Sun has put some money where their mouth is, and have hired Dave Johnson, the developer who created the open source blogging software: Roller. Dave is charged with working on the software, as well as evangelizing blogging within, and outside of, Sun.

It's official. Roller is now my full time job. I just accepted a job with Sun Microsystems to "design, develop, and deploy the primary blogging system for Sun in conjunction with other engineers" and to evangelize blogging both inside and outside of Sun. Needless to say, I'm thrilled. I'm honored to be working for Sun and with great folks like Will Snow, John Hoffman, Tim Bray, Patrick Chanezon, and Danese Cooper. I'm excited to be working for a company that feels the same was as I do about the value of blogs and wikis, open source software, and encouraging employees to speak with honest and authentic voice to customers, to partners, and to each other.

Dave himself discusses: Full time Roller!

Jonathan Schwartz: To that end, hey, Dave, welcome to Sun Microsystems

Sam Ruby: Solar Roller

Tim Bray: Sun Gets Rollerized

Congrats to Dave.
So does this mean that we will finally get multi user blogs where more than one user can post? :-)

...but I dowloaded and tried to install Roller app the other day and couldn't get the bleeding thing to work. Looks like Sun had the same problem ;).

1. Create a J2EE blog website.
2. Make sure it is difficult to delpoy.
3. Get job with Sun.

nice plan.

Congratulations, Dave!

Though I have to say, I'd prefer they instread hire someone to fix bugs in the closed source Java Platform. Sun asked, what are you trying to achieve by open sourcing? Simple example from today: there's a bug in the ORB - and they will only fix it in Tiger. What am I supposed to do? I'd gladly fix it myself but I'm not allowed to ship the fix to any customer. Nor am I allowed to even copy the source and ship it under a different package. Change your license, Sun!

Not bad indeed. I hope this gives a more interesting future for the RollerWebLogger. For example better designed adminpages (the current looks are awful). Support for MS SQL Server and more database Servers. Better support for other Application Servers than Tomcat.

Congrats Dave!

Does this mean that people that work at SUN will be allowed to talk about how big of JackAsses their marketing people are.