Facts about Ra-Ajax

Ra-Ajax is a Managed Ajax library for ASP.NET - both the Mono version and the Microsoft version. This means you can use Ra-Ajax out of the box together with Visual Studio, IIS, Windows Server and Linux/Apache/Mono etc.

License

Ra-Ajax is licensed under the LGPL version 3 Open Source license. This basically means that you can use it for free as you wish, you can fork the library and you don't even have to tell me (or anyone else) that you're using it. You can use it in Closed Source projects or in Open Source projects. You can also create Closed Source Extension Widgets for it. Though if you create changes in the "core library" you are obliged to also release those changes in code form under the LGPL licence terms to those you distribute that modified library to. Basically Ra-Ajax is free as in free beer and as in freedom.

JavaScript

Ra is made with the assumption that JavaScript is hard and not something Application Developers should do themselves. Ra tries to abstract away JavaScript as much as possible and you can probably create very complex Ajax Applications with Ra-Ajax without having to use JavaScript at all.

Lightweight

Ra-Ajax is very lightweight which means if you use it your applications will be more responsive, demand less resources and run faster. Ra has less than 15KB of JavaScript in total which means that Ra can easily be used in front end websites without stalling the user experience. This web page scores more than 80 in YSlow.

Runs on everything

Ra-Ajax should work on all browsers that are at least close to following Open Standards. This includes devices such as iPhones/WindowsMobile, Opera, Safari, FireFox, Internet Explorer, Linux, Mac OS X, Konqueror, etc. As long as you have a browser with at least rudimentary JavaScript capabilities Ra Ajax will work. In addition you can also use both Linux and Windows Servers as the back-end for your applications. The slogan could probably be; "Compile once, deploy anywhere, run all over the place".

No learning curve

Ra-Ajax comes with virtually no learning curve due to its closely coupling to the ASP.NET WebControl nature. If you have done conventional ASP.NET development with WebControls then learning Ra-Ajax will feel like a breeze.

Is Ra-Ajax related to ASP.NET AJAX?

No. ASP.NET AJAX is a library created by and maintained by Microsoft. Ra-Ajax shares no common code with ASP.NET AJAX and is created around a completely different model. While ASP.NET AJAX has a very rich client-side JavaScript API, Ra-Ajax is created around the assumption that you should never have to do JavaScript development yourself.

Is Ra-Ajax a commercial project?

NO! Ra-Ajax is not a commercial product and everything in the library is done on a completely voluntary basis. We wanted to create a business model around Ra-Ajax but since Gaiaware AS (a company Thomas Hansen founded a couple of years ago) threatened us with lawsuits if we were to create a competing product we felt it was better to remove all financial incentives behind the library itself and just have it as a hobby project to remove all doubt. Read the whole Gaia versus Ra-Ajax story here. Though there are forums where you can ask for support if you're stuck and hopefully lots of people in our hopefully growing community in addition to that the developers at Ra Software will always be able to answer your requests. We also have a bugtracker which we monitor if you find bugs and such. In addition all the developers at Ra Software will always use Ra-Ajax as their main tool when developing other applications which will be our "bread and butter" applications which will drive the development of Ra-Ajax forward for you. So Ra-Ajax is very unlikely going to be abandoned anytime soon even though it is not a commercial product.

Why create yet another Ajax Library?

First of all because we need Open Source/Open Web tools for our own needs in our other "bread and butter" applications. We also need great Ajax Libraries when working as consultants. In addition there is nothing more fun than writing Ajax Libraries :)
We in Ra Software have an intense believe in the Open Web and Ajax and while there exists great portable Open Source tools for almost every possible thing here in this world, Ajax for ASP.NET is virtually a "dark spot". Currently there exists only - Gaia Ajax Widgets which has some greatness within, though we in Ra Software do not believe that Gaia will stay Mono compatible. For us Mono compatibility is crucial. Also owning our own foundation is crucial for us and since Gaia Ajax Widgets was lost for us in Ra Software we had little choice but starting our own Ajax for ASP.NET initiative.