Ok,
this was a very interesting discussion.
I believe JBoss operates in a funky way today. In the sense that we are the
only real open source group with open source roots and a open source crowd
yet we are looking at definite commercial opportunities in a very rich
commercial field. EJB is $2B today and projected at $12B in 2 years... this
is not your usual "open source" field.
All other projects in our field are "corporate" entities that pose as "open
source groups" (Jonas, enhydra, openEJB). Is that bad? no it is not, I
believe they have qualities we lack, it is just a different way of
approaching the same business. I also believe we need to wise up business
wise. Yes we have the BEST technology (even compared to most commercial
vendors) but now WE NEED TO SELL IT!!!!
I have come to a simple conclusion, that I need to sell this technology.
JBoss is now entering the SELL phase. I mean it in the large sense of
business development. JBoss is maturing really fast, we went from
"technology development" (1st stage) to "group development" (2nd stage) and
now to "business development" (3rd stage).
Most groups don't have 1, we are technologically advanced and they need to
catch up. I believe 2 is also our strength, this list, this crowd, it is
huge... we have 500 downloads/day SOLID. Some might be more savvy on 3?
more savvy on business? sure!... but hey we are learning fast!
If we want to really grow, if we really want to be a success story in the
open source community at large, i.e. an open source group that thrives as a
commercial entity, we need to find ways to survive and get $$$. I don't
want an apache where the commercial field is dead (where is the web server
market), I don't want a nuked commercial field, it is stupid. The EJB
market is maturing and solid, it can take on a well behaved Open Source
player. It means that we are going to find partnerships with people, set up
ways to cooperate with as many vendors, ISVs, ISPs etc as we can.
We are an advanced R&D shop and some corporate visionaries in the field
already see in us an amazing outsourcing opportunity. We take on the 80%
commoditized infrastructure and the vendor focuses on proprietary value add
that make the sale. Yes it is simple isnt' it? It will work. So we will
do it. And we will do it right, this list is too big not to be good at
that. We will build the "McKinsey" of code with the lists. We will.
So do I want to take on support with some of the developers on the list in a
loose fashion, could be (ok that is a yes), we will do it as some clients
want this contractual agreement. Will it compete with the list, I don't
think so, it will be different.
marc
|-----Original Message-----
|From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ole Husgaard
|Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 3:47 PM
|To: jBoss
|Subject: Re: [jBoss-User] Jboss support services
|
|
|Hi,
|
|Just wanted to add my $.02 worth to this interesting
|discussion:
|
|JBoss is free as in "free speech", not "free beer".
|
|So if I want to sell JBoss CDs at US$10,000 a piece,
|nobody can stop me. But I am also unable to stop
|anybody doing price dumping by selling JBoss CDs
|for only $1.
|
|Same goes for support. I hope that Telkel already
|does offer commercial support for JBoss, and that
|they make a lot of money off it. My experience from
|other opensource projects is that this is a Good
|Thing: It makes the product more acceptable for
|commercial use, and the support vendor gives valuable
|contributions and bug reports back to the project.
|
|We do not loose online support because somebody does
|paid support. Nobody really has the power to stop
|online support, and nobody really wants to.
|Why?
|Because the online support is also free as in "free
|speech", not "free beer". Although nobody pays any
|$$$ for the online support, there is a price for
|this too: You have to formulate your questions, and
|accept that your mail to the list is archived for
|other people to see. So even if you just send a mail
|to jboss-user asking "How do I do this?", you
|contribute something back to the JBoss project.
|
|Do not underestimate the value of the jboss-user
|list to the JBoss project: This list is not just
|valuable to users. Developers use it a lot to see
|what is hard to understand and set up, and to find
|out about bugs and other things that should be
|changed. And lots of discussions on jboss-dev start
|with a post to jboss-user. (You sometimes see this
|when developers forget to redirect the discussion
|to the right list.)
|
|I don't think that the JBoss project could survive
|without a free open online support list.
|But I am also not the least bit frightened by paid
|commercial support, as I have never seen this
|killing an open online support list.
|
|
|Best Regards,
|
|Ole Husgaard.
|
|
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