Is Sonatype a harbinger of the future?

Is this nature returning, or is this just a shoot that will be stomped on next time the mountain urps?

It's Sonatype, a start-up built to commercialize the Apache Maven project. Maven creator Jason van Zyl has recruited Mark de Visser, former chief marketing officer at Zend, as his new CEO, and they're off.

Mark de Visser is one of those wise old heads every start-up needs. His previous credits, before Zend, include top marketing gigs at Agitar, Red Hat, and Borland.

Maven uses a Project Object Model concept (an XML construct) to handle software management for large Java installations. It offers integration with NetBeans and Eclipse.

Question is, can de Visser convince people to buy support for Sonatype's version in the current economy? The company hopes to do that by scaling up the software for large enterprises.

To solidify its enterprise development bonafides, Sonatype is also going to be a member of the Eclipse Foundation.

My guess is that while the timing of the launch seems unfortunate it is bound to put a smile on some faces. Mine, for one. If it can launch a successful start-up in this environment open source can do anything.