The short answer is that they have to "open" their source. So anything they do to the original code is readily available to all.
On Wed, 2012-04-04 at 17:43 -0400, Dan Beaulieu wrote: > I've always wondered how businesses who provide their own solutions using > OSS decide when to contribute code back to the project. > For instance, suppose a bug is logged, and the business already has a fix > in their fork. Do they provide a patch? > What about a feature request? What if the deliverables for the feature > includes secret sauce from the business. > > Maybe this isn't really a common occurrence, or not how the OSS business > model works, but figured it's a good as time as any to ask I figure. > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:35 PM, Ted Dunning <[email protected]> wrote: > > > With this announcement, this group has a fork in the road facing us. > > > > We can choose the Hadoop path of forcibly excluding anybody with a slightly > > wrong commercial taint from discussions (I call this the "more GNU than > > GNU" philosophy). > > > > Or we can choose a real community based approach that includes vendors > > regardless of how they use the code that we freely give away via the Apache > > Mahout project (I call this "the Apache way"). > > > > As you may guess from the way that I phrase these options, I would prefer > > the second approach. > > > > As such, I like it if we could resolve as a group that we very much welcome > > what Sean is doing as an augmentation rather than diminution of the major > > role that he has played in Mahout so far. More than that, I would like to > > go on record saying that I, at least, am happy to have all kinds of > > participation in Mahout. > > > > Is this the consensus here? I think it is important to bring this subject > > up early and get a definitive consensus rather than let it drift. > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Sean Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Dear all -- I've long promised (threatened?) to begin efforts to > > > commercialize Apache Mahout. Given my line of work in VC, I see > > > evidence for positive symbiosis between open source and commercial > > > enterprise. We have evidence from the growth in user base and mailing > > > list, as well as the Mahout in Action book, that this is becoming > > > another successful Apache project. It's time to start bringing more of > > > Mahout to the commercial world, and in turn bring those benefits back > > > into the open-source project. > > > > > > To that endm I've been working on a heavily product-ized, somewhat > > > evolved, version of the recommender engine code available in Mahout. > > > After about six months of work, it's ready to announce. Please meet a > > > new startup company and software product, Myrrix (http://myrrix.com). > > > > > > Well, at least, it's ready for pre-launch of part of the product. The > > > announcement (http://myrrix.com/myrrix-pre-launches/ ) tells part of > > > the story, and the design doc (http://myrrix.com/design/ ) tells more, > > > but I'll summarize key points here: > > > > > > - Aims to add packaging, documentation and support, to product-ize > > > - Reuses Mahout APIs, some code, and certainly presented as a > > > "Mahout-based" platform > > > - Two-tier architecture: serving (or "speed") layer acting in > > > real-time, coordinating with distributed Hadoop-based computation > > > layer. Best of both worlds. > > > - Leans heavily on a variant of the alternating least squares algorithm > > > - Serving layer is free/open source and is a complete solution for > > > small-to-medium recommender problems > > > - Full distributed architecture, including hosted offering, is the > > > commercialized (read: for-pay) part > > > > > > I would welcome community support in telling me what you like and > > > don't like about this. All the better if anyone is in a position to > > > actually run and test the Serving Layer: http://myrrix.com/download/ > > > > > > I intend this to bring more profile, attention, and work to the Mahout > > > project, rather than subtract from it. I hope to see more > > > Mahout-related commercializations, beyond the inclusions in > > > distributions we're already seeing, in 2012, as it's key to the > > > long-term project health. It's most certainly going to be the year of > > > the application layer (analytics, machine learning) for Big Data. > > > > > > Thank you! > > > Sean > > > > >
