"The Myth of Open-Source"  In February, 2000, the Internet
bubble was just about to burst and Paris-native Marc Fleury was
in Silicon Valley hitting the venture-capital circuit, trying to
get funding for his fledgling open-source startup. When one VC
after another told him it was a horrible business plan, he
packed up his PowerPoint slides -- along with his bruised ego --
and moved into his in-law's house in Atlanta, setting out to
build his startup the old fashioned way -- with his own money.
Fast-forward to 2004, and Fleury is having the last laugh. His
company, JBoss, has decided to go for its first outside
investors, sewing up a tidy $10 million in funding from VCs
clamoring to get in on one of the hottest open-source companies
in high tech. JBoss, along with a handful of others, such as
MySQL, have proven that big corporate customers have an interest
in free software that extends beyond Linux (see BW Online,
10/19/04, "Redemption for JBoss's Boss").  JBoss makes
application-server software -- the kind o