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JBoss's Fleury Abjures Astroturfing
comforteagle writes "JBoss head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."
I often sign myself 'Simon the cynic' when I read about personage X making some sweeping statement about how things are going to be - but for me it comes down to where the benefit is to be had. If there is no precedent or no perceivable advantage, my reaction is often (as the Poster's) "Yeah, right!".
In this case I have a (gut) feeling they're probably genuine. JBoss are up the proverbial creek - they're a commercial software house which relies on the same sort of markets as Open Source software, and they've just lost a lot of credibility. The only way out of it to them is to 'fess up, to publicly admit their wrongdoing, and pledge not to do it again. I'm also a firm believer in letting peoples actions decide my opinion of them - talk is after all cheap, especially in this digital age - and I believe in judging after the fact, not before. My regard for their (phenomenal) achievement dropped significantly when the story broke, but respect can be earnt over again. Let's see, indeed, but with an open mind.
Now that they *have* made a public pledge, and if they're caught again, it's game over in the reputation stakes. Anyone can make a mistake, and society usually forgives a single error of judgement - we generally expect people to learn, however. I think that this itself should be sufficient to keep them on the straight and narrow... Of course, this is just a different form of cynicism
I thought the idea that pollution of the information space was a "crime" in and of itself was an interesting point - I generally consider the net to be something of a cesspool, and it's not just cream that floats to the top... On the other hand, dive right in (yuck. Nasty mental image) and there's a lot on offer freely which would be otherwise hard to obtain. I wonder when (if) the balance will tip so there's more cream than crap.
Simon the cynic.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I'm more concerned with less intelligent companies who read this article and thought... Fake posts on the internet. What a great idea. While Astroturfing has always been around, mainstream articles about it are only going to give the un-enlightened new ideas.
of not getting caught..
I hate to start a war but I am not sure why would anyone use weblogic when JBOSS is such great J2EE container. I think Redhat, Suse should include JBOSS in AS market of their CD.
...is hereby banned at Slashdot, starting with me.
Meet the new JBoss... Same as the old.
and my alter-ego missed it too...
on topic though, as unprofessional as the whole jboss has unfolded, it is really more noise in the jboss vs. the world open-source java community debate.
honestly no one will roll an app server into production based on comments on a web site without trying the product, getting under the hood, and seeing if it fits (and if you do let's hope we never cross paths). in the end the quality of the product will speak for itself, not the over zealous marketers (oss or commercial).
One of my favorite things to see in these forums is when some moron tries to market their product in this way and is immediately exposed. The resulting flames directed at the jackass provide some of the most entertaining reading you see on the internet. Makes my day every time.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
I thought Astroturf 0.9 was the new Mozilla browser.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
... really... Oooops! Here comes the boss!
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That's quite a headline.
At first I thought "Fleury" might be some kind of wacko term for a PR position, like "ombudsman".
This space intentionally left blank.
This is a brief description of astroturfing. I honestly had no idea what the heck it was.
No, this isn't an attempt at karma-whoring. Don't mod me up if you think it is. I figured it'd be more helpful to Google it myself and post the definition then to post a stupid one-liner "WTF is astroturfing?"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I want to give the JBoss folks the benefit of the doubt, and I'm sure many others in the Java/J2EE community want to, too... but they just keep making it so damn hard.
Does that mean he was doing it?
Please help metamoderate.
Introduction: I've been accused of astroturfing.
Middle: JBoss is great, JBoss rocks, JBoss has great developers
...
JBoss is King, long reign JBoss, love the JBoss.
Conclusion: OK, no more astroturfing.
Not once does he explain why it was done, but then he hardly even touches on the issue.
Perhaps a direct apology would see the $10M VC be yanked from under Fleury's schitzophrenic hands?
A quick blurb..
"A "grassroots" action or campaign is one that is started spontaneously, and is largely sustained, by private persons, as opposed to politicians, corporations, or public relations firms; a "grassroots" campaign comes about because of the popular feelings of some mass of people, as opposed to being the creature of the powerful.
"Astroturfing", then, is a campaign crafted by politicians or spin-doctors, but in such a way as to appear it's the result of popular feeling rather than crafty manipulation by political or corporate elites".
Hmmm.
So, would fake posts which detract from a competitor's product be astromudding ?
Like "Open source is a cancer...." etc. ?
I posted something a few months ago about some personal experiences my gf had while working with Mr. Fleury and members of the JBoss team in close contact.
I have to tell you that he and his wife pay very close attention to this board and presumably other sites where their interests are reflected. I know this because the details of my post were soon known to them (under 24 hours), and caused some disarray in her household because her parents are personal friends of the Fleurys.
