Larry's Groundhog Day

I was reminded this week of one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day. It's the story of an egocentric man who finds himself repeating the same day over and over again.

What triggered this reminder was Larry Ellison's closing keynote at this year's Oracle OpenWorld.

But before we get to that, let's look back a year ago...at last year's OpenWorld where Larry's quotes are best summarized as:
"Red Hat...Red Hat....giggle giggle...Red Hat...Red Hat"

Bottom-line on last year's speech: Larry grabbed Red Hat Enterprise Linux...rebranded it Oracle Unbreakable Linux...and declared Red Hat, Inc. public enemy #1.

Fast forward to this year and the headlines read... "Larry Ellison levels guns at Red Hat". Sounds familiar...but with a year to prepare, I've gotta believe Larry's speech writers and product marketing folks have something special to share.

"Oracle has been in the Linux business for a year now. With the Red Hat code all we did for the first year was fix bugs". Hmmm...funny, this is not an issue that I've heard from customers...but Larry's a smart guy, so let's move to the next point.

"Now Oracle is growing a lot faster than Red Hat. Red Hat has been growing too because it is a growing market." I always think of Pierre Fricke's blog whenever a comparison like this comes up.

"Oracle VM takes on VMware". OK, OK, this sounds important since it's "one of the biggest software launches in the company's history". I'm almost giddy with anticipation....until I look at the product website. Is it just me or do the key features of Oracle VM sound an awful lot like...Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform which was released last March as I recall?

Anyhow, since I'm the middleware guy at Red Hat, I'll leave the details of how accurate my assessment of Larry's Groundhog Day moment is to the Linux and Virtualization experts out there.

Moving on to a topic of keen interest to me, you gotta love Oracle's interest in BEA. I can see it now, Oracle finally acquires BEA and Larry promises he will "fix" the BEA products. Soon after, Larry introduces the revolutionary OraLogic Server 11g and explains that he will raise the price on the product because BEA customers feel that the products have been priced too low for too long.

Now that's real innovation and customer value!

Prochain Arret Neuchatel

I write this from the Swiss Air Lines business center in Geneva...awaiting my flight back to the US.

I've been in Neuchatel the past few days for the quarterly meeting of the JBoss TBOD (Technical Board of Directors). Sacha Labourey chairs the two days of meetings of the JBoss technical leaders. We covered a wide range of business and technical topics (OpenJDK, Java EE 6, etc., etc.) over the two days. It's a good way to ensure that we synchronize our thoughts once a quarter. And it offers a great chance to generally catch up with folks face to face...during the meetings...after the meetings over food and drink....etc.

Speaking of food and drink, the meeting nicely dovetailed with the annual Neuchatel Wine Festival. It's 3 days of food, drink, and general partying into the wee hours. I took some time on Saturday to wander around the town and found myself at around 1:30 completely famished.

No worries there of course, since every kind of food and drink is right here for the asking. I kept it simple by ordering "la choucroute et une bier".

As I lifted the beer to my lips, I toasted another successful TBOD meeting...and then tucked into my dish.

Mmmmmm....sauer kraut with various sausages and a beer never tasted so good!

Who's the BOSS? JBoss Seam and JBoss Rules, of course

InfoWorld recently awarded the Best Open Source Software for the Enterprise (aka the 2007 InfoWorld Bossies).

Gavin King and the JBoss Seam community were given top honors as the Best Web App Server Framework in the Platforms and Middleware category:
"Seam is a Java EE-based framework that helpfully combines Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) 3.0 and Java Server Faces (JSF), and delivers important new benefits that include handling the thorny problem of stateful page flows, simple construction of CRUD applications, AJAX and Web 2.0 interfaces on server-based applications, reporting enhancements, and an extensive business-rules capability."

And speaking of business-rules capability, Mark Proctor and the Drools/JBoss Rules community were given top honors as the Best Business Rule Management System in the Software Development category:
"Measured by enterprise-grade features including sophisticated tools for developers, graphical interfaces for business analysts, and fast runtime performance, JBoss Drools lags only Fair Isaac's Blaze Advisor and ILOG's JRules. At the current pace of development it will not lag them for long."

Both of these communities have been quickly building out innovative features designed to simplify application development. When used together and along with JBoss jBPM for Business Process and Workflow, the speed with which a robust, AJAX-enabled, business process and rules-driven application with full CRUD capabilities can be created is mind-numbingly impressive.

Anyhow, kudos to the Seam and Drools communities for showing who's the BOSS...the Best Open Source Software.

What's in a Subscription?

So, it's been a busy couple of months of business travel. With lots more to come in September and October.

My travel has mostly focused on meeting with customers and partners to understand their needs, share our strategy, and discuss ways we might be able to help them.

In these discussions, I typically cover our strategic roadmap and development model for the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and other JBoss Enterprise Middleware products.

Since the Red Hat / JBoss business model is built on selling subscriptions, the discussion leads to the definition of a Subscription.

