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MS Releases Open Source Alternative To BigTable

Posted by kdawson on from the devil-puts-on-gloves dept.

gollito writes in with news that Microsoft has released an open source alternative to Google's BigTable file system, which is used on large distributed computer clusters. Matt Asay writes for CNet: "I also believe that Microsoft's fear-mongering around open source cost it years of productivity and quality gains that it could have been delivering to customers through open source. I hope that reign of ignorance is over."

52 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... just wow. by Jonas+Buyl · · Score: 5, Funny

    So this means pigs CAN fly?

    1. Re:Wow... just wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Swine flu. Now anything can happen.

    2. Re:Wow... just wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only if that pig is seated in a chair in Ballmer's office.

    3. Re:Wow... just wow. by jvd · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yep, pigs flu... I mean, flew. Bad joke, I know, I know.

      --
      Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
    4. Re:Wow... just wow. by sheepofblue · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or this is Microsoft trying to hurt Google because they fear them more than open source

  2. I lol'd by Aranykai · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this really news, or just another opportunity for us to have everyones favorite slashdot debate?

    --
    If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
    1. Re:I lol'd by brusk · · Score: 4, Funny

      The latter. Pirates are better.

      --
      .sig withheld by request
    2. Re:I lol'd by hairykrishna · · Score: 5, Funny

      Rubbish

      emacs is clearly superior

      --
      "Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
    3. Re:I lol'd by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 2, Funny

      C'mon, there's no way ninjas are better!

      Have you ever heard of anyone ninjaing software? Or music? Or games? No one ninjas anything. It's all about the pirates! :D

      --
      Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
    4. Re:I lol'd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Cool! I just installed it on my machine. Do you know where I can find a decent text editor for it?

    5. Re:I lol'd by dkf · · Score: 2, Funny

      Cool! I just installed [emacs] on my machine. Do you know where I can find a decent text editor for it?

      It comes with one built in.
      M-x vi-mode

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    6. Re:I lol'd by syntaxglitch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, in a mathematical sense, emacs is strictly superior to vi--you can implement vi in emacs, but not the other way around!

  3. really? by Darlo888 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They open sourced the surface?

    1. Re:really? by Earthquake+Retrofit · · Score: 2, Informative

      Misleading headline. Here's the link to the Register article with more details. Nothing to do with the Surface. Steve

      --
      Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
    2. Re:really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Do some real research and stop proliferating garbage. The SpiderTCP stack used in NT3.1 was licensed from Spider Systems, who obtained and modified the BSD code, which was distributed under the BSD license. SpiderTCP is not and has not ever been open source, even if it was based on open source code.

    3. Re:really? by MarkKB · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not to mention that it was only supposed to be a temporary solution. Work on the new, Microsoft-written TCP/IP started shortly after NT 3.1 RTM'd, and was released in Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 95. The command-line networking programs (like ftp) that were ported along with Spider's TCP stack were left in, mainly because they worked well enough that Microsoft saw no reason to replace them.

    4. Re:really? by m50d · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh, the claim was that NT 3.1 "includes open-source code".

      --
      I am trolling
    5. Re:really? by MarkKB · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since when were Windows 2000 and 7's network stack re-written?

      Of course it's probably in there somewhere, but it'd be such a small percentage that it'd be basically insignificant. I'd doubt that any non-basic code would survive two rewrites (NT3.5 and Vista).

      There's probably a compat struct somewhere for the five apps that ran on NT3.1 and required TCP/IP (or STACKS, the platform SpiderTCP ran on) but other than that, I wouldn't expect much.

  4. Which license? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So... the linked article says the Kumo search team (the ones who develop the FS) USE open source. But I can nowhere see that the FS is released as open source. A citation would be good, especially since the used license would be quit important.

    1. Re:Which license? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      So... the linked article says the Kumo search team (the ones who develop the FS) USE open source. But I can nowhere see that the FS is released as open source. A citation would be good, especially since the used license would be quit important.

      You should check your glasses and re-RTFA. Two points there:

      1) The Kumo search team did not develop the FS. They've used the one Apache Hadoop (guess the license).

      2) The Kumo search team have implemented a BigTable analog on top of Hadoop FS, and that's what they've open sourced. The result is a subproject of Hadoop now (again, guess the license).

      Also, this isn't obvious from TFA itself, but looking at the sources that it references, this is really old news: the blog post they link to is from 2007. It is also before Powerset was bought by Microsoft (that happened in 2008), so the relevance of all this to Microsoft policies is unclear.

  5. It's not an alternative to BigTable by wilsoniya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google doesn't sell/license BigTable in any way. It's used internally. I fail to see how it's possible to release an alternative to something which can't be acquired in any form.

    --
    I can't remember the last time I forgot anything.
    1. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google doesn't sell/license BigTable in any way. It's used internally. I fail to see how it's possible to release an alternative to something which can't be acquired in any form.

      Not completely correct. You can use BigTable right now. There are Google AppEngine APIs that can access BigTable. You just can't use it without using Google's servers, that's all.

      If, at this point, you still can't see why it's completely obvious why Microsoft would write an alternative to BigTable and open source it, all I can say you haven't been paying attention.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by prockcore · · Score: 5, Informative

      Using Google's AppEngine, you can use BigTable.. so while you can't install it on your own servers, you can still write software that uses it.

    3. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Using Google's AppEngine, you can use BigTable.. so while you can't install it on your own servers, you can still write software that uses it.

      Which means that your appliance that uses BigTable needs continuous access to the Internet.

    4. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by BikeHelmet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Which means that your appliance that uses BigTable needs continuous access to the Internet.

