Zend Optimizer 3.3.9 for FreeBSD 64bit

[proprietary]

Correctly written code will compile wihtout any problems on both platforms - 64 and 32 bit.
By refusing to compile it for 64bit platform you only confirm that your software quality and programmers skils are on quite poor level.

[fadolf]

considering the imminent version bump of PHP to 5.3 on FreeBSD and the inexistence of ZendOptimizer for said version, this thread has become superfluous.
word has it ioncube works with that version too, without the need of re-encoding all scripts...

the last nail in Zend's coffin? it is yet to be seen...

[wrs]

This is all very disappointing.

I have been a keen FreeBSD abuser for many years, my love of the server OS is comparable to my love of PHP.

Almost all of my PHP applications are deployed to a FreeBSD server. I have experience with PHP on both Windows & Linux however I always prefer to use FreeBSD for delivery.

But I do not actually develop PHP from FreeBSD, I use MS windows for that.

I have recently gained my Zend Certification for PHP5 ( at great expense i feel ), I also purchased Zend Studio in the past. I feel it's unfair to say FreeBSD users do not purchase your products because I am such a person.

It also seems that you are shooting yourselves in the foot somewhat. By dropping support for Zend Optimiser you are limiting support for your Zend Encoder software. I don't understand this.

So now PHP on FreeBSD will lack Zend Optimiser, this isn't much skin off my nose but it is a big disappointment to see Zend take this stance.

[_unk_]

We're a large HSP, and our business, infrastructure and so on is based on FreeBSD, we have a lot of FreeBSD-specific internal software and it's a really big problem to change it.

Should we say to our customers "Hey, guys, Zend Optimizer is not supported anymore, so you should go away"? By the way, they are your customers too, they are using paid Zend products on their workstations for developing. We're already obliged to speak with software developers of not-using Zend encoding, and they are agreed with us and planing to switch from Zend encoding to another technologies, but it's not a best way...

How much time/money it takes to compile FreeBSD-specific packages? I think it's not a big deal (there should be no FreeBSD-specific code, and packaging itself takes just a several minutes), but it's a VERY important for our (i.e. my and your) customers. Let's discuss it, I'm sure we can find the solution.

P.S.: I'm sure it's not only my personal opinion, it's an opinion of whole FreeBSD hosting community.

[ihatespam1]

I am appalled at this decision, I have been using FreeBSD for years and using Zend encoded products has been a staple of running a web based business for years. You are crippling your clients decision to use an industry standard web serving stack because it does not have many desktop users. Silly rationale.

[jrozzi]

This is a terrible decision to stop supporting FreeBSD for Zend Optimizer. We pay $600/year for Zend Guard and will be forced to discontinue our service if this statement is true. I believe more people use FreeBSD than Zend realizes (they don't really have a way to track this so I don't see how making such statements can be supported?). Even though we use Zend Guard on a Windows machine to encode our projects, our web server runs on FreeBSD which executes the optimized/encrypted source code.

I also expect to receive a partial refund for my company's $600 purchase because we wouldn't have even thought to choose Zend if we had known they would not support FreeBSD. I recommend Zend reallocates their funds in to some more developers who can keep FreeBSD support alive (since FreeBSD continues to grow and FreeBSD 8 will support ZFS).

[drm1114]

I feel very strongly that this is a blow, not only against FreeBSD, but against Open Source in general, and should seriously be reconsidered.

Zend is obiously one of the companies with a great appreciation for open source (they actually got their succes to thank to OS, imho). Why would you want to cut support for the second in open source's market share in hosting? The fact that Windows is still supported implies that Zend would prefer Windows over FreeBSD. I'm conscientiously saying "implies", because my understanding would be that a lot of developers need Windows-support for their development environment.

Nonetheless, Zend dropping support for FreeBSD is a statement against choosing FreeBSD as a hosting environment, which is, well.... hostile. And hostility against FreeBSD means hostility against Open Source in general. Please reconsider this. This is not merely a commercial decision.

[miguelangelo]

This is utterly outrageous. Aren't you willing to do the *minimum* effort to support FreeBSD? Aren't you a company that is supposed to support open source? I'll be sure to do a great publicity of your products to all of my customers and acquaintances. To think I was considering buying Zend Studio! I won't have anything to do with a company that intentionally blocks FreeBSD adoption.

[phpuser2009]

Stopping support for FreeBSD has made my company to turn to other products: In fact we already have successfully tested eaccelerator and ioncube PHP Encoder.
All new systems we now install without Zend and we have started to inform our customers (usually webdevelopment-companies) to change to other products too. Cu all on other bb again.

-CTO of a German Webhosting Company-

[carlson39]

I am a bit disappointed about Zend dropping support for FreeBSD, and I'd like to think posting on a forum might actually help FreeBSD's case with Zend.

With that, I understand that Zend is looking at things from a monetary prospective, I hope they would have considered that FreeBSD is highly geared towards a server environment, and not no much a desktop where a lot of code development actually occurs. That might explain the lack of sales, that is just a hypothesis though.

So, at least this thread has already provided an alternative solution (eAccelerator and ionCube), I would still however welcome an offering from Zend.

Mike C