JBoss Group Developers Walk Out

An anonymous reader writes "According to The Inquirer, 'seven consultants for The JBoss Group publicly announced the immediate termination of their contracts and the foundation of their new company, Core Developers Network.'"

So...

Who are the JBosses now?

What is Core Developers Network?

From their site...

We are pleased to announce the founding of Core Developers Networkâ, a new services company supporting enterprise open source Java software. Core Developers Network is a partnership of peers with the guiding principles of integrity, openness, and fairness. Its charter is to provide a commercial infrastructure to enable open source contributors to deliver their professional expertise to the marketplace, independent of their contributions to open source projects.

Many of our partners are core developers with cvs commit privileges on the JBoss project, and this enables us to offer a wide range of services geared towards the JBoss server, including professional documentation, training and expert support.

The focus of Core Developers Network, however, is wider than just JBossâ, and we have partners with cvs commit privileges on other projects including Jetty, Apache Jakarta, and XDoclet. Direct support is available today for these projects, as well as 3rd party support for several other Core Technologies.

We are committed to having the same level of involvement in our current projects that we have had in the past. This means that we will continue to work on the JBoss project itself. In addition, we will continue to support the JBoss project via the jboss-development and jboss-users mailing lists maintained by SourceForge.net, as well as any other open public forum. Unfortunately, the forums on jboss.org are a commercial venue for the JBoss Group LLC, and therefore we will not be participating in them.

A few of our partners have offered support through the JBoss Group LLC in the past, but for various reasons have concluded that their professional aspirations would be better served outside of the JBoss Group LLC. In order to ensure that customers previously supported by our partners continue to receive the same level of high quality support, Core Developers Network is offering these customers a limited amount of free support during this transition period.

We want to emphasize that our partners will continue to provide the same responsive, high-quality technical support as we have always done. The founding of Core Developers Network simply signals the natural emergence of competition in the marketplace. We hope that broadening the range of service options for open source projects will raise the level of support available and lead to even greater adoption of these Core Technologies.

Please look for us at JavaOneâ booth 1705!

Core Developers Network

This just in...

The focus of Core Developers Network, however, is wider than just JBossâ...

We are moving our focus from Java to PHP, and whill henceforth be known as PHBoss.

Re:I've got a more basic question

JBoss is an open sourced Enterprise Java Server, simialar to BEA Weblogic or IBM's WebSphere. JBoss isn't truly certified as J2EE compliant yet because as a free software package they're not forking over the dough to Sun for the compliance testing.

Re:forgive my ignorance...

An application server is a set of tools that do a lot of the scalability work for you. For example, let's say you have a database that 100G big. You have classes/objects that map to all of this data, each referencing each other. Now to instantiate an object, it will require data from the database. It also likely has a pointer to another object which is tied to the database. So, you have three choices:

* Have instantiation of one object bring half the database into memory

* Write code that intelligently loads and unloads references seamlessly from the database on demand (_lots_ of work)

* Get someone else's code to do it for you

Option 3 is the application server. Remember also that if you have your application spread across 13 servers, and all of them need access to the same object, where is the object going to live? If you have 13 copies of it, what happens if an instance gets modified - how do the other 12 instances know to reload their data? If you keep it on one server, how are you going to handle load balancing intelligently?

The purpose of application servers is to have a canned infrastructure capable of handling these problems well. There are many other plumbing considerations that application servers keep track of, such as nested transactions, being able to remap data items onto different tables/attributes, being able to set the environment of an application through a simple text-based descriptor, etc.

Usually I've found that for smaller-scale projects, application servers are overkill. However, for large-scale projects, they keep your project from becoming the ultimate hack-job. The trade-off probably hits when you have about 3 front-end webservers. For some items it hits as soon as you need 2 servers, for the load-balancing/synchronization problems.

Re:forgive my ignorance...

The purpose of application servers is to have a canned infrastructure capable of handling these problems well. There are many other plumbing considerations that application servers keep track of...

you missed the point by a mile, the main purpose of the application server is to hold your business logic tier in a multi tier application, so you have a database-vendor neutral application, and the option to use multiple clients like web, standalone desktop applictions, mobile devices etc..etc.., scalability and mangeability are just bonuses...

These guys like Java...

6:30 am -- I scrape myself off of Dain's couch and grab the laptop. Dain is perched over a cup of coffee, wearing his "code poet" shirt. My luggage and tripod are by the front door. On our way out to the car I ask myself "are we really going to go through with this?"

