IDC has reported that IBM surpassed BEA Systems last year for leadership in the J2EE application-server space. IBM WebSphere held a 29.2 percent share of the market, and BEA had 26.3 percent.

BEA had a large leap in the integration software space, growing revenue 103 percent to $147 million last year and capturing a fourth-place, 7 percent share of the market. They are likely to be more happy about this news, as the application market becomes a commodity.

IDC Report: IBM Grabs Top Spot in J2EE App Server Market

Pramati where does it stand????

JBOSS being a commericial entity . what are its revenues ??(From whatever services they sell)

For those that don't want to read, the ratings are based on gross sales numbers. There is no mention on whether this includes bundled product sales, pure app server sales, etc.

It's hard to say which measure is best for determining market share. Installed products is good but can be abused and is hard to measure.

An interesting survey would be which large enterprise solutions use which app server.

In a market with so many free and open-source alternatives, it's foolish to publish such a study and pretend that it reflects the true state of the business. It would clearly be foolish to release such a study discussing HTTP web servers. While Microsoft would probably top the revenues list, counting each Win2K Server license as revenue, the clear leader in pages served, Apache, wouldn't be on the map. Who knows what other marginal HTTP servers might make the list simply because they charge SOMETHING, while Apache is free.

Even if JBoss were to grow and match IBM and BEA in deployed instances, this report still wouldn't reflect the state of the market correctly. JBoss only books revenue on support, and their support is generally cheaper than even the licenses for Weblogic or Websphere on a multiprocessor server. So their market share would be less than half that of IBM or BEA according to this report, in spite of being on equal ground in terms of installed base.

This report is really only interesting when pairedwith a report detailing the percent of J2EE Application Servers running the software, or even better, hits served, which would begin to give an idea of the level of commodotization in the space. Market share matters a lot more if 99% of app servers are commercial than if that number is 50% and shrinking.

Remember that Tomcat, running frameworks like Spring and others, has more market than Weblogic, Websphere, JBoss and all the others together.

Remember that Tomcat, running frameworks like Spring and others, has more market than Weblogic, Websphere, JBoss and all the others together.

right. and ASP .NET web apps running on top of IIS reached 5 billions this year and their number is growing at the astounding rate of 1million/day. And JBOSS had 100 billions download last month

Rolf,

What are you? Some kind of bulls**t generator robot developed by Microsoft?

"And the winner of the appserver marketshare war is...Tomcat!"
http://www.sdtimes.com/news/063/story2.htm

That was 1.5 years ago. Today do to an report of J2EE application server market without mentioning Tomcat no doubt will please the big vendors IBM, BEA and so on, but other persons maybe will want to know what is really happening out there in times of Tomcat/Spring, Tomcat/Webwork2/ Tomcat/Tapestry and so on. :)

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

The TSS discussion.
And the winner of the appserver marketshare war is...Tomcat!

Tomcat is not a J2EE compliant application server. It qualifies as a "Web Container" or a "Servlet Engine" or a "Servlet Container". "J2EE Application Server" implies "implementation of the J2EE spec"...

Tomcat may not be a J2EE server in the meaning "approved by Sun", but for all practical purposes and together with Spring it can do as much J2EE stuff a "real J2EE Server" can do, and a good deal faster. :)

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

The question is neither about "the times" nor about "what you can do". The research is about J2EE App Servers and Tomcat isn't one.

Look at it like a research about the sports cars. And you're telling me that a Kawasaki ZX-10R (a motorbike) can go 0 to 100 faster than a car so it has to be in...

"Look at it like a research about the sports cars. And you're telling me that a Kawasaki ZX-10R (a motorbike) can go 0 to 100 faster than a car so it has to be in... "

No. I am telling you that for all practical purposes (barring perhaps a few very odd cases) that Tomcat + Spring + Hibernate or iBATIS is a much better (=smarter) way to make money. You can do everything the Big App Servers can do and with much better performance as well as productivity.

You have to admit that if what I say is true then it would be stupid to pay money for a Big J2EE Server would you not?

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

"Look at it like a research about the sports cars. And you're telling me that a Kawasaki ZX-10R (a motorbike) can go 0 to 100 faster than a car so it has to be in... "No. I am telling you that for all practical purposes (barring perhaps a few very odd cases) that Tomcat + Spring + Hibernate or iBATIS is a much better (=smarter) way to make money. You can do everything the Big App Servers can do and with much better performance as well as productivity.You have to admit that if what I say is true then it would be stupid to pay money for a Big J2EE Server would you not?RegardsRolf Tollerud

This is better way to save money not to make money, I think it is not the same.

I agree 100%. The problem is the majority of people simply do not understand the technology and concepts well enough to know this. They think you have to spend huge sums of $$$ on an App Server to do anything in the Java space.

I agree, sometimes it's better to go with "cheap" solutions. I'm a employe at company "x" and use Oracle app server (iAS), but if I try to do some freelance develop will be with some cheap solutions with the same quality.

