Behlendorf is typical of the leaders who succeed at open source. The soft-spoken developer was not a particularly gifted coder; he hadn't even completed his computer science degree at the University of California at Berkeley when he took over hosting Apache. Yet Apache set the standard for open source success, and now Behlendorf's on the cusp again with a versioning system called Subversion.
As a Web site designer for Organic Online, Behlendorf proved he had a knack for putting out the right question to the right crowd--for example, how to improve the kludgy Web server from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications--and for recognizing merit in the responses. Other programmers developed the Apache code, but Behlendorf hosted the project, using wit and firmness in steering what should go in and what should stay out. He promoted Apache's merits at industry events and public forums.
MySQL, Linux, and other successful open source projects all have this in common: a Linus Torvalds sort of figure, a benevolent dictator with the humility to see the value in other people's work. At JBoss, it was Marc Fleury. At MySQL, it's a pair of developers, Monty Widenius and David Axmark, who produced the early versions of MySQL and selected the smooth Marten Mickos as CEO. Ross Mason is the undisputed development leader of Mule, an enterprise service bus gaining traction at financial institutions. Mason's also the founder of MuleSource, the company behind it. At Samba, founded in 1992 to provide file and print capabilities across Windows, Unix, and Linux, it's the diplomatic yet decisive Jeremy Allison.
Successful projects are characterized by long incubation periods with delayed rewards. Apache took four years and Subversion "five years of heads-down work," says Behlendorf. It wasn't clear at the start that either Apache or Subversion would pay off, he says. It's the job of the benevolent dictator to keep a team together through the long march, to impose discipline, assign work, award praise, and heal rifts created by setbacks.
At fractious Medsphere, CEO Kizer is allied with board member and former CEO Larry Augustin, who was angered by the posting of Medsphere's code. Both vie for OpenVista leadership with Steve Shreeve, who left medical school before graduation to become Medsphere's founding CEO. Shreeve later moved into the CTO role, and in his comments, there's a subtext of worrying about how Augustin and Kizer lay the blame for project delays at his feet, despite what he saw as extraordinary effort. The pairing of long gestation with few rewards in the early going breeds tensions that can easily devolve into infighting. Medsphere's OpenVista needs a benevolent dictator to manage the tension.
Rod Johnson, originator of the Spring Framework, is a central figure for that project, one who represents another hallmark of successful open source projects: a public champion who embodies the ideas of the project, even when core developers remain at home writing lines of code.