Put simply, a Subscription is comprised of:

1. Software bits
2. Patches and updates to the bits
3. Support in the use of the bits
4. Legal assurance

While there's much more to say about each bullet point, that's basically the definition in a nutshell.

Since our products are open source, some people associate subscriptions with just support. In my Open Source Business Models: Definition of Support posting, I make the case that our customers need more than just support...which is why we are in the business of selling Subscriptions.

When Was Your Last Giant Leap?

A few years ago, I participated in a two day session with Bill Treasurer of Giant Leap Consulting. Bill's focus is on helping people and organizations be more courageous.

Founders of open source projects and companies exemplify what Bill would call "purposeful risk-taking". It takes courage to put your passion and work out there for all to see.

Two recent events reminded me of taking Giant Leaps:

1. My friend and prior coworker Ibrahim Abdelshafi is headed back to Egypt to be the CIO of one of their top financial services companies. Ibrahim has been at Primavera Systems for the past 15 years and has done a great job leading the development team there. He periodically considered a move back to Egypt to be closer to his family, but figured he'd seriously think of it in 3 or 5 years since he was really enjoying himself at Primavera. A conversation with an old friend from Egypt led him to more conversations....and bada bing....Ibrahim was faced with a Giant Leap decision. He leaves for Egypt on Tuesday.
2. My daughter Liza will turn 16 this July but will not be home for her sweet 16th birthday. She is currently participating in the Experiment in International Living and is in Europe for the entire month of July. I have tried to raise my kids to be open to life's opportunities, and I feel the EIL program will open her eyes to the much bigger world out there. This is definitely a Giant Leap for Liza who has never been away from home for an extended period of time...and frankly...a Giant Leap for me as her parent who still can't believe it's been 16 years since she was born.

As they say, the only constant in life is change. Many of us are spectators for these waves of change. In my opinion, the best changes, the sweetest changes, the most impactful changes are those where you make a conscious and informed decision to "go for it".

So, when was your last giant leap?

Whether it's in open source, business, or life, I'd love to hear your giant leap story.

Open Source Business Models: Definition of "Support"

Interesting thread on InfoQ regarding open source business models:
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/06/open-source-models

Rod Johnson and Stormy Peters are engaging in the debate of which model is better: "Create & Support" vs. "Pure Support". This topic has gone round and round in the past, and I think the heart of the debate lies in the definition of "Support".

The "Pure Support" model should actually be called "Technical Assistance" since it focuses on helping people get over technical issues, find workarounds, etc.

Technical assistance is important, but what happens when the issue requires a bug fix...or a refactoring of some of the code? Then what?

The code can be changed...but who manages that change? And if that code is part of a complicated stack of open source technologies...who is managing all the patches and branches of all those changes?

Also...who ensures that change is committed upstream so that future releases of the technology benefit from the change? If the changes are not committed upstream...then who will maintain that fork for the X-years lifecycle that enterprise customers demand?

Let's be real. While enterprise customers need technical assistance, they also need patches and updates to the versions of the software they have deployed today...and they want the peace of mind that comes with knowing that their fix today will still be there in future versions if/when they upgrade.

So, this explains why we at JBoss hire the key technical leaders from the projects that comprise our middleware portfolio. THIS is Professional Open Source.

Professional Open Source is not just Technical Assistance.

So, How's Life After Marc Fleury?

I was at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego last week and we had a capacity crowd of attendees, with lots of press and analysts attending the event as well. There was a lot of interest in our Open Source Architecture and our Developer strategy.

A variety of people also asked the question: "So, how's life after Marc Fleury?"

My thoughts on Marc's departure remain unchanged from my JBoss Reloaded blog in March. "Marc was never shy to speak his mind, and that fact helped keep JBoss in the news as much as our great technology did. Marc's persona fueled love/hate feelings forever preserved on the Internet; if you Google "Marc Fleury", you will get hundreds of thousands of hits. Love him or hate him, you have to give Marc props for taking a huge risk in 1999 and creating a software business that was valued at $350M in June 2006."

The recent article by Tom Sanders accurately quotes me in some aspects but sums things up in a misleading way. I do not think that "Marc Fleury's oversised ego stood in the way of partnerships, according to JBoss vice president - product management. ". And I do not credit our continued growth to Marc's departure.

I believe my thoughts above are clearly stated in my JBoss Reloaded blog. Marc Fleury absolutely has a lightning rod personality, and that fact helped make JBoss the success it is today. As part of Red Hat, however, JBoss Reloaded is less about one person. Things are different because folks like Sacha Labourey and Bob McWhirter have their own way of doing things. The new look at JBoss.org is just one example.

While I am quite happy with the success JBoss is having as part of Red Hat, I do not credit that success to one person joining...or one person leaving. We've got a great team of folks focused on the success of JBoss.

So, how's life after Marc? Fast-paced, exciting, and in the eye of the open source storm. While some things have changed...other things remain the same.