JBoss Founder Fleury Leaves Red Hat

Published: February 13, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

There has been talk that Marc Fleury, the chief executive officer of the formerly independent JBoss middleware company and one of the founders of the open source JBoss middleware project, was getting ready to leave Red Hat, the company that shelled out $350 million in April 2006 to buy JBoss. And late last week, Fleury did.

Exactly why Fleury left Red Hat is unclear, but after selling JBoss to Red Hat, he certainly didn't need to worry about money. He only stuck around for eight months, and as general manager of the JBoss unit, he was expected to be around for longer than this. It is hard for founders who are used to running the show to listen to the choreography of someone else's show, but there is zero indication that this was the issue from either Fleury or Red Hat. Which is precisely what you would expect from a public company not keen on having its stock price drop.

"I have done what I can to help Red Hat succeed," Fleury said in a statement. "People need to understand that open source is a tsunami that is transforming the software industry in its wake and its inevitability is now well beyond challenge or the force of individual personality." It is hard to argue that point, but some companies still do.

For its part, Red Hat didn't say much, either. "Red Hat is looking for candidates internally and externally to assume the responsibilities associated with Marc's role at Red Hat," said a spokesperson, adding that Fleury "decided to leave Red Hat to pursue other personal interests, such as teaching, research in biology, music, and his family."

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