That way I wil be making more money for me and the people that choice me for the develop.

;-)

Rafael Moreno

"...Tomcat + Spring + Hibernate or iBATIS is a much better (=smarter) way to make money. You can do everything the Big App Servers can do and with much better performance ...

What? Are you saying the Tomcat performs better than WebLogic? Do you have any data to back up this claim? Since Spring and Hibernate will run on any app server, the only variable left is Tomcat. Have you tested your Spring and Hibernate app in a properly tuned WLS environment against an equivalent Tomcat deployment? If so, then this is really quite an astonishing claim. Furthermore, have you tested this app with 100's or 1000's of simultaneous users? Involving multiple app server hosts and CPUs? With session failover and load balancing? Tomcat is certainly cheaper, and the productivity claim could be debated, but better performance? You will have to show me the numbers.

"Tomcat is certainly cheaper, and the productivity claim could be debated, but better performance? You will have to show me the numbers"

First let me set something straight without beating around the bush. Weblogig is the best application server. (I will say though that they never could have acquired their current position without some MS programmers they picked up on their way :) They had leaved to work for their own start-up business which was eventually bought by BEA).

But now the issue is entirely different. This time BEA is not fighting against a vendor that has to adhere to specifications "made by aliens or by Sun which is the same thing", but against completely new ideas distilled and washed out from Open Source and honed to perfection by two geniuses.

So to the question of which one is faster don't you think that competition is a little unfair when you have two runners ready for the marathon, and one of them has a chain-ball around the leg but not the other?

In the Spring world you can decide for yourself if you want to create a "Lightweight / Mediumweight / Fatass project"."! In the Big App Servers panorama unfortunately, there are only Fatass projects. :(

If BEA is the company I think it is, then they could pick the ideas from Spring and make a commercial version, an entirely new product. They still have their MS programmers + the excellent Cedric Beust. They can do it.

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

Scott,

I think Rolf is only trying to provoke! I don't think it's because he develops or uses any of these technologies. There's no point to argue!

Regards,

 - Yagiz -

I can assure you that Spring will be my first choice in all .NET projects, large and small, as soon it is ported to C# which is under way.

I have to make do with what I have.

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

I have to make do with what I have

Rolf,

That's exactly what Microsoft world is. You couldn't describe it better. Good luck!

Regards,

 - Yagiz -

"I don't think it's because he develops or uses any of these technologies"

As a matter of fact I have done a small contribution to the C# port, remains to see if it will be accepted.

We will see which one that will have the last laugh!

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

We will see which one that will have the last laugh!

Is that from "the famous last words"? ;-)

No, I was refering to F.W. Murnau's film.

Rob -

I have posted this information elsewhere on this site but just in case you didn't see it, I wanted to say that you are correct in many of your opinions. And that is why there is no such report or study published by IDC. I think when you use the word "report" in your email, you mean the CRN article? CRN has removed their article from their web site because there is no such IDC report. We in fact have researched most of the subjects you mention and I would happy to join a chat room to discuss our findings if such a thing could be organized.

Thank you

Dennis Byron
Research Analyst, Application Deployment Software, IDC

This application has grown a lot lately. I'm sure they did some marketing for professional services and their evolution was spectacular. Let's see what the future is reserving for them.

I found it not very helpful paper. I want to know the number of active licence/site used for those App Server.

-spacemaster

<app-server>
Pramati and JBoss stand out for "User Friendliness" to the developer/administrator.
WAS for Professional Console.
WLS for WebServices support.
Revenues -?
</app-server>

I JUST CAN'T believe that Oracle 9iAS has 19.4% of the app server market share... All lies & stats aside, I wonder, within that figure, what's the real percentage of Oracle 9iAS hosting J2EE apps (and not forms and reports etc.) deployed in a production environment.

I work with 9iAS and it doesn't deserve the title "app server"! It's just various products bundled together that don't work well! Concerning Oracle 9iAS there's no such thing as a user community and their support ... well no need to be rude in this forum.

Use something else while you can!

Hi Yagiz,

I am curious, which version of the Oracle Application Server/OC4J container have you evaluated and which aspect of the product did not work?

The Collaxa BPEL engine is implemented as a Java application. Originally (2001-2002), we only supported WebLogic because it was by far the most reliable and easy to use Java Application Server. In 2002, we added support of JBOSS because it allowed us to reduce the price of the product and provide a 1-click install. At the same time, we had to add support for IBM WebSphere because of customer demand.

This year, we started to see increased demand for Oracle 9iAS so we decided to take a look and see how much progress Oracle has made over the last 3 years (the initial experience in late 2000 was very bad!). I must admit that the engineer that did the port was rather impressed: The Oracle J2EE container version 9.0.4 (aka as OC4J) has a 30MB distribution, installs as easily as JBOSS, starts faster than JBOSS and has a comprehensive J2EE implementation including a light-weight in-memory JMS, decent JTA, robust JDBC and full support for stateless and stateful SessionBeans, some decent documentation and it is pretty much free for developers. The only thing that seems to be missing is a robust administration console.