Re:These guys like Java...

The real question is what the tripod was for? And did it have anything to do with him on the couch.

No, the real question....

The real question is what the tripod was for? And did it have anything to do with him on the couch

I think the real question is: Is Dain's last name "Bramage"?

Inquisitive minds just gotta ask.... ;-)

Sorry I couldn't resist.

ahem they did not walk out

As of today's date they are still coding on the JBoss porject..

There servered their consulting contracts JBoss group only..

People really should master the skil of reading sometime soon..

Re:ahem they did not walk out

...right after they realy should masster the skil of speling!

is this even legal ?

wouldnt Marc Fleury got these developers under an NDA agreement by which they wouldnt be able to work on a similar project for a different company ?

Sounds like a nice good legal brawl brewing up.
Download jboss before it is too late !

Am I missing something?

Like perhaps why this is a big deal? As far as I can tell, some techs have violated their contract, and formed their own business. Am I wrong?

Why is this /. worthy? It's just a breach of contract, probably mixed with bad management, big egos, and stealing customers.

Re:Am I missing something?

Those who use Java for anything that requires an app server realize this is a signicant post. JBoss is one of the best open source app servers available. Basically, if you use Java, you understand the point. This isn't to say that Java is the best, or that everything else sux, but if you are interested in programming, Java should be on your radar - last I checked, programming and programming languages are a relevant "nerd" topic. If a significant Perl/C tool was affected this way, I doubt there would be any questions as to the validity or significance of this story.

Re:Am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something. JBoss as a product is the best J2EE open-source server available, and a product that competes with WebLogic and WebSphere big time. (And quite well, I might add, with the clustering support working in most environments just fine.) The consulting group was the method for supporting the open-source product, so this may impact development, though I'm unsure as to how much impact it will have.

This is like saying, oh, some Apple developers left to start BeOS. Hopefully with better results. Is that news? (Now, I know the folks say that they plan to continue work on JBoss, but we'll see how long that lasts, or if the end up forking JBoss too.)

Its kinda like XFree86 being forked... only different. ;-)

Meet the JBoss ...

same as the old boss.

Now we're doing,

JPHB project....

Re:Now we're doing,

SWEET! The D&D Player's Handbook is going to be available in Java?! I'm so excited, I don't even know what that means? Hopefully, they'll port it to XML and other buzz-worthy technologies soon. Haha, stick it to WotC

God, I'm a dork. I (futily) hope someone else finds this amusing.

motivations for new company?

In quickly scanning through the scant info they have on the new core developers site, it looks like they have a slightly adapted "internet bubble business plan":

1. Dedicate self to just doing "Open Source" work
2. ???
3. Profit!

Yeah, okay, they are associated with existing projects. But the site makes it sound like they are running a business, but they as yet have no proven business *product* unique to themselves.

Re:motivations for new company?

They're consultants on JBoss and a range of other FOSS items; hence, they themselves (more specifically, their expertise) are the product. If the conventional Open Source business plan is summarized as:

1. Write and distribute free software
2. Sell support for the software
3. Profit!!!

then think of it as forking step 2.

Remainder of my .sig: be the majority of voters.

Re:motivations for new company?

you didn't "scan" very well.

Documentation [coredevelopers.net] - Subscriptions
Training [coredevelopers.net] - From core developers
Support [coredevelopers.net] - Including remote development

Yeah, okay, they are associated with existing projects. But the site makes it sound like they are running a business, but they as yet have no proven business *product* unique to themselves.

I'd say attending training delivered from the core developers is not something that is offered very often.

some faces to those names

Here are the faces behind those names [jboss.org] in the article.

Who? what? when? why? how?

If someone could answer those five basic questions about this story, many of us would appreciate it. Thanks!

Journalism? We don't need no stinkin' journalism!

Re:Who? what? when? why? how?

Who? what? when? why? how? If someone could answer those five basic questions about this story, many of us would appreciate it.

I will try.

JBoss [jboss.org] is a very popular, open-source application server for the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) [sun.com]. And although the JBoss software is free, there is a commercial consulting firm, the JBoss Group LLC, which provides support, etc. for JBoss users. The Marc Fleury referred to in the Inquirer article is the founder and CEO of the JBoss Group.

