TechWeek: JBoss Boss Puts on the Red Hat

By the end of the month, JBoss, the open-source application company that made Wall Street sit up and take notice, will be nestled in the arms of Red Hat(RHAT Quote).

JBoss CEO Marc Fleury, who will play a key role in the combined operation, has been known as something of a hard-charging, enfant terrible. But as befits someone who'll be the No. 2 executive of a $5 billion software company (and a man on the verge of becoming a father for the fourth time), Fleury has been striking a more statesmanlike pose recently, with good words for even once-bitter enemies, including Microsoft(MSFT Quote).

But he has yet to rein in his ambition, and he makes little effort to hide his disdain for Oracle(ORCL Quote) CEO Larry Ellison, who made an unsuccessful bid for JBoss. Fleury's next goal: Make Red Hat the first pure-play open source provider to hit the $1 billion mark in annual revenue. In an interview this week, Fleury talked about Oracle's open source ambitions, Red Hat's strategic direction and why he ditched plans for an IPO. Here are some excerpts: ...