I am not sure who should be getting the credit for this, the Oracle team or the Orion team...but the results are there.

Edwin

Hi Edwin,

We've been using 9.0.2 and older versions for running Oracle Forms. Last year we started to use 9.0.3 for a J2EE project. I work in a development company where we work on various projects with different environments. We're exposed to different configurations all the time. After having used WebLogic, 9iAS seems to be ... something else. There's no comparison.

I see that you're talking about 9.0.4 (AKA 10g). These days Oracle's answer to all the complaints is "move to 10g and you'll be saved!". But it's easier said than done. And vendors always say the same thing, don't they?

I hope 9.0.4 is as good as you describe. For instance, I see the huge difference between different versions of JDeveloper. What it was 3 years ago and how good it is now. If Oracle has the same success in building an app server I'll be impressed.

But with 9.0.3 it's not there. As an example, last year we faced a problem in the number of entity beans that we deployed. We couldn't deploy more than 25 CMP Entity EJBs in one JAR. Then they corrected that in the next patchset. But, to start with, I wonder if they had ever tested their product.

We had problems with CMR and we had to code it manually.

As of today, I'm stuck with an installation problem. I can't install a new instance because the installer thinks that I'm in the middle of an uninstall. Result: I can't reinstall, I can't uninstall and I can't install a new version.

We run 5 instances (dev/test/integration) on a big HP-UX box with 3Gb of memory. Well, we had to buy more memory because we couldn't run them together. When I talked about this during the training, the instructor was really surprised that we were trying to run 5 instances on the same box.

One can't install a standalone 9.0.3 on a box where there's already a 9.0.2 installation. 9.0.3 hooks into 9.0.2 infrastructure automatically. But why? WHY? The Oracle's solution to that is to install 9.0.3 first. That's a complete hack. And what if I want to install 9.0.3 on a production box running 9.0.2 already: I have to build everything from scratch. Talk about a solution!!!

These problems remind me of WebSphere 3 that I worked with 4 years ago. Pre-J2EE days.

Anyway, I don't want to continue to whine about it here. There's no point. I'm not in love with any of the app servers out there. But when you compare 9iAS 9.0.3 and WebLogic, there's a big difference in usability, developer community, etc.

I hope 9.0.4(10g) is better, I think we'll have to use it soon anyway. But if you have a choice to make, don't use 9.0.3. Runaway while you can! Save yourselves! ;-)

Regards,

 - Yagiz -

Hi Yagiz

I would like to talk to you to exchange our experiences with Oracle 9ias. I feel we have a lot in common. My name is Danny Hamilton and my email address is danham27 at hotmail dot com.

Look forward to hearing from you. Perhaps we can help each other ?

Regards

Danny

OK, got my own account here now. Bob and I have been working on upgrading from Oracle9iAS (1.0.2.2) Containers for J2EE to 9iAS 9.0.3. We have encountered a number of problems that have prevented the production implementation of the upgrade (yes, we have had expert advice on this but to no avail). Anybody who can help us, please contact us at danham27 at hotmail dot com. We are willing to share our fixes and experiences in a mutual exchange so we can help each other.

Regards

Danny and Bob

Try Orion application server, and you will never want to try OC4J again. Knowing that 10g OC4J is based on Orion, one might think that Oracle took the Orion base and improved it... Not so. While Orion server has always been offering simplicity [much needed] in a very complex J2EE environment, Oracle managed to turn this brilliant piece of software into a really bad monster with Oracle AS 10g by bundling it with and adding dependencies to its own database and admin tools. Same thing for documentation.

Valerie,
Do you know there is standlone version of OC4J available ? When did you last try OC4J ? Try OC4J 9.0.4 production or J2EE 1.4 compliant 10.0.3 release.

Pramati where does it stand????JBOSS being a commericial entity . what are its revenues ??(From whatever services they sell)

The last survey I saw that covered JBoss was something called BZResearch by SDTimes. They put JBoss at 27% usage with BEA at 34% and IBM at 40%.

So fast the winds can turn around sometimes!

JBoss, inspite having lots of issues, as Cameron and many others have pointed out, still attracted interest being seen as an alternative to the expensive Big Java Server. But now, and even before we can see what Spring really are up too, JBoss is being dropped like a hot potato. The role as a challenger to the big J2EE app vendors is left up to Spring. That is a change I really applaud, because C# is not left out.

So now the Java world needs JBoss as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

So now the Java world needs JBoss as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

Rolf,

You should seriously apply for a job in one of those market research/analysis companies. I'm sure you can beat them with your way of analyzing things. Even the title of your message is enough to secure a job. Go and provoke some other community!

And, for the record, a fish may need a bicycle, it all depends on how environment friendly it is...

Yagiz: "and provoke some other community"

I am not provoking but dealy serious.