Dain Sundstrom (the "Dain" from the Inquirer article) is one of the core JBoss developers. He was also working as a consultant for the JBoss Group. He and several other consultants for the JBoss Group have jumped ship to start their own consulting firm [coredevelopers.net], providing support for JBoss as well as other enterprise open source Java software.

The story is a big deal to JBoss users for a number of reasons. For one, a lot of commercial companies are use the commercial support provided by the JBoss Group as justification for going with an open source software solution (as opposed to one of the much more expensive commercial application servers). This was a relatively large loss of personnel for the JBoss Group and it thus raises questions about the reliability or stability of commercial JBoss support. Another important question is how this defection will affect these core developers' standing in the JBoss development group. Obviously, it won't be pretty, but will be they be kicked out altogether?

As for the background (the why), I don't have an answer for you. I don't know if grievances have been publically aired leading up to this, and I wouldn't have been paying attention if they had been. So I'm interested to see what details, if any, emerge over the next few days.

Commercial Support for OpenSource

For one, a lot of commercial companies are use the commercial support provided by the JBoss Group as justification for going with an open source software solution (as opposed to one of the much more expensive commercial application servers).

I've been wondering about this a lot lately. A couple of my buddies and I are kicking around the idea of starting up a service company which would include a small centralized server farm to be used for most/all customer server needs.

Just last night I installed JBoss/Tomcat to kick it around and consider it for our possible future business.

I keep going back and forth about commercial suppport. I keep thinking "gee, in a business where business revenue relies on the server software perhaps we should go ahead and pay the big bucks for a commercial product with support." Then I realize I currently work in a large company that pays for commerical products and the vendor support reps are clueless and we have to eventually figure out the problems and fix them ourselves anyway. (Disclaimer: I'm a network admin, not a developer, so my vendor experiences are with implementation and operational issues.)

Okay, what about liability then? I've heard before that you want to feel there's someone to sue if something goes wrong. But who's ever sued Microsoft (or IBM, Sun, HP, BEA, Oracle) because of lost business revenue due to their products?

What do you really get from paying the big boys big money?

I have a sneaking suspicion I'd come out way ahead financially and operationally if I take the money I save on huge up-front licensing and ongoing per-seat licensing and split it between the business and a support fund, and if we run into a problem we can't handle it's time to hire one of the developers of the software to fix it for us, or in the case of JBoss use the Core Developer's consulting service.

Re:Who? what? when? why? how?

If Fleury is smart, he'll keep them on the core commit team and wish them all the best with their venture, and quietly hire replacements -- there's plenty of good J2EE talent around. That makes him look like a mensch, scores community brownie points, helps the public image of OSS, and (the real reason) does nothing to frighten paying corporate clients away from The JBoss Group. If he does *anything* that looks like flinching about the loss of a few developers, corporations will flee to the waiting arms of BEA or IBM, because it will prove to them that the whole thing was a house of cards to start with.

But can the site survive a slashdotting...

That hurts. Not only did they have to throw together a site in secret, as soon as it hits the net it has to face slashdot. I will be truly impressed if it survives.

Those servers that are about to die, I salute you.

Who?

So why is it that I only recognize one or two of the names of these "core developers"? And the ones that I do recognize, only barely. They don't seem to be the people that I know are involved with the core development and operations of JBoss and the JBoss Group.

In fact, it sounds like they're just being antagonistic, and using /. to get some publicity. I don't understand why it's not possible for both CDN and JBoss Group to thrive and serve the community. But they seem to think that they can only exist by killing the other "fork", if that's even what it is. Competition is good for the industry, even open source. But CDN looks like they're just trying to cast JBoss Group in a bad light (disparaging their stats).

Oh, and as I remember it, it wasn't just their call to terminate their contracts with JBoss Group for providing support. JBoss Group was non-renewing the contracts anyways, because they had decided that it was a better idea for them to be the support company themselves. They didn't terminate the contracts immediately when they started their own support offerings, but they did make the decision to not have any new consultants, and to start thinning out the ones they did have.

-Todd

Re:Who?

Well I certainly do recognise the names and they are guys who do major work for jboss and jbossweb (jetty). Listed here [coredevelopers.net] And they say they will continue to do so. Go to the jboss forums and search for a few of them to see how much they know about jboss.
Seems they just want to earn some money doing their own support, probably because they don't like the Jboss group model, or were not getting ahead with them.
I doubt this is a big deal. Probably just here on slashdot because
a) People like to wind up Marc Fluery
b) See above

Who cares

It is an anonymous submission about someone setting up in business. Sounds like self promotion and a moderator should just delete it.