Basically, a guilt trip was delivered to her to squelch any further negative commentary regarding them. Given my past experience in this regard, I can't help but find the astroturfing semi-admission to be quite credible. Business isn't just business to them, and no tactic is beyond consideration if it furthers their livelihood.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Presidents of countries, companies and other organizations have become fond of "apologizing" and taking "responsibility". But there's no accountability. JBoss's boss has confessed he ran a corporation which astroturfed, and why not? Once caught, their astroturfing was no longer as effective, and more expensive, so of course it'll decrease. But responsibility means response. Where's a real response to the lies spread by his propaganda corps? Running an American corporation, with its fundamental freedom from liability, what responsibility can he actually bear?
--
make install -not war
"You may have heard about recent charges in online forums that some JBoss employees, including me, were personally involved in anonymous postings on developer sites."
The answer to your question: YES.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Even the apology makes Fleury look bad. Instead of actually admitting that it happened, and apologizing and then promising that it wont happen again, he instead makes a grand gesture of saying that astroturfing is bad and isn't acceptable at JBoss.
Dude, we already knew it was unethical, we didn't need you to tell us. If this stuff was going on in your company then (a) admit it, (b) apologize.
But I'm glad that this whole thing came out in public, because the practice itself and the lame-ass apology speaks volumes about the integrity of the JBoss group.
John.
Yes, folks, it's true. Ever since I started using POPFile I've been surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in the world, and next week I am marrying the Olsen twins. It's all down to POPFile, and my email is sorted automatically!!!
Oops, I guess I should have click the "Post Anonymously" button.
Sometimes you have to admit you've done something stupid outright, which they didn't really do initially.
Kind of a historical trend for JBOSS. I find a lot of what they say misleading. The professional, in "professional open source" must mean something about heavy marketting as in talking a lot of crap weather it's true or not.
Just like the number of downloads as if that's a useful way of determining market share.
Also the big hype over Sun not certifying them. I'm sorry, it takes time and money to go through the certification process.... don't cry poor and then get 10million in VC money. Especially don't make up crap about how Sun doesn't want an open source j2ee server when it's really about money. Sun will certify any one that pays for certification and passes.
Speaking of which.... If they passed I'm sure I would hav eheard about it. Any one know if they ever got certified? Maybe all that yamming about being completely J2EE compliant and Sun just trying to hold them back was just that... talk.
It's a shame. Good idea, good way of implementing it with good training seminars (I hear), but there will be other open source options soon that don't try and diverge away from the J2EE spec like JBOSS does. A free, as in beer, J2EE server is already available that has passed certifiaction testing. Sun's own Sun ONE Application Server 8 Platform Edition is free to download, develop, deploy in production and redistribute. It's really stripped down to make it light and you can really only deploy one instance on it per server but for a lot of people that's enough.
Also, the Apache team has a much better history and more momentum as a whole. Geronimo will really be a big problem for JBoss.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Is it just me, or does this headling read exactly like the random words in spam designed to bypass spam filters?
Heh... Just an observation. You may now proceed to mod me -1 Offtopic.
Granted no one would implement a solution without trying it first. However, in all likelihood, they would be more likely to try it in the first place if they had heard someone casually mention it was good in a forum. The problem is that it is often difficult to distinguish against a real unbiased opinion and an astroturfer.
Unknown host pong.
Out of curiosity, what would you have him do? Seppuku? Pay people to download JBoss, instead of giving it away for free? Clean your refrigerator?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Truthfully, how many people had more 1/4 of a clue what this story title meant?
/. before, but it slips my mind as to the exact definition, quick lookup: astroturfing n. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant `concerned citizens', paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group (astroturf is fake grass; hence the term). This term became common among hackers after it came to light in early 1998 that Microsoft had attempted to use such tactics to forestall the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust action against the company.)
Okay:
JBoss (is Java Server software and a company)
Fleuy (No idea, a guy who works at aforesaid company?)
Abjures (what? is this spelled right? after a quick google/dictionary.com lookup it means: 1. To renounce under oath; forswear. 2. To recant solemnly; repudiate: abjure one's beliefs.)
Astroturfing (ah, I've heard this around
Wow, that was a lot of work and I still can't put it together nor do I care to after all of that work as it seem quite boring anyway. Damn, geek elitiest with your word-of-the-day calendars!
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
"JBoss's Fleury Abjures Astroturfing"
Man, if I'm going to keep reading Slashdot, I'm going to have to embiggen my vocabulary.
"Derp de derp."
For the record, I e-mailed several JBossers on this, and two e-mailed me back. One admitted he'd done it outright and apologized (thank you for that). He claimed he was a lone wolf acting without corporate knowledge; I'm rather suspicious about _that_. The other also admitted he'd did it - and then went on and lambasted me with several pages of abuse, vitriol, and cursing. He danced around the policy issue. By "did it" I mean posting under fake-but-real-seeming names to promote their product, and to simultaneously attack competitors and critics of JBoss alike. The others have not responded. -Mike Spille
than following the law.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
You may have heard about recent charges in online forums that some JBoss employees, including me, were personally involved in anonymous postings on developer sites, which I could deny, but I'll try to save my butt here by confusing you. The practice, known as "astroturfing", is wildly popular on sites like Slashdot that actually let you post as "anonymous coward". We at JBoss know this because everyone does that here. JBoss has the reputation as an in your face, straight up, tell it like it is company were we take advantage of any chance we get to promote ourselves and our products as if we were normal people. I personally don't need a mask to speak my mind and one thing I can't stand is two faced hypocrisy even though I really enjoyed doing it myself. This has made us many friends and a few critics... well ok many critics and little if any friends.
