Great! I am someone's hero!

Mark Hinkle published a piece on "Five Reasons why JBoss Founder is my Hero". You can find it here.

Heh! it felt good. I always liked a good rubbing of my back :) the top reasons were

1/ He Built a Community and then Built A Company.
True, although I have seen successful examples of the contrary, I am particularly proud of this fact.

2/ He Didn’t Do It in the Valley.
Well, by necessity, I was broke :) Truth be told I think ATL is a GREAT place to build a software business. When your talent is online you don't need to be in SV. In a way SV is passe in the age of the internet but even that obvious fact hasn't yet fully materialized.

3/ Returned Value to his Stakeholders.
No complains there.

4/ He Fostered a Legacy.
JBoss is an iconic brand and my father would be proud. I am also proud of the activity of the old JBossians

and my personal favorite

5/ Marc Fleury is was and will always be a Rockstar
More so than any other open source leader Marc Fleury has been colorful and had fun. He was probably one of the most quotable open source leaders of all time. Here’s the proof. At JavaPolis 2006 he showed up dressed as Public Enemy’s Flava Flav and gave a great professional intelligent speech on professional open source.


heh heh! for the little story, it was my ex-boss, Matthew Szulick that was the inspiration for the costume. He knew I liked to show up in costumes at industry events. One of the first meetings we have I tell him "M, we are public enemy number one now!", he says "Like the rap-band!" and he suggested I dress up as flavor flav for an event. I said "you got it!".

I did enjoy the showbiz angle very much. Too many young entrepreneurs discard the "marketing/entertainment" angle because they want their work to speak for itself or they want to appear "professional" which in many cases means "grey". It is a little bit arrogant, I know plenty of good technology that has never really seen the light of the market. Promotion is important, it is so easy to go un-noticed, it is the norm even, and even with good promotion you need luck to achieve visibility.

Anyway, thanks, it is always good to know you are not entirely forgotten :) and yes I did have a blast at this Javapolis talk.

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