Arrrrr Captain - the techies are revolting !!

I guess these guys are about to find out whether the collective sum of their egos adds up to more than the use of the name "JBoss".

My guess is it doesn't - I don't know much about what JBoss group, but my guess is they do pretty much the same old EJB consulting for customers that everyone else does. Building yet another Customer object for yet another client. Not the sort of thing that requires the world's greatest experts in transaction management, object persistence, etc. etc.

As long as the JBoss group can quickly fill in for these guys with warm bodies who know how to write "Hello world" (any Java programmers on the bench and eager for work right now ? Yep, thought so) then their customer contracts will just keep trucking along. Then these guys and their break-away will be faced with the dilemna that JBoss Group has solved - making money.

i think it was the name

anything with a boss in the name has a you know, pointy haired, pricky feeling to it. They had to leave.

Integrity? Openness? Who are they trying to kid?

Integrity

Without personal integrity, relationships are worthless. Without relationships, everything else is equally worthless. We hold both sides of our business relationships to equally high standards of integrity.

Openness

Once you have integrity, openness follows. We're dedicated to the free exchange of information. We keep our business dealings open with one another and with the public. Of course, there are legal and practical limits to openness in business, but we favor honesty to secrecy.

This seven person exodus doesn't exactly sound like the most open or fair thing to do to The JBoss Group. But, maybe I'm wrong ...

-- Dossy

Re:Integrity? Openness? Who are they trying to kid

That journal did not say anything about their reason for leaving but you are definitely right on the point about their audacity to list "openness" on their site after what they did no matter what the cause.

JBoss?

_looks up from work on tomcat_

_thinks to self: People still care about EJBs? Who knew?_

_goes back to work on tomcat_

(I exaggerate, for comic effect, of course)

Cheers,
prat

All for it... one question though

As a former enterprise software Sun employee,
I wish the Core guys well. They do good work.

One question though: what about the business?

An lot goes into hiring enterprise consulting,
beyond good coding skills-- think of accounting,
insurance, scheduling, dedicated team reps, etc.

More importantly, my number one consideration
was trustworthiness-- including dependability--
so a mass walkout seems like a difficult launch.

Cheers, Joel

What the... ?

The article was big on dramatic narration at the expense of explaining what's really going on...

Why did these guys do it? Did they decide they'd have more fun at their own company? You'd think, with a move like this, they'd have serious grievences with JBoss Group. Either that or they're being backstabing bastards. I'll assume the first...

Re:What the... ?

The author of the Inquirer article wrote an earlier article three weeks ago about what a jerk [theinquirer.net] Marc Fleury, the head of JBoss, was. There was also an article a few days ago in Open Enterprise trends, about new profit-sharing [oetrends.com] and stock-purchase plans at JBoss, which might have been either a cause or an effect of dissension there.

no big deal

from the list of the members, only two are actively working on core parts of JBoss. The others work on integration with Jetty. That's not a big deal, since Jboss also uses Tomcat and jboss/tomcat integration is supported actively by the developers using JMX. The consultants have experience, but doesn't seem like it cripples JBoss in any way. If anything, the mix of developers provides an even mix of skills, rather than an outright gutting of the core JBoss developers.

No real surprises here

All they are doing is starting their own company in order to make money supporting JBoss and a few other techs. Just like anyone else could. The only difference is that these guys actually have a lot of credibility around jboss, and hence someone might actually hire them.
No real drama here.

Hey! Ben!

How's the view from that skyscraper at 285 and 400?

Glad you got yours before it all went oear-shaped.

Java Rebels!

There's more name dropping in that timeline article than I've ever read in my life... Winamp, Code Poet t-shirt, Nirvana, Nintendo Advance etc... what are they trying to say? That they're cool? Are these brand names supposed to make me associate them with somebody special? Are they Java-coding rebels?

Ok, I'm half kidding, but the article is hardly newsworthy or even understandable to me.

Hey, Hank! Hey, Rob!

So, there you are at Agris, trying desperatlry to drag them from 1985 to 2003, and the mirage starts to dissipate (you know, "It's all gotta work with JBoss").