As one of the things that have impressed me most in life was an event for a couple of year ago. Somewhere in South-America a great gathering of different "Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española" took place. I understand they gather every 4 years or so. One of the things that were on the order was to decide the Spanish language collation order. They discussed the matter for some days, took a vote, and decided what the right collation order was going to be in the future. That is what I call real power! 400 million people have to adhere to the new order if they want to speak correct Spanish! Without having any say in the matter :) Everywhere in the world business and organizations began the work to implement the changes.

The point is that I think it is about time that all TSS members realize that TSS is for the IT world something similar to what the Asociación de Academias is for the Spanish language. It is more than an association for Java. Nowhere else in the world exist a larger collection of experienced computer consultants.

Regards
Rolf Tollerud

The point is that I think it is about time that all TSS members realize that TSS is for the IT world... It is more than an association for Java.

No! You can't start by saying "the point is!" because you don't make a point, you never make a point. Look at your messages again: You jump from one subject to another. As I said earlier: "Stop provoking the community!".

Yagiz,

Why should I stop provoking when you do not stop provoking? You have a number of times ridiculed MS effort to spread COM to other platforms for example (disregarding the fact that for each MS failure they have hundreds of successes). BTW, if Linux had a working COM implementation today they would be much better of on the desktop :)

If the Java world and the .NET world could agree on some common frameworks as for example Spring and similar systems, billions and trillions could be saved. This constant attacks again and again from the Java/Unix world is very boring as well as they are disastrous to third party. Do you know at one time MS wanted to port NT to Solaris? Sun threatened to whatever was necessary to stop it.

Can you try to estimate how much this fight between Sun and MS has cost in billions and trillions for third party? I was hoping with the last agreement between Sun and MS that this shit would stop now.

Regards
Rolf Tollerud
(are you working on your homegrown Avalon/XAML perhaps?)

Yagiz,Why should I stop provoking when you do not stop provoking? You have a number of times ridiculed MS effort to spread COM to other platforms for example (disregarding the fact that for each MS failure they have hundreds of successes). BTW, if Linux had a working COM implementation today they would be much better of on the desktop :)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvc60/html/msdn_unixcom.asp

BTW it is an open standard too, it is invented by Open Software Fundation like most MS technologies.
http://www.microsoft.com/com/resources/comdocs.asp

People can live without myths and enemies :)

Rolf Tollerud: So now the Java world needs JBoss as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

I just don't understand why people feel the need to make sweeping statements like this. It all comes down to CHOICE. If you don't need or want JBoss, don't use it. There are plenty of other valid CHOICES out there in the Java space.

There are also plenty of companies, like mine, who can and do leverage what JBoss DOES bring to the table. The company I work for has a large Weblogic install base as well, and now we are migrating most if not all of those to JBoss because we simply CAN. We are also using JBoss as the first choice for all new serverside Java development.

JBoss may not be a perfect app server, but it does work for not only my company, but many others as well.

The only thing I can come up with is Rolf simply isn't used to much having much CHOICE in his Microsoft centric world.

Dustin Barlow (and yes, this is my real name)

The report is based on a methodology that excludes any open source alternatives. The number are probably a little lower than what's in the report because AppServer like JBoss or Jonas are not accounted for. (The biggest looser, if open source appserver would be in the report, would probably be Sun).

Another thing that the report misses is that because it's only based on sales, no one knows how many application, in production, run on each product (which is the real installation base).

The report does give an idea of were things are, but it's just that... an idea.

It's really interesting to see Oracle is close third and BEA is loosing ground. You can twist the market equation if you have money and persistence like IBM or Oracle. Next year who knows BEA may be a close third

The relevancy of this report of course depends on who you are. If you are an investor, you're interested in sales and in that respect the report _is_ meaningful. However, most of us here are engineers of some sort who are interested in number of installations rather than sales. I think the most relevant source of information about installations are the job databases. Unfortunately they are hard to query, particularly for products that are known by a variety of names like sun's or oracle's. May attempt at www.jobserve.co.uk shows the following numbers:

IBM 465
BEA 463
Tomcat 86
Jboss 84
Oracle 77
Sun 30
Resin 5
Orion 1
Jonas 1

Of course a single reading doesn't reveal any trends and there are lots of other deficiencies in such queries... One interesting (and I think positive) fact is that most of the adverts that ask for j2ee do not require any specific application server product knowledge at all.

One additional thing that should be noted is that the numbers are probably distorted in favor of those appservers that are perceived to have a larger market share. A company that uses Resin is less likely to require it of job applicants than a company using weblogic or websphere.

I've worked only with large companies doing work for the government where they waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on Weblogic.

I'll bet smaller, commercial businesses use lighter frameworks and better servers like Tomcat/Hibernate & JBoss.

Randy: I've worked only with large companies doing work for the government where they waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on Weblogic. I'll bet smaller, commercial businesses use lighter frameworks and better servers like Tomcat/Hibernate & JBoss.

You were doing OK until you said "better servers" and "JBoss". I think that one blew your cover.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Clustered JCache for Grid Computing!

