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The Story Behind JBoss's Boss
kosamae writes "Businessweek has an interesting article about Marc Fleury. It's more about the business and personal end of his life than about the technology he's helped to create." From the article: "But while Fleury, like Neo, is something of a cult figure, few people in the old or new software world want to think of him as their savior. Brash, outspoken, and frequently insulting, Fleury has clawed his way to the top of the open-source pile over the past six years. Part of the dislike arises because he's a threat. Even though JBoss brings in only $50 million a year in revenues, at most, from providing training, support, and maintenance services to its users, it has siphoned off some hundreds of millions in market value from the likes of BEA Systems and IBM by giving away free software."
The JBoss story is one that is close to my heart -- it epitomizes much of what I believe in when it comes to my hardcore beliefs. I am a true capitalist (anarcho-capitalist) at heart, and I believe that earning money requires constant work in the field you're in. I don't believe in copyrights and patents either, which are a government mandate to pay residual income on products you've already bought. For me, the software industry is a huge mess of patents, copyrights, trademarks and proprietary code. We pay for a mess of code, and we get what we pay for.
The idea that you can make a basic product and give it away free in order to support your ongoing labor is an idea I've grasped all my life. I started my first BBS in 87 (13 years old) and used it to build my IT consulting business. I started a 3D video production house that had the same premise: build the models for free and then work on an hourly basis to help the client utilize the models. Today I converted my print newsletters to various blogs that I post for free, which has increased my hourly rate more than enough to compensate for the time I write them.
I look at all the various cartelized industries: music, movies, software, etc. They base their future incomes on protecting the uniqueness of their software through bad laws (such as copyright and patent) rather than the free market procedure of open competition. Bands can learn from JBoss -- give your digital music away free in order to support your fan base in person. Make your money by continuing to meet your customers' needs in person, and use the previous portfolio of work to show that you're worth hiring.
Fleury may not have come to his business plan from the same political viewpoint, but I thank him openly for creating the firestorm he has. The big companies have spent years or even decades forming the law around them in order to dissuade competition from entering their markets. By taking advantage of "incumbent-protecting" patent and copyright laws, they made the barrier to entry even harder. Now they have to compete, and they have to do so in a unique manner.
When people say you can't fight big corporations, it is only because these corporations have taken the law that is supposed to protect our rights and instead made it into a preferential treatment law. Now that others understand the basis of income -- ongoing consistent work and support of your customers -- the playing field might be truly leveled so that others can come in and bring the costs down even more while increasing the quality of products and services we all use and need. That will be true, at least, if government keeps their hands off of open source and other market creations that open the door to more healthy competition. Just want until we have a bigger anti-competition board created at the federal level.
Well then I am gonna click them as frequently as possible so that slashdot gets charged for being ultra annoying.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Sounds like a respectable sum to me. Where are the figures that show this is costing IBM and BEA "some hundreds of millions" in market value? The TFA doesn't say.
"But while Fleury ... is something of a cult figure..."
Going certain JBoss Inc. actions (e.g. astroturfing ) this is really only one letter out.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
The computing public despises Java.
I'd been running ABC bittorrent client and it sucked, my connection was turned into a snail. Then I switched to Azureus, which is written in java. It doesn't crash, it's stable, fast, and allows me to use my bandwidth however I want.
This alone erased my prejudice against java apps in Windows.
Brash, outspoken, and frequently insulting father of 6-year creates open source program 'JBOSS' and makes money by supporting it. Celebrates by going out with coworkers, consumes beer and strippers.
Criticizes others for a cynical profit motive, but appears to have one of his own. Inspired by the Matrix, but ironically, people don't like him. Plans on expanding more open source projects and furthering the cynical profit motive.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Nobody wants your products.
Evidence?
The computing public despises Java.
So why has it just risen above C++ on sourceforce?
So what's your reason for even existing?
Portability, ease of development... etc... etc...
http://jboss.org/jbossBlog/blog/mfleury/2006/04/01 /JBoss_the_Bad_Boys_of_Open_Source.txt
Mark makes frequent appearances at the Atlanta Java User's Group, where I attend from time to time. He's definately a contraversial figure, but I don't think it has so much to do with him trying to (gasp!) make money in the software business. I think it's more about personality and how he carries himself, which is a "retro" style harkening back to dot-com days most would prefer to forget.
At the last user group meeting where I remember Mark speaking, he managed to drop at least a half-dozen F-bombs in addition to various fecal-related 4-letter words (this was in a BUSINESS setting). He also spent half the time pointing out how cosmopolitian he is due to years in California and Paris, and hammered home the point that anyone who questions him simply "lacks vision". In short, he comes across as EVERY obnoxious, phony, three-card-shuffle, smoke-and-mirrors aspect of the entire dot-com era... ALL distilled down into one annoying and pretentious walking sterotype.
The problem with Mark is that he makes open-source SOUND like the dot-com era redux... another batch of vaguely-qualified fruity visionaries with their half-baked business plans. The focus on Mark in the money-making open source market creates the same problems as the focus on Richard Stallman's personality over on the Gnu side. It's the messenger getting in the way of the message.
I worked at GetThere as a Senior Web Developer when they moved from BEA Weblogic to JBoss. Took the core engineering group about two weeks to make the conversion and test the entire codebase. They're still using it to this day.
Now imagine just 50 other companies that have similar needs convert to JBoss over the course of three years. There's your hundreds of millions of dollars.
The subtitle "Marc Fleury has taken JBoss to the top, but he has alienated many along the way" rings true. JBoss threaten a lawsuit against the Apache Geronimo project for "code similarities". This alienated a lot of open source enthusiasts. Here is the slashdot article about the claims of code similarities http://apache.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/10 /2057218.
Concerning the personal end of his life:
Brash, outspoken, and frequently insulting, Fleury has clawed his way to the top of the open-source pile over the past six years.
He will be missed.
Esoteric reference.
Marc, don't try to live up to all our expectations. Stop posting as AC.
...I keep hearing that Fleury is unlikeable. That people hate him for his outspoken, brash style, etc. That he's money grubbing, that he's bad for open source -- whatever.
Funny thing is, the one or two times I've spoken to him in person I've walked away going, "Now there's a guy with his head on straight."
To each his own, I guess.
Breakfast served all day!
Just out of curiousity, what did you think children did before the industrial revolution?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.