What now?

and this matters because?

the guys leaving hi-jacked the source code. Oh wait, JBoss is open source, therefore absolutely no measurable damage to the quality or stability of the product. If anything, it means they have to work harder to prove themselves, which means they have to continue to actively contribute to JBoss, because forking JBoss and giving it a new name makes it harder for them. But in order to build a solid reputation, they have to shine within the JBoss developer community and work well with the others. The message on their home page was politically safe and doesn't criticize Jboss or the developers.

nothing to see here. move on.

Painful but Ultimately Better for All

This is probably going to be tough for the JBoss group but ultimately, I think competition will force them to improve and become better--if they pull through this hurdle.

Competition helps keep companies (and people too) from slacking or falling short of doing their best.

I love JBoss!

He was the coolest villain on Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors!

Obviously they've been planning this for a while

Not only because they have a pretty website but also because of this:

Please look for us at JavaOneâ booth 1705!

You don't just whip up a booth & promo material in a weekend (as someone who has worked booths I know it's a royal pain). This year I'm attending JavaOne as a developer...I'll definitely be stopping by to see what they've got. No good swag I'm sure...they're probably too poor yet...

What if it was M$?

I have been thinking (dont mock me...), and I was thinking if the name of the company who distributed a free appserver a la J2EE, but was little diffrent, not complient, did things little different, had som proprioty API's (Yeah, like Xerox AOP) was (the name of the corp remember?) was M$?? Hell would break lose. You (incl M$ lovers)tell me where my thinking went wrong...

Evil

The consultants are so mad, they anonymously posted a story to Slashdot to get JBoss's web server slashdotted. How devious.

news?

Sounds like a bunch of water-cooler talk to me. This kind of thing happens all the time and no attempt to hype this event it will make any more that gossip.

Which one will be the slimmer J2EE??

WE've tried Tomcat, but it is not a complete J2EE 1.2 or higher. JBoss has big requirements too, for our measly Pentium 200 64MB ram with Linux. I am hoping for a COMPLETE test platform J2EE setup that is not designed for distribution or clustering, and can run happily on a small system (well, happily for a Java application, which is still too slow). These two split developer groups will likely aim for different niches, and I wonder which one will be Postgresql and which MySQL.

Timing related to JBoss certification problems

I wonder if the timing of this 'walkout' has anything to do with the Sun / JBoss compliance spat [zdnet.com.au]? They have been having an ongoing battle (not in court as yet) about whether JBoss can use the J2EE brand without being certified as compliant by Sun.

Maybe the Core Developer folks are hoping to steal some business from their old employers using an easily certified fork. Perhaps they even hope to get some mileage from CIOs worried by the SCO thing.

JBoss 4.0 DR1 available!

JBoss 4.0 DR1 (Developer Release 1) is based on Aspect Oriented Programming.

Check it out!:
Aspect-Oriented Programming and JBoss [onjava.com]
JBoss 4.0 Developer Release JBoss [jboss.org]
JBoss Aspect Oriented Programming [jboss.org]
Download it now! [sourceforge.net]

Fun, Fun

JBoss has been garnering a lot of publicity lately, at least in Java circles. It has been quite the center of controvesy, in an otherwise boring world.

First there is the bust up with Sun. JBoss wanting J2EE certification and Sun be a bit difficult (basically saying they wouldn't pass).

Then there was the 'best application server' http://www.sys-con.com/java/readerschoice2003/vote .cfm 'vote rigging' issue. One year accussing Oracle of cheaping because they asked their employees to vote, and the next year JBoss does the same (asked its mailing list members to vote for JBoss).

Now of course there is this new company split off from JBoss LLC.

Still to come: will JBoss LLC removing CVS commit rights from the coredevelopers group? Will JBoss LLC go out of business?

We'll see..

In the mean time: at least people are hearing about this great product (developer tiffs aside). No such thing as bad publicity, right? Hopefully, too many people won't be scared off. Then where would all my new customers come from?

- Peter.
RimuHosting - JBoss Hosting on Linux VPS [rimuhosting.com]

not good PR, folks

The open source community does not need this. Not at all. Sure, fork code, start your own company, create competition, all fine. But the tone is hostile. Rupp clearly expresses the desire and the ability to damage the JBoss Group. This send a clear message to corporate decision makers: stick with BEA, IBM, Oracle, etc...

thread

Read the article carefully, folks

The article says "The JBoss Group has been forked." The group, not the code.