You were doing OK until you said "better servers" and "JBoss". I think that one blew your cover.

A quick scan of previous threads indicates that you have previously challenged Mr. Spear's identity.

There seems to be a bit of a pattern that if someone posts something you don't agree with, you accuse them of not being a real person.

Do you understand why this is a bit offensive?

Corby: Do you understand why this is a bit offensive?

If a corporate entity makes it an endorsed policy to post under fake names on a public board then this is what they should expect. When that corporation's employees, on that corporation's equipment, operating from that corporation's offices anonymously attack -- on a public forum and using pseudonyms -- people that they disagree with, as well as competing products and companies, then I feel quite justified in disbelieving every blindly positive post made by recently created accounts seemingly named after porn stars. Do you understand why this is a bit offensive?

If you don't find those posts offensive, then you're sick, because when a community (which includes you) tolerates such twisted contributions, it cannot but weaken the very fabric of that community. If you don't like it, fix the real problem. Don't get high-and-mighty pointing your finger at people who stand against such blatant dishonesty.

I will personally put my real name on this message, and stand behind it.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Clustered JCache for Grid Computing!

Cameron Purdy said>>
made by recently created accounts seemingly named after porn stars

I make a positive comment about Tomcat/Hibernate. Dude I'm not a porn star. Your twisted.

Who cares who the poster is, if what they are saying makes sense? If the post is complete bull****, expose it for being just that.

Many names here who have been, ahem, under suspicion of being psuedonyms participate on a small number of threads related, ahem, suspiciously to certain products or technologies. Most interestingly, these people often dominate the posts, and at times they actually turn the tide of the discussion from one direction to another.

In some cases, discussions have been turned from being anti-X to pro-X, where one or more people turn the discussion tide, and along the way they often paint the dissenters in a pretty ugly light. What really sucks in these instances is that the dissenters are people with established identities here (which match their real ones!) - and the pro-X people walk, talk, and quack like employees of the company hiding behind fake names.

The real damage is to casual readers of TSS. They read a bit here and there and see a large number of sincere-seeming pro-X posts and start believing what they say. They get sucked into the anonymous-shill compaign, become a part of it, and don't even realize they're getting duped.

What really, really sucks about the whole thing is that people are lying on purpose and in-the-large to profit their companies, and to purposely torpedo their competition at the same time.

The really tough part is something you refer to: "if what they are saying makes sense?". Certain individuals effectively have become professionals at writing posts under fake names, and they are very, very good at writing tentative-seeming posts that purposely insert a few down-sides of technology "X" to make the posts seem more authentic.

These anonymous fakers do real damage to real individuals and real companies, and most likely cause concrete monetary damage as well. In some cases you can ferret them out - my own little run in with Arun Patel leaves no doubt in my mind that he's an employee of a certain company masquerading under an assumed alias. But for each one ferretted out, who knows how many other names sneak through undetected.

I for one would be happy if TSS would investigate at least the most blatantly obvious cases and take some action - a public announcement would likely suffice. There probably is no systematic approach that could weed out this sort of thing 100% reliably without destroying the community in the process, but if nothing else TSS could make it harder on the fakers and force them to use some creativity.

     -Mike

You want to get serious. How about all the money being wasted on expensive app servers. Are you kidding me? You really think some anonymous user expressing kudos to Tomcat/Struts/Hibernate is doing damage? My personal agenda is I want to solve the customers problems by hashing out the domain, finding ways to improve communication etc. Instead I have higher ups advising me to learn Grid computing. The customer doesn't need grid computing and doesn't need expensive app servers (most of the time). nough said.

Senor Artful - I have no way of knowing your "personal agenda", now do I?

And no, you don't "have" to tell anyone your real name. But I admit to be curious - why don't you use your real name? What's your reasoning behind being anonymous? I think anonymous posting has its place and wouldn't want to see it banned, but I'm always interested in why people do it.

So, seriously - why are you anonymous? Why don't you want to match up your real name with your words?

    -Mike

I'm anonymous because you may be my boss some day or vice versa.
I want to be free to say something you may not like ;)

- peace

I see. So if you used your real name you would feel constrained in what you say due to some hypothetical future meeting between us. By extension, I assume you _never_ want to say something "[I] may not like" using your real identity - whether you post it today under your name, or say it in person around the water cool would have the same effect, either way you won't say it because you're afraid your opinions/thoughts might be construed negatively.

So do you tip-toe around your co-workers/boss/employees and not tell them the truth of what you're thinking because you may something they may not like? Or is this only a hypothetical interview type thing e.g. you don't want the interview colored either way? In that case - isn't that a case of lying via concealment? Do you feel afraid to express opinions on interviews because you might offend the interviewer? How does this work out after you get the job (or offer the job to someone)?

