Ladner takes JBoss government reins

Open source developer JBoss has hired Drew Ladner, former chief information officer at the Treasury Department, to run the company's new government group..

Ladner is leaving his position as president of Zuri Technology to take the new role.

JBoss incorporates a number of individual open source projects into its JBoss Enterprise Middleware System. True to the open source model, the individual components can be tweaked and modified by developers and users, based on resources, technology direction, core development and support services from JBoss.

JBoss and Zuri Technology have been working together to develop a government plan for JBoss, Ladner said. "Because of that, we have a running start here," he said. "We have a number of partners we're already working with, and we have agencies who are customers already."

Many people in government agencies use the freely available JBoss software, while the company makes its money from support and training.

"Open source is not about free software," he said. "It's about a new model for software services. The zero cost licenses makes it economically very advantageous. Economics is interesting, but what's most interesting for customers is agility."

The decision to create a structured approach to the government market came in response to a growing interest within government in open source software, said Marc Fleury, chairman and chief executive officer at JBoss.

"This started with the realization that one of our big verticals was the government market," he said. "On a bigger scale than just JBoss, open source in general is making inroads into many organizations. We're seeing governments around the world making a push."

Ladner's title will be general manager of the JBoss Government Group.