The CDN web site puts a lot of emphasis on CVS commit access into various open source projects, include JBoss itself. This does not sound at all like a code fork.

Re:Read the article carefully, folks

The article says "The JBoss Group has been forked."

It sounds more like they've been knifed.

Maybe they'll get lucky and get spooned too.

so now...

...some geeks dramatic, self-involved narration of what people do every day (i.e., generally called "quitting") is worthy of Slashdot headlines? And concerning the article itself, just about the only factoid I could derive from it was that someone has read a bit too much Gibson, and taken it to heart.

Yeah, 'cyberpunks' rule. Phhhhpht!

Max

How do you make money doing open source?

JBoss is still around and will be for a long time. What is interesting about this is not the impact on the JBoss app server (virtually zero, IMO) but the impact on the JBoss Group's attempt to turn their skills into a money making enterprise. Open source works, we know that, but what is interesting is that so many novel attempts have been made to turn open source into a way to make money and most seem to dismally fail. This is yet another example of that.

NDA and such

With all the talk of an NDA and contracts and all that nonsense, I figured I'd point out that my old school district, Central Dauphin or "CD", has been using the C and D with apple seeds as a logo for quite some time. I think they have prior use to that logo of theirs.

some insight...

My girlfriend used to do web site updates for the Jboss group (actually, she worked for Marc Fleury and his wife, listed as Nathalie Mason-Fleury on the website, director of marketing). She was responsible for most of the bio information going up on the site, as well as doing updates to same, updates for whatever conventions they were hosting/doing, etc. She was fresh out of a 4 year CS degree and needed a job and in this market, she took this web jockey gig.

The Jboss crew uses a CVS repository to manage their web site. It sounded fairly dumb to me when I heard it, but I suppose they feel the need for control and verification of who is making what change to the site. Now, she had never done any work with CVS before - she codes a bit in real languages but hasn't worked on any large projects. So she had to ask some help from the Jboss people on how to use CVS.

The developers, Dain for instance, were incredibly helpful. She was able to snag them on AIM at just about any hour of the day or night for whatever little questions she had about their (often malfunctioning) repository. Marc Fleury and his wife, on the other hand, were not. They were demanding, placing calls in the wee hours for changes, and expecting 1-2 hour turnaround whenever they called. When asked questions, more often than not, Mr. Fleury would take a fit on her. She asked the developers about this and one in particular volunteered that "He's an asshole to everyone, not just you".

Eventually she stopped dealing with them because they just sucked too badly to work for. Low pay, rude behavior and weird hours make for a bad mix. I'm sure they hired someone else who was more masochistic perhaps.

A close friend of the Fleurys (she knows them socially in Atlanta) made the comment recently that Marc owns his own company because he would find it impossible to work _for_ anyone else due to his attitude. I suggest that the recent defections might have something to do with the aforementioned.

On a positive note, Mr. Fleury has found a way to make money off of an open source project. I suppose that deserves kudos. I've known a few businessmen who, while they knew how to make money, were unable to keep the business operating long term because they made strategic errors or alienated people. I suspect Mr. Fleury is going to fall into that category. Maybe he'll learn some lessons for his next business (he's the kind of guy who will assuredly hit the ground running no matter what happens)...

gimme a break

That web site should have its internet connection stripped for publishing what might be the silliest goddamned story I've ever read. From the tone of it, you'd think these guys were parachuting into combat.

And the scarier part is that noone else seems to notice how pathetic it is.

JBOSS, I have a better idea

JDICTATOR. It doesn't order your java software to perform it routinely tourtures a random sample of javasoftware as a warning to others. It fights performances issues "to the Pain". So far it just consists of C code with big ears that gets picked on a lot, so look out, it will have a chip on its shoulder when it gets loose.

A Good Cleansing Sometimes Helps

As a coder who's been watching the EJBoss... I mean JBoss... code, since it didn't work, I'm completely confident this project will carry on. JBoss isn't going away. Even if all the core JBoss developers dropped off the face of the planet, there would be others to pick up the cause and offer support. This is a classic example of why OSS works and works well.

an ugly start for an otherwise interesting venture

Seems they don't know much about PR. Their announcement really makes them sound like pricks.

What they should have done is been much more diplomatic. Talked about personal differences from a business standpoint, but emphasized their devotion to the JBoss project.

