth
noting that CF9 is around the corner, and Adobe has shared quite a bit about
what's coming, and yet more will be announced in due time. There's certainly no
reason (in my mind) to read anything into the pace of hotfixes and the
viability of CF.

Anyone feel differently?

[brentil]

Ooops I copied over the wrong link.

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402604&sliceId=1

My question is why was a patch that was obviously built 5 months ago just now
make it to the public and is being shown as having been released 5 months ago
publicly when it was obviously not.

[carehart]

@brentil, ah, ok. I understand now. Yep, that is curious. I can confirm that it
wasn't there on Mar 17, per the Google cache page:

http://74.125.93.104/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en-USUS291US306&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
&q=cache:http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do%3FexternalId%3Dkb402604%
26sliceId%3D1

Of course, by the time someone reads this in the future, it's possible that
the cached page will be different again. One would want to note the date
offered by Google at the top of the page it shows.

So the real question is why the CHF link was note posted here until now. I'm
with you that some resources are not always updated. I blogged about it:
http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2008/7/16/beware_technotes_may_not
_be_listed_elsewhere

Perhaps more dismaying is that the CHF2 technote lists many more HFs included
than appear in the main hotfix page (the URL you pointed to). So one might ask
why we should have had to wait for a CHF to get those hotfixes.

Also, I notice that the main cf8 downloads page (which you pointed to
originally) does not, in fact, refer to the 8.0.1 CHF (though it does list 8.0
CHFs). That should be address.

I agree that we should expect the hotfixes page to list any hotfixes or CHFs
as soon as they're available. Sorry I missed your main point.

Sadly, I don't know that we can expect too much to come of this discussion
here. There's just no guarantee that anyone responsible would see it. But
here's good news. A couple of blog entries have raised the concern:

http://www.creative-restraint.co.uk/blog/post.cfm/coldfusion-8-0-1-cumulative-ho
tfix-2

http://blog.pengoworks.com/index.cfm/2009/3/18/ColdFusion-v801-Hot-Fix-2-release
d-in-Oct-2008

And Ben Forta is a party to the second one, where I've just added a comment
asking to find who we can press about this.

Finally, just an FYI: that URL you offered is indeed the same page that I'd
offered. The URL I gave (http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402604) comes from the
"permanent link" offered at the bottom of all Adobe technotes, which is just a
nice shorter URL.