    -Mike

I think it is perfectly legitimate to post anonymously. I don't, but that's my personal choice. I don't think you have an obligation as an employee to let your employer know all your personal opinions. You have an obligation to do the work you are payed for as good as you can but the rest is a question of personal relationships. If my employer values my opinion beyond my professional duties, that is a question of mutual trust, which has to be earned from both sides. So far, I have been fortunate enough to have such an open relationship with the people I worked with but that may not always be the case and it may not always be the fault of any individual employee or boss for that matter. It may sometimes be a matter of company culture that is beyond the reach of anybody.

That said, I agree completely with you and Cameron where identity is obscured for commercial purposes. That is damaging. I just don't know what could be done against it without causing a general climate of suspicion...

Alexander - I pretty much agree on all points. I will say, however, that I don't understand why you might want to obscure technical opinions - there seems to be little merit in "hiding" those from your employer. If they really are you r opinions I imagine your employer will find out about them sooner or later :-)

    -Mike

If a corporate entity makes it an endorsed policy to post under fake names on a public board... When that corporation's employees anonymously attack people that they disagree with...

Cameron, you have repeated these allegations enough in public that it might be fair to share how you know this to be true. I may be exceedingly dense, but if there was any evidence in the hyperlinks you provided I could not find it.

I have no idea if what you are saying is true or false, but I do think it is a bit yellow to keep making this accusation without providing evidence. You wouldn't want someone to incriminate Tangosol in this way.

If you don't find those posts offensive, then you're sick... If you don't like it, fix the real problem. Don't get high-and-mighty pointing your finger at people who stand against such blatant dishonesty.

If the posts are fake, I certainly find them offensive. But I also find it offensive when you start attacking any new member of the community because you, Cameron Purdy, don't know them personally and they express a viewpoint you don't agree with. You are almost certainly taking out legitimate new posters in the process. You feel that sort of collateral damage is morally justifiable. I do not.

knowing that web servers log everything, and everyone knows where the logs get stored, it isn't difficult to guess that TSS knows everyone's ip address who posts in these forums. It has been out for a while now,that Jboss employees have been logging under fake names(it was even the opening joke at this year's TSS symposium.)

Corby: Cameron, you have repeated these allegations enough in public that it might be fair to share how you know this to be true. I may be exceedingly dense, but if there was any evidence in the hyperlinks you provided I could not find it.

Fair enough. In this case, the fact that Ben signed up Arun Patel's account using his real email address was a pretty good indicator of who he was. After he went after Mike Spille (for pointing out problems with JBoss,) a little digging was done, and *voila* that's what was found.

It was already known for some time that posting under false names was "official policy." That information (as well as some more interesting factoids) came out when CDN split from JBG.

The number of complaints going to TSS about these various obviously faked posts were impossible to ignore, so they set out to fix the problem. Unfortunately, that's about as much of the story as I can tell you myself. The rest will have to come from them, as I believe they plan to announce their findings at some point in the near future.

As for the merits of posting anonymously .. well, I have posted anonymously on the internet before, so I'm not suggesting that there isn't a time and place for anonymity. However, this pattern of repeatedly attacking individuals and competing products from behind the veil of anonymity is far beyond the domain of fair play and ethical behavior. And trust me, it's not one person doing it, lest some trite official apology try to pin this tail onto a single donkey. Randy Spears, for example, was posting on one of his five accounts, and he wasn't posting from the JBoss HQ (like Arun Patel -- supposedly in India -- does.)

Corby, I want you to go back and read Arun's personal attacks on Mike and tell me what you think. Then, I want you to consider that Mike knew that Arun was a JBoss employee all along. Tell me, which was offensive, and who was the better man?

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Clustered JCache for Grid Computing!

The number of complaints going to TSS about these various obviously faked posts were impossible to ignore....

The number of complaints going to TSS about these various obviously faked posts was impossible to ignore....

Randy Spears, for example, was posting on one of his five accounts....

I should have been more clear on this point, since I do not know for an absolute fact at this point in time that Randy Spears (in name or spirit) is an employee of the forementioned company, posting anonymously, nor do I know for certain that Randy was the person logging into multiple TSS accounts. Therefore, it is possible that Randy Spears is a real person, unassociated with JBG, and has an honest opinion about JBoss / Tomcat / Hibernate being the best combination of software in the market.

Further, I am not attempting to denigrate JBoss or Tomcat or Hibernate by pointing out the epidemic of Anonymous Posting Syndrome (APS). The one subject is technical, the other is social, and I'm certain that most adults can keep the two safely separated.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Clustered JCache for Grid Computing!

I can back up what Cameron's saying on the "historical" cases, most particularly the information on "Arun". Good old Arun is an employee of JBoss Inc, has several TSS accounts, and a few other JBossers also have similar accounts under pseudonyms which they post under to give certain discussions that extra special spin.

The people doing this posting are very well-known as well, not anonymous low-level employees. Does it shock people to hear that some of the longest, most drawn out and controversial discussions here on TSS have in fact heavily involved anonymous fakers all from the same company? Well, shocking or not it's a fact.