Instead, they basically said, we're leaving and this really f***s up JBoss, hahah:

"The JBoss Group has suffered losses before and come out strong. But have they ever sustained an attack of this scale? No way. Neither Sun nor BEA could have pulled off something this personally damaging to Fleury's company. The pressure that pulled them apart had to come from within."

It took me a while to realize that they would be providing competing services to the same code-base. At first read, it sounded to me like they were intentionally trying to undermine the whole notion of an open-source J2EE server. Makes them sound like immature ego-driven 455h013s. Hell, they are immature ego-driven 455h013s. Not for leaving the Fleury's company but for pissing on them on the way out the door. BEA and perhaps MS will have a field day with this, and use this as evidence that you can't trust the long-term viability of open-source projects, outside of that anomaly Linux. That's not true, but the cutesy little ball-buster CDN published sure adds fodder to such bogus arguments.

seems like this was coming...

seems from the previous posts that this was a while in the making.

You've got a cash-strapped company, temp workers, and a boss with an attitude--you can expect this to happen.

Most small business owners are in business because they can't cut following someone else's rules. It's good for starting businesses, but bad for keeping them. My experience is that when the boss utters "you don't have to work here" one too many times, it's the other 6 employees nearby that take the advice rather than the intended one!

It sounds like self-preservation as much as revenge. After all, if he's not renewing contracts, then eventually your dinner stops! They choose to gang up and go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Pascal notation?

Shouldn't it be called jBoss?

Re:The moral of the story is...

Unless you sign them to non-competes, which I can't believe the JBoss Group didn't do.

How can a company have no-competes for open source development (or consulting)? That would go against the open source license, wouldn't it?

Re:jemployee...

Don't you mean jApathetic?

Re:The moral of the story is...

Unless of course, you take good care of them and allow each of them to have a little room to grow and a little bit of sun.....

You see, most people would put up with a job that's demanding and requires long hours IF it was rewarding in some way (money helps, but it's not the whole picture)....the sheer venom that I read in that article means they were mad....they wanted to hurt JBoss group as much as they felt they were wronged....

I suspect that the pressure has been building for some time, this isn't just a "..hey, lets form our own business!" daydream.

techy jobs

If you have no skill but don't mind pretending that you do visit the public high school of Jefferson County, TN.

The techs there spent a week with no results trying to get an OS X box on the school lan (DHCP, http proxies on 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2; they configured neither.)

Other duties would include leaving the proxy servers running warez copies of NT 4 on service pack 3. Wasting tax payer money on piece of shit security packages is optional.

Re:Well, here I am at Equifax...

Actually, from what I've felt from the JBoss site and third person accounts, I wouldn't have delt with the JBoss people if it depended on my business either.

This fork-of-developers is great, I hope that java technologies gain from it and prove themselves based on merit, not ego.

Re:Why /. still sucks

Get over it. I did.

Re:Well, here I am at Equifax...

You should be promoting Resin. http://www.caucho.com

Re:Well, here I am at Equifax...

Why's that? This isn't a code fork. Unless marcf is a dingdong (and he ain't), almost certainly the same people will continue working on JBoss, the open source project. It just affects JBoss Group, the company founded to do consulting, training and other support for JBoss.

I doubt this will have too much effect on the code because making JBoss better benefits both the JBoss Group and the Core Developers Network. In fact, from a PHB perspective this might be a better world since you've got two notable consultanting groups to choose from for JBoss support/training. In a year or two it could even lead to a virtuous circle of increasing demand for JBoss support/training which either attracts more developers to both or spawns an entirely new company.

Who said open source can't work?

Re:Agreed -- Who Cares

Really. This won't affect my ASP.NET/IIS/C# contract one wit.
Only doing what they pay me to do. If they want my opinion, I tell 'em straight up - it all sucks. That invoice is due now.

Re:Well, here I am at Equifax...

Yea.... well I was dealing with Weblogic problems all day today. Strange .... I knew somthing strange odd going on in Java land.

Re:jwho cares?

One day, you'll learn about these things called "companies" who have "data" on many "servers" and who need to perform "transactions" with "objects" scattered around everywhere. Have fun!

JClever.

That was a funny Joke.

Dear Marc,

Thanks for all the moderation.

Maintenant, s'il vous plait, rentrez en France (oui, avec votre famille).

Bon voyage.