Can't I respect JBoss without respecting Marc? I mean, it's a great product, but he's a *very* polarizing character. One of our (er, my) biggest problems with JBoss has been that it is basically controlled, developed, and funded by one commercial entity. Not to say anything negative about Alfresco, but the JBoss model (which I would argue is different from the "pure support play" that a Red Hat or Novell makes, as they don't manage the majority of development) might as well not be open source. Sure, the source code is available, the license is open, the code *could* be forked - but, honestly, how many outside developers are there writing JBoss??? It's the same problem I see with Alfresco, MySQL, SugarCRM, and many other problems. Of course, the counterpoint is that it is a very successful model, and one that works well and is comfortable - when it's managed by an "ethical" company - Alfresco, MySQL, etc.

Please don't think I've donned my rose-colored glasses, I know that most successful open source projects are largely funded commercially. But there's a big difference in Tomcat/Geronimo and the Apache Foundation, in general, in that there's a limit to the commercial influence. Additionally, there's broader community development resources. IBM may throw a ton of money, code, and developers at the ASF, but they don't have a strangehold on the code or the strategy. I'm also aware that projects like Linux, Perl, etc., essentially have the issue, but with a single person holding the control as opposed to a corporation. The big difference that person tends not to be beholden to a corporation or its interests. Therefore, they act more altruistically - or at least tend not to be driven solely by economic factors.

So, the reason this is a big issue or concern is more pragmatic than idelogical. Now that JBoss is "owned" by Red Hat, what's to stop them from "pulling a SourceForge" (a la Enterprise Edition), closing up future releases, and releasing a Red Hat-only product?? Even if they don't go that severe, I have serious concerns about the level of support JBoss will provide for other platforms on an on-going basis - especially as a JBoss user who deploys primarily on Solaris and SUSE. It has made me seriously re-evaluate the position of JBoss as the open source Java app server of choice in the enterprise. With IBM supporting and reselling Geronimo as WAS CE, it becomes even more attractive.

Which brings me full circle back to Marc. One of his least endearing charactistics is the strangehold on the product that he portrays to the industry. It's made me very uncomfortable all along, and I'm staring to believe those fears were justified. Worst of all, he could potentially be striking a blow against reputation of the entire model - one that many open source vendors leverage very successfully and act as good-faith stewards of.

So, I guess at the end of my rant, what I'm trying to say is that Marc hasn't done your industry any favors.