As you may know, the open source community would not be what it is today -- a real challenge to traditional software models -- without the strong opinions and outspoken voices of the developers, developers like us who really enjoy their own voices. I myself am among these wonderful voices. But we do not always see eye to eye on the evolution of the open source movement, especially because most of the open source community doesn't like us anyway. Some prefer subsidized open source, whereby they work corporate jobs and contribute/moonlight on the side without getting a dime for all the sacrifice they put into it. Many others, including us at JBoss, prefer the "Professional Open Source" model, whereby it is our job to work on open source and free software all day long, all the time, while reading Slashdot especially. We all passionately believe in the standalone potential of professional open source. JBoss' growing traction in the enterprise market, our expansion of products and services beyond the original JBoss Application Server and our recent funding from VCs have intensified scrutiny on our community and company, for bad and worse.
JBoss is transitioning as a company to deliver on our commitment to make open source a safe and viable alternative for companies such as yours, which could be our next customer if we could only force you to buy from us. We have hired the most talented developers - many of whom are innovators and lead developers of popular open source projects and can write up to 100 posts a minute. We provide them with the means to continue developing and support these products while creating value for our community and wealth for themselves. As a company we are growing rapidly to meet the expert professional services needs of our customers and partners and even for those who don't give a damn about us. We want to be role models for ALL open source developers around the world. To do so, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard and try not to get caught the next time. Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's all put the professional back in professional open source, because it was your fault too if we removed the professional from open source in the first place. "Astroturfing", as we all knew it, is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.
Sincerely (most of all),
Marc Fleury
Founder, Chairman and CEO
JBoss, Inc.
diegoT
I am real, not posting as AC and I can testify that , in my opinion, JBoss is a worthless product. Much worse than the competition...
So at this point they have no credibility by trying to weasel out of this like a slimy politician.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
http://efil.blogspot.com/
The practice, known as "astroturfing", is wildly popular on sites like Slashdot that actually let you post as "anonymous coward".
I think it is a different thing to use fake identities in order to make your product look better than it is and discrediting the critics than simply posting as anonymous. Anyone can take comments from an AC with a grain of salt, but occasional readers do not have the capability to understand that a person behind fake identity is essentially fake and astroturfing. I for one only realized what was going on on TSS only after some very specific comments from Cameron Purdy. Just one more reason to support Geronimo or Jonas instead of the "competing" offering from JBoss Group.
When is the last freaking time you actually paid attntion to and responded to any anoynmous poster in any technical disucssion? This isn't "anonymous coward" style anonymous, it's the creation of a plethora of accounts that have real-sounding names and participate in real conversations (sometimes with themselves.) For more information, refer to Rickard Oberg's blog and Mike Spille's blog. (BTW - Rickard is one of the authors of JBoss.) (Just in case you didn't figure it out from my login, I'm the Cameron Purdy that purportedly co-authored the article with Rickard.) Peace.
He might fire someone, or at least publicly castigate them. Or he might announce some other amending action, like making his astroturfers offer some kind of service, on company time, to the forums they polluted. If he were smart, he'd apologize to the people who run those forums, and offer them JBoss software, or someone else's, and free integration. Then he'd get promotion, too. But what has he done? Nothing, except brag about how outspoken his company's people are.
--
make install -not war
True - the slippery weasel (sorry, not you, "Otter" ;) didn't even explicitly apologize. He just made some excuses for bad behavior, then swore off it, starting with himself, without even offering to make his people stick to that policy. You're right: I was being *too generous* in even saying that he apologized.
--
make install -not war
From Fleury's letter : I personally don't need a mask to speak my mind and one thing I can't stand is two faced hypocrisy
Come on. This guy has been caught astroturfing and his idea of an apology is to deny the obvious and proclaim his distaste of hypocrisy in the same sentence!!!
We knew he was astroturfing, now we know he is a uber-hypocrit and a regular moron too.
That's an excellent example of treating a problem as a potential opportunity to create something positive. Fleury et al did something to degrade not just their own credibility but that of the forums where the astroturf occurred. They did harm to those forums, and the obvious way to atone would be to do something that creates positive value for those who were harmed. Offer to give them free software or services, write some free articles, give them some inside access to information about product roadmaps or benchmarks, pick up part of the bandwidth tab...whatever. That would be true atonement, in contrast to the empty non-apology that was actually offered.
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