I can't comment on Randy, but the pattern from the past year alone has been very clear and very well established. Like Cameron, I look to our gracious hosts to provide the full story sometime soon. But in the meanwhile, consider this: as Cameron has said, this is not a case of one person going off on their own. It's a considered, deliberate, and coordinated strategy spanning many individuals.

    -Mike

Corby, I want you to go back and read Arun's personal attacks on Mike and tell me what you think. Then, I want you to consider that Mike knew that Arun was a JBoss employee all along. Tell me, which was offensive, and who was the better man?
Peace,Cameron Purdy

Thanks, Cameron. It is extremely helpful when you provide that kind of evidence along with the charges. From previous posts, you gave the impression that you were just making guesses, and I thought you and Mike were being bullies.

I apologize that I don't have the time to read an extended flamewar between Arun and Mike, but I will take your word for it. I don't care how many companies engage in this practice; I think it is very sleazy and I expect a higher standard from companies in this space.

Also, I think the free time is doing Mike some good. He was amazingly civil in his earlier post on this thread. :) It validates my theory that sometimes in the past he was posting from 'cubicle rage,' as I have done before.

Here's a concatenation of several posts from that thread between ARun and me, along with some choice bits from other threads as well. I don't do this just to dredge up old history, but rather to show this in a newer light. Remember folks, this is a high-level JBoss employee speaking (one who as a matter of fact actually e-mailed me once, long before this little debacle ever occured).

=================================
"Spille, short for idiot"
As I read his latest rant, I find it totally commical. Who is this clown? What has he ever accomplished in his career?
[...]
Next, look at the people who are active coders:
David Jencks - Anyone use the first version of the JBoss JCA implementation?
Dain Sundstrom - Didn't someone on this list say the JBoss CMP engine was crap? And until recently has gotten better.
Jeremy Boynes - Can not even name what this guy has ever done in his career
Greg Wilkins - The guy who just can not give up, and realize that Tomcat is the servlet spec
I think this is one other dude as well.
 Perhaps Mike Spille is lending his XA insights to their code, but someone I doubt it, as he seems like more of an architect who is allergic to code.

So Mike, do everyone a favor here, go hang with you cats and leave the rest of us alone. And most importantly, get some work done, do something meaningful, and most importantly get a clue!

========================================
This is fantastic stuff...Colin Come on Man
Posted By: Arun Patel on February 02, 2004 @ 04:02 PM in response to Message #109144 2 replies in this thread
You are saying that a 1.0 RC1 is more stable than a product used in production by a lot of very large companies all over the world. I read through Marc's post and could not find one place in which he ripped on Spring. I think he just talked about standards will win the battles, not little groups huddled in their own corners.

You are mighty defensive is there something that people should know?

I do agree with your post on the JBoss CMP engine being caca. I think it has gotten better now, as the guy who wrote it left and the others started to make it better. I had a ton of problems with the CMP engine in 3.0.x, but have seen it improve in 3.2.x significantly. I read something that they are going to build CMP on top of Hibernate, which should really scream.

=================================
"Can anyone win an arguement with Mike Spille.."
this guy is unbelievable, I tell you. I do not think I have ever met anyone quite as bull headed as this guy. Even if he is dead wrong, he believes he is right. Perhaps, Mr. Spille should be in the legal profession instead of living his glorious life in a cubicle. However, he does have a lot of hate deep down hate for JBoss. So, I am in the process of doing a little experiement. First off, I am going to call his so-called employer and see if there really is a Mike Spille there. If not, I have a strage suspicion that he could be one of the defectors of JBoss just can't grasp with the fact that the project has continued after their fork. My hypothesis could be wrong, but curiousity is killing me. I have a hard time seeing people so hateful in the world.

I am not saying the JBoss guys have never done anything wrong or that they are saints by no stretch of the imagination. That fleury has definitely put his foot in his mouth on more than one occasion. He has been known to be hateful and revengeful. However, this Spille is consistent with his hate for JBoss and being curious I am going to find out if he really exists...

=======================================

Less Sun Specific Crap
Posted By: Arun Patel on December 12, 2003 @ 07:43 AM in response to Message #103864 0 replies in this thread
The subject says it all. Last year they did not let anyone of the big sponsors have any keynotes, IBM, BEA, and others help the Java community a lot more than sun, who constantly release crappy software and is now using the java brand on stuff that isn't even Java, like the Java Desktop, which is mostly C and C++,

NOISY: How about making Jonas work first....
Posted By: Arun Patel on October 31, 2003 @ 11:22 AM in response to Message #100244 2 replies in this thread
Start there and then add more. Last I saw with Jonas, they did nto have clustering, their JMS implementation was a joke, their EJB stuff is old, etc, etc, etc.

=======================================

What is it with all of these French open source clowns? What ever happened to good closed source software from America and India. All I want is something that works, I like BEA.

