There is a little piece of news in the software industry caught my attention this week. Red Hat, one of the biggest open source solution provider decided to buy JBoss, a not so well known open source middleware (application server) softare developer, for USD 350 million. I read an article on Business week about JBoss’s CEO Marc Fleury and “how he got here” last week. Because I did not find the BW article, I put a similar article on eWeek here, this one is interview. Quote Marc’s word “I have said many times that I want to create a new generation of open-source millionaires.” I think his word is true to a great extent because his company is mainly owned by founders and employees.
Interestingly enough, about 3 years ago, I was about to involve in the party. I sent out an email to the project manager (its CTO) and expressed my interest, and got reply from its CTO. Here is his reply and my message:
===============================================
Basically, you get started by posting patches for existing bugs, todos,
etc. to sourceforge to show you know what your doing. If we like what
we see you will be added as a developer. Read the developer
guidelines from the www.jboss.org developer section.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Scott Stark
Chief Technology Officer
JBoss Group, LLC
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
—– Original Message —–
From: me
To: Scott
Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 7:15 PM
Subject: Become a developer for JBoss
> Hi, Scott,
>
> I am interested in the development of JBoss
> open source project development. I am a
> full time developer in St. Louis, and have been
> SCJP since Jan. 2002. Please let me know
> the proper procedure to get started.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Major
>
==========================================
Unfortunately like anything else I pursued at that time, my passion only last 5 minutes. Now I know I missed another oppertunity to get rich.