JBoss Group Developers Walk Out 313
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... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:2, Funny)
What is Core Developers Network? (Score:3, Informative)
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... (Score:5, Funny)
We are moving our focus from Java to PHP, and whill henceforth be known as PHBoss.
I've got a more basic question (Score:2)
Their site's slashdotted, so I can't find out there, and the story (and comments) don't really give any hints, beyond the fact that it apparently has something to do with Java.
Re:I've got a more basic question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I've got a more basic question (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not sure why the first post got a +4 informative as it was just a cut and paste of the CDN Web page.
JBoss (project page project page [sourceforge.net] is a Java Application Server for Enterprise Java Beans (EJB's). They are working on a free implementation of J2EE [sun.com]. It includes JBossServer which is the application server, JBossCX for JCA, JBossCMP for persistence, JBossMQ for JMS, JBossMail (obvious), JBossSX for JAAS, JBossTX for JTA/JTS, and more that you can see on the project page.
There is always the Google [216.239.51.100]
forgive my ignorance... (Score:2)
Re:forgive my ignorance... (Score:5, Informative)
* 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... (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Re:forgive my ignorance... (Score:2)
----
You don't need an application server to do that. You need an application server to manage the scalability requirements on an n-tiered application.
It's easy to separate the business logic from the presentation logic from the database logic just using OOP. However, that doesn't help you scale your business logic across multiple servers. An application server's job
Re:forgive my ignorance... (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:forgive my ignorance... (Score:2)
Eh? I think you are confused about what app servers are. I thought that was what O/R mapping tools like JDO, and OO/OR databases, did. If all J2EE app servers can do that, then why did Sun reinvent the wheel with JDO?
Re:forgive my ignorance... (Score:2)
These guys like Java... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:These guys like Java... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:These guys like Java... (Score:3, Informative)
"tripod", also known as "wheelie", also known as "that thing with the little wheels you strap you luggage to".
No, the real question.... (Score:5, Funny)
I think the real question is: Is Dain's last name "Bramage"?
Inquisitive minds just gotta ask....
Sorry I couldn't resist.
the speculative answer (Score:2)
Re:No, the real question.... (Score:2)
Come on, when replying to a story posted by 'The Inquirer', at least quote 'Inquiring minds want to know...' correctly.
(Yes, I know they're not that [nationalenquirer.com] Inquirer, they even use the other spelling, but still...)
ahem they did not walk out (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Funny)
Indeed. And their spelling, too, while they're at it.
Re:ahem they did not walk out (Score:5, Funny)
is this even legal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like a nice good legal brawl brewing up.
Download jboss before it is too late !
Re:is this even legal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, good luck to them with their new business. Let's ho
Re:is this even legal ? (Score:2)
It's not really an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that would have that kind of clause but is more of a non-competition agreement.
According to the linked article, they're in California, which is famous for its rather anti-NCA attitude. I'd be surprised if anything could be done about this.
California (Score:2)
-Charlie
Re:Has the JBoss group expressed displeasure (Score:2)
It's not a bad thing for the community. But business competition rarely is. Better still, it sounds like the code base will remain intact (rather than split). The difficulty for JBoss Group is that the JBoss Group made their money by selling documentation on the JBoss product, and selling services such as training and support. You have to make money som
Meet the JBoss ... (Score:5, Funny)
Now we're doing, (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now we're doing, (Score:2)
Re:Now we're doing, (Score:2)
Re:Now we're doing, (Score:5, Funny)
God, I'm a dork. I (futily) hope someone else finds this amusing.
motivations for new company? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
then think of it as forking step 2.
Remainder of my
Re:motivations for new company? (Score:2)
Ballmer strikes me as a smart guy. I suspect that he doesn't miss the issue. Rather, he is trying to induce his own reality distortment field. He is trying to affect reality through the shere force of will and spin.
Note that he refers to Open Source software as "non-commercial." O
Re:motivations for new company? (Score:4, Informative)
Documentation [coredevelopers.net] - Subscriptions
I'd say attending training delivered from the core developers is not something that is offered very often.Training [coredevelopers.net] - From core developers
Support [coredevelopers.net] - Including remote development
The New Company Should've Been JBoss Gnomes! (Score:2)
Beautiful business plan!
bwahahahaha
-A.M.