Arun
=======================================

Why two app servers ?
Posted By: Arun Patel on December 09, 2003 @ 07:51 AM in response to Message #103705 3 replies in this thread
Sounds like you just took the microkernal base of JBoss and are copying this design, you can already do all of this stuff you speak of in JBoss I think. Don't they have some unified class loader that allows for this kind of integration. Plus full JMX microkernal? Sounds as if personal feeling got in the way of rational thought to me. For someone who speaks of not reinventing the wheel, it seems as if that is exactly what you are doing with your project. Just my opinion, keep up the work, maybe we will get some innovation out of this. That is what I hope, innovation, not immitation...
=======================================

First report...
Posted By: Arun Patel on February 22, 2004 @ 04:52 PM in response to Message #111592 1 replies in this thread
There is no Mike Spille at SIAC, which is the company he said he worked for in a previous post a while back. He said he worked for the company that developed the technology for the NY Stock Exchange. There is a chance that he is not a subscriber to this system. Now the second test, calling information for Spille in NYC...

========================================
Second Test...
Posted By: Arun Patel on February 22, 2004 @ 04:57 PM in response to Message #111316 0 replies in this thread
Called information in New York city for Mike Spille and there is no listing. Once again, it is possible he is not listed, but even if he is not listed I would have received a recording that says, at the customers request, this number is not listed. But they could not find a Mike Spille within 30 minutes of NYC. According to his blog, that is where he lives and works.

Now I am really starting to get suspicious.

========================================
Can anyone win an arguement with Mike Spille....
Posted By: Arun Patel on February 22, 2004 @ 05:12 PM in response to Message #111596 2 replies in this thread
Yes, sir I have seen your resume and website, but I still do not buy who are who you say you are. Who are these people that can vouch for you. I have run a search for technovision and found nothing....

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Off topic and bs
Posted By: Arun Patel on February 22, 2004 @ 05:37 PM in response to Message #111601 0 replies in this thread
I work for wipro in Bangalore, India.

========================================

Nice, eh? "Arun" manages not only to trash me, but trash CDN folks, Jonas folks, etc, and get the occasional plug in for JBoss. He even denigrates JBoss a little here and there, to get that extra-authentic feel.

You can believe in what the marketing and "Grass roots" efforts tell you, or you can read the above in a new light. It should be pretty obvious, though, what "Professional Open Source" means to _me_.

    -Mike

I have been following all the threads that mike and cameron mention, and have seen the allegations that some posters are fake before but have never believed them.
perhaps foolishly i have noted that a lot of people seem to really like jboss, and thought that perhaps the criticisms have been too rough.
This may still be the case, but i really feel that jboss own voice have been absent from the discussions apart from a post by Nathalie Fleury attacking Cameron Purdy (happily tangosol bla bla jcache blabla) for having a hidden agenda as a software vendor.

If this is true, i as a serverside reader feel violated and decieved by jboss, and this will surely taint my opinion of jboss as a product, especially since it is not alone in the free j2ee server space anymore.

So Jboss: is this true? if not please state it publicly (i would be outraged if something like this was implied of me, and you could very well win a lawsuit for slander), and if it is, the please own up to it and apologize.
You have been quick enough to make your opinions known in the past, and this is really hurting your credibility.

Using Tomcat / Struts - the most popular
Using hibernate ----> some what popular
Using JBOSS/ Pramati ---> not so popular

Basically Tomcat is a good enough server environment for small business web sites which opt for shared hosting / outsourced hosting

It costs from 5$ a month to 20$ a month to host on tomcat

cheers

Another thing to keep in mind is that some servers embed tomcat or use its components internally, for example WebSphere using the Jasper JSP engine. When you factor that in, the "market share" for tomcat goes higher...

Dion

Please note the the CRN story to which you refer folks has been removed from their web site because of a variety of errors the most important of which was that there is no such IDC report. There seems to be a lot of interest in the subject among this group, especially in terms of open source and more focused suppliers such as Pramati, and I would be happy to join a chat room and answer some of the questions I see on your site in response to your posting if there is a way to organize such a thing. I will answer as many of the questions individually as I can.

Dennis Byron
Research Analyst, Application Deployment Software, IDC

I just want to add my .02$ about what it really an anonymous posting, as I have see none in this thread.

Being anonymous is to decline disclosure of your identity. It is NOT to decline another identity to hide your real one.

What has been discussed here is that some people use multiple identities to promote (note that I say promote and not express) their ideas. First this is not very ethical. Second, this is not to express the right (or may I say priviledge) to post anonymously.

I believe that TSS should make every effort necessary (within the scope of their availlable resources) to prevent people to register multiple identities (note that I don't want to ban pseudonym). Anyone who does manage to register and use multiple identities should be banned from this site.

To still allow for anonymous posting, I suggest that they add a little checkbox (like on slahdot) that one can click to post as Anonymous Coward. This way, it become clear that the author of a post does not want to decline it's identity and the reader of that post will have the necessary information to make a judgement on the relevency of that particular post.



BTW: I'm posting under my real name. If you do not like what I say, that's fine with me. I will not hate you for that. And if I become your boss one day, I will still want to hear about what you have to say... Even if it contradict what I think.

With all due respect :-)

Emmanuel Pirsch