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by Jens E.
Original Post: Biting The Hands That Feed
Feed Title: MyEclipse Blog
Feed URL: http://www.jroller.com/myeclipseblog/feed/entries/rss
Feed Description: IDE/tools issues & comments
It‘s been said that the key to happiness is to set your expectations so low that no matter what happens, it is never a surprise. And, we do our best to do exactly that with respect to the public behavior of many of our competitors. However, the latest astro-turfing at The Server Side by the JBoss clan concerning RedHat's partnership with Exadel failed to clear even the lowest-set bar. If you were privy to the post on The Server Side, you may think that I'm writing this blog to retaliate, or perhaps defend, Genuitec against the ensuing "Pick on MyEclipse" banter by the JBoss clan in the comments thread. No, not really. Being singled out as the IDE to beat in this industry sounded more like a compliment to me than criticism.
Regarding the announcement itself; it was not a big surprise that RedHat needed a vendor lock-in solution for its application stack. IBM, BEA and Oracle all have their own flavor, so the news doesn't fall in the terribly shocking category. It's also no surprise that: “For its part, Exadel is basically looking for a way to get out of product development and software support and get back to its professional services business.” (The Linux Beacon).
So why even address the announcement? Because I think the surrounding behavior exposes a much larger issue. I'm writing this blog because I truly believe many people who wear the open source badge completely miss the intent and spirit behind it. And, in the case of JBoss, even use it as a sharp stick to poke, bully and intimidate those that disagree with them.
Don't get me wrong, I was one of Mark Fleury's biggest fans when he cashed out of JBoss. But Mark didn't build a company, a brand and a community based solely on intimidation tactics. Mark understood that he had a snow-ball's chance in hell of competing in the Application Server market through a proprietary technology or by protecting content. Mark had to create a pseudo-religious following through the simple notion of enlightened self-interest; we both give a little and win at the end. If enough people believe in the idea, it creates a virtuous cycle that benefits all participants and gives JBoss a large enough lever to move the world.
Reflecting back on Genuitec's part in this equation, I could not help but highlight our role in feeding this virtuous cycle and helping Mark become a multi-millionaire. So here is a short list:
Genuitec was the first company to provide an Eclipse-based application server connector for JBoss, and have shipped more than 4 million downloads for this connector since 2002.
Through MyEclipse, Genuitec has shipped more than 3 million downloads for the JBoss Hibernate framework and provided extensive support and tooling for this fledgling technology.
Genuitec commissioned a number of training documents, supported a number of distance-learning portals and published a series of tutorials based on using MyEclipse with the JBoss application server.
MyEclipse support engineers have answered more than 10,000 questions on how to configure and use the JBoss application server. Many had little to do with how to use MyEclipse itself.
I could go on, but that is not the intent of this blog. And there's nothing altruistic here. Genuitec gladly supported JBoss technologies with our time, money and energy because enough people used them to warrant our attention. We adopted the various technologies such as XDoclet and Hibernate because we believed they had promise. Other IDEs and tooling companies did the same, and in doing so endorsed JBoss and created brand awareness that no marketing department or budget could have ever accomplished alone.
So, you can imagine my surprise when the partnership announcement by RedHat quickly degenerated into finger-pointing and name calling all under the guise of the "purity" of open source. The conversation became even more surreal as the debate raged over what open source license would provide more protection from adopters that "leech" off the open-source code base. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish. Someone should really pick up the GNU manifesto one more time and realize that people who build tall Cathedrals made out of glass should not be throwing rocks at others.
But, I'm not completely surprised. History has shown that children almost always squander their inherited fortunes because they did not live in the same conditions that gave rise to their legacy, and Mark Fleury's left-behinds are no different. Children (young or lacking experience) simply don't understand why it is in their best interest to share. They mistake popularity with power, and assume success is based entirely on their own actions. Possessiveness quickly gives rise to behavior that we expect from thugs and school yard bullies.
In an admittedly sweeping generalization, that could explain the latest finger pointing and name calling. I expected more from people like Gavin King, who should clearly know better. I expected people that tout "Professional open source" should at minimum actually be professional. Apparently, I might have put Gavin on an undeserved pedestal.
The more interesting conclusion in this discussion, and follow-on news coverage, is RedHat's decision to place all development tools under the GPL license. It worked for the Linux distribution, so why not apply the same approach to development tools? That makes about as much sense as using the same material to build both cars and space shuttles. As an enterprise developer, every line of code written that links to GPL software is now subject to the copy-left viral license and must be made public as the result of any modicum of distribution. So where do I sign up? I can almost hear the screaming from the legal department, and the mandate for audits and compliance. I can't possibly see how all of this will be attractive for enterprises looking for reliable solutions without a vendor or license lock-in. All done under the banner of protecting the "virtue" of open source.
My final conclusion in this long blog is simply this: If your business is based on open source, don't bite the hands that feed your success. And, if you don't want others to use your code then don't put it out as open source to begin with. Doing anything else is either plainly disingenuous or naively following the siren's call down a road paved with promise, but only littered with broken dreams.
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I can almost hear the screaming from the legal department, and the mandate for audits and compliance. I can't possibly see how all of this will be attractive for enterprises looking for reliable solutions without a vendor or license lock-in. All done under the banner of protecting the "virtue" of open source.