Re:The New Company Should've Been JBoss Gnomes! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:motivations for new company? (Score:2)
The weblog makes the entire thing sound like a bunch of kiddies stating "hee hee we screwed our last employer with a mass walkout". Hardly seems like a good reputation with which to start a consulting company.
some faces to those names (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:some faces to those names (Score:3, Informative)
Check again -- as of 6/5 2:00 AM EDT, it looks like the JBoss Group declared these guys to be non-persons. No pictures, no names, no mention whatsoever.
Who? what? when? why? how? (Score:5, Interesting)
Journalism? We don't need no stinkin' journalism!
Re:Who? what? when? why? how? (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who? what? when? why? how? (Score:2)
The JBoss group wll be OK, hire a few more developers, pay them less, get them trained, no difference from yesterday. Sure, the developers who left think that because they know the code they're indispensible, and it'll 'hit them hard', but the real
Re:Who? what? when? why? how? (Score:2)
Indeed, if these guys are smart, they will do a deal with each other making such a thing formal. Both outfits can then show their customers that they have a ready backup plan for them in case something would happen to the
Re:Who? what? when? why? how? (Score:2)
raises questions about the reliability or stability of commercial JBoss support.
Thanks for the informative post.
I still have one question that I haven't seen answered, yet, though.
Exactly how much did Sun have to payM-DelM-DelM-DelM-Deldid they expect to make as independent consultants - the splintering JBoss group?
But can the site survive a slashdotting... (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Yes with ease (Score:2)
-Charlie
P.S. The 'Now you understand
Re:Yes with ease (Score:2)
Excuse me, but I haven't got the slightest notion what you mean by ... this very thing...; there is no quote or referral to another posted item. Could you please enlighten me in what you are referring to?
Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, it sounds like they're just being antagonistic, and using
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? (Score:4, Informative)
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
Re:Who? (Score:2)
Re:Who? (Score:3, Informative)
" Dain Sundstrom
Dain is the author of CMP/JBoss, an implementation of the CMP 2.0 specification for JBoss 3, and is the leading the JBoss 4 persistence team. Dain has 7 years of experience in enterprise computing working with companies such as United Health Care, McKesson, Corporate Express, MCI and McDonalds.
David Jencks
David is the author of the distributed transaction manager and the JCA subsystem for JBoss, as well the author of the JMX tags for XDoclet. David has written JCA
Who cares (Score:2, Interesting)
Arrrrr Captain - the techies are revolting !! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Arrrrr Captain - the techies are revolting !! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Well, no. They have their own high-performance OSS EJB container that is known for implementing standards quickly. There's something to be said for this.
i think it was the name (Score:2)
Integrity? Openness? Who are they trying to kid? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ...
-- DossyRe:Integrity? Openness? Who are they trying to kid (Score:4, Insightful)
JBoss? (Score:5, Funny)
_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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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... ? (Score:5, Informative)
No real surprises here (Score:5, Insightful)
No real drama here.
Hey! Ben! (Score:2)
Glad you got yours before it all went oear-shaped.
Java Rebels! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I'm half kidding, but the article is hardly newsworthy or even understandable to me.
Hey, Hank! Hey, Rob! (Score:2)
What now?
and this matters because? (Score:3, Interesting)
nothing to see here. move on.
I love JBoss! (Score:2, Funny)
Obviously they've been planning this for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
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$? (Score:2, Insightful)
Evil (Score:3, Funny)
Which one will be the slimmer J2EE?? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Which one will be the slimmer J2EE?? (Score:3, Informative)
Timing related to JBoss certification problems (Score:2, Interesting)
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! (Score:2, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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]
Re:Fun, Fun (Score:3, Funny)
Read the article carefully, folks (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
It sounds more like they've been knifed.
Maybe they'll get lucky and get spooned too.
so now... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Yeah, 'cyberpunks' rule. Phhhhpht!
Max
Re:so now... (Score:2)
I am always curious about statements like this - what exactly, in your opinion is "worthy" of a slashdot headline?
Whenever you start associating words like "worth" with /.'s content, just repeat this simple phrase: "blog for geeks, blog for geeks, blog for geeks..." it should help put things in perspective.
How do you make money doing open source? (Score:2, Interesting)
NDA and such (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
gimme a break (Score:2, Insightful)
And the scarier part is that noone else seems to notice how pathetic it is.
JBOSS, I have a better idea (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The moral of the story is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Well, here I am at Equifax... (Score:2)
This fork-of-developers is great, I hope that java technologies gain from it and prove themselves based on merit, not ego.
Re:Well, here I am at Equifax... (Score:2)
Re:Well, here I am at Equifax... (Score:2)
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 consul
Re:Agreed -- Who Cares (Score:3, Funny)
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.