Lutris Technologies
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Predecessor | Information Refinery, Incorporated (IRI) |
| Founded | January 1, 1995 in Santa Cruz, California, United States |
| Founder | Paul Morgan, Michael Browder |
| Defunct | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Santa Cruz , United States |
Key people | David H. Young (president), Yancy Lind (president) |
| Products | Enhydra Server, Enhydra Enterprise, InstantDB |
Number of employees | 190 (peak), 8 (early 2002) |
Lutris Technologies, Inc. was a software enterprise headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, recognized primarily for its development of the Enhydra Server application server until approximately 2005.
History
Established around 1995 by Paul Morgan and Michael Browder, both former employees of Santa Cruz Operation, the company originally operated under the name Information Refinery, Incorporated (IRI). Its early activities centered on creating Java-driven websites through consulting engagements and producing tools such as XMLC, an XML processing utility, alongside the Enhydra Server, a versatile application server.
In November 1999, Lutris obtained $10 million in initial venture capital funding from Chase Capital Partners and Chase H&Q. A subsequent funding round in February 2000 brought in an additional $15 million, with contributions from TransCosmos USA and the Intel 64 Fund. Further capital of $16 million was raised on August 23, 2000, from investors including Compaq and NEC. Leadership during this period included company presidents David H. Young and Yancy Lind.
The company's branding and name were inspired by Enhydra lutris, the sea otter species indigenous to nearby Monterey Bay. The Enhydra logo depicted a sea otter clutching a coffee cup, symbolizing a playful reference to "Java."
Enhydra Server
Enhydra Server functioned as a Java SE-based application server that supported the majority of Lutris’s internally developed websites, including projects such as Customatix. In January 1999, Lutris initiated an open-source community dedicated to Enhydra Server. By October of that year, plans were announced for Enhydra Server version 4 to evolve into a Java EE application server—later named Enhydra Enterprise—and to be distributed as open source. This announcement raised concerns regarding compliance with Sun Microsystems’ Java EE licensing under the Sun Community Source License (SCSL).
In March 2000, Lutris introduced a commercial boxed edition of Enhydra Server that included professional support services. The company also acquired InstantDB, a Java database management system created by Peter Hearty and ICS, with intentions to release it as open source. The initial beta of Enhydra Enterprise appeared in April 2001 utilizing JOnAS technology. Intel subsequently published a reference architecture detailing the software.
By mid-2001, InstantDB was removed from enhydra.org and plans for its open-source release were abandoned. In September 2001, Lutris discontinued the Enhydra Enterprise open source repository, attributing this decision to restrictive terms imposed by the Java EE SCSL license. This move caused dissatisfaction within the open source community, leading many contributors to shift their efforts toward the emerging JBoss project.
The end
After the collapse of the dot-com bubble, Lutris experienced drastic downsizing, shrinking its workforce from approximately 190 employees to only eight between late 2001 and early 2002. The company streamlined operations by consolidating offices and rebranded as Gridion to concentrate on developing a distributed high performance computing platform based on grid computing technologies. In April 2002, hosting responsibilities for Enhydra Server and Enterprise were transferred to ObjectWeb (now known as OW2 Consortium). By November 2003, German company Together Teamlösungen GmbH acquired the copyrights for these products and released them under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Lutris ultimately ceased business activities around 2005.