      What!? This is absolutely outrageous~! None of my servers have internet access!

    5. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Open sourcing anything software-related is a bad idea for Microsoft, unlike Google. Google are in the search/advertising business, not the software business. Their "crown jewels" are the databases they've collected about everything. Microsoft are in the sofware business. Their "crown jewels" are the source code for their products.

      You'll note that Google aren't opening up their crown jewels: you can't just download their raw web page index and do your own thing with it. Since they're not in the software business, they can afford to give away or open their software tools. Since Microsoft are in the software business, that hurts them.

      Now there's an interesting symmetry here. Being (primarily) in the software business should mean that actual content and databases isn't too important for Microsoft. If they wanted to hurt Google, they would open up their raw msnsearch indexes and other useful content databases. That would hurt Google, because people could download massive competing data collections and create their own competing search engines without the huge resource investment in crawler farms etc.

    6. Re:It's not an alternative to BigTable by IrrepressibleMonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not sure how this is funny?
      I concede I may be missing something, but very few of my 1500+ servers have access to the internet and those that do are carefully restricted by firewall.
      Am I being dense?

  6. needs an expert opinion by FudRucker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "...I hope that reign of ignorance is over."

    don't count on it, you know about embrace/extend/extinguish?

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  7. Crap by ledow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Article says that they "use open source". Doesn't mean they give ANYTHING back at all, because they are not distributing it, thus the HEADLINE is so false it's unbelievable.

    For instance, say they took even a GPL'd piece of software, extended it to add marvellous and important new features and then KEPT IT IN HOUSE. They can still use it, still claim it's "open source" but they NEVER have to let anyone but themselves see that code.

    It's bad editing, bad reviewing, bad summarising and just outright lying. There is nothing "Open" about anything being done here apart from the software that MS chose to use.

    1. Re:Crap by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

      They did: they gave to the Hadoop project an open source equivalent to Google's BigTable. Not only was this mentioned in the article, it was also mentioned in the summary.

      Note also that while Google has a bigTable, they have not released it as open source (as far as I can tell, but they do sell it as a webservice). So there may be some desire to undercut Google here with this move.

      --
      Qxe4
    2. Re:Crap by mc1138 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Looking at Microsoft's history, I could see them releasing it, making it freely available, just to take a little bit away from Google. The animosity between Microsoft and Google isn't exactly a secret, and neither is Microsoft's do anything to win attitude. Case in point, look at how they've handled piracy overseas. Rather than crack down, they've been lenient to help keep their market share up. Better Window's for free than no Windows at all... I could see them going totally open source if they thought it would improve their hold on the market or at least hurt some competitors.

      --
      The musings of just another geek and his junk.
    3. Re:Crap by bockelboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, you're not even close.

      A company called Powerset developed the open-source alternative to BigTable called HBase. This was developed as an Apache Software Foundation project under the Apache license.

      Microsoft bought Powerset for a bucket of money because their search technology based of Hbase was pretty damned good. This was last year. This year, the folks behind powerset - as Microsoft employees - were given the go-ahead to continue committing to the ASF project and they continue to make it better. For what I can see, they aren't keeping anything juicy in-house.

      It's honest-to-goodness MS committing to an Apache project.

    4. Re:Crap by ruphus13 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This came about as a result of their acquisition of Powerset. Those guys have been working on Hadoop, and contributing back for a while (pretty much since the beginning). Here's what the linked article in the OP states, "When Microsoft acquired the company, Powersetters Michael Stack and Jim Kellerman took a hiatus from their full-time HBase contributions. But by October, Redmond had cleared the pair to resume their open coding. And that's what we'd call giving yourself cancer. "While Microsoft has supported open source in the past," a company mouthpiece tells us, "this is the first time that Microsoft has continued to support open source with an acquired company."" So, rather than release their entire effort as Open Source, the participants in Kumo/Powerset will continue to work on Open Source projects and software they embed.

    5. Re:Crap by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Funny

      Indeed, this is so clear that one could reasonably assume I was not suggesting that they used the word 'Hadoop' in the summary. In fact, your assumption in such a case would be correct: I was not actually implying that they used the word Hadoop in the summary. I WAS however implying that Microsoft did release open source software, which was mentioned in the summary. My second sentence was referring to the primary clause of my first sentence.

      My post was accurate in this case, but I admit sometimes they are not. In general it's a good idea to assume the best possibly meaning from another person's post, and if at all possible not assume they are a complete idiot. That way even if you are wrong (and they are a complete idiot), at least you can still have half a good discussion. As opposed to this case you've wasted your words discussing something that isn't particularly interesting or relevant.

      This ought to be the first rule of internet discussions since 90% of the people you meet online are, certifiably, idiots.

      --
      Qxe4
  8. so what's the license? by Punto · · Score: 2

    is it mentioned anywhere? I can't find it.

    --

    --
    Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!

    1. Re:so what's the license? by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's apache, which is more free than GPL.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:so what's the license? by wrook · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's apache, which is more free than GPL.

      While this is an informative post, modding it insightful is a bit trollish. If your definition of "free" means "less restricted", then it is certainly true. If your definition of "free" refers to the "free" as commonly used in "free software", then the statement is meaningless. Either it is free (gives me the 4 freedoms) or it isn't. There isn't "more" or "less".

      By saying it is "more free than the GPL" you are making a distinction which is completely unnecessary in this context. The Apache license is both free as in "has few restrictions" and free as in "free software". So you can merely say that the Apache license is a "free license" as opposed to Microsoft's "shared source" licenses.

      I, for one, am getting tired of these pointless political jabs.

  9. did they use hot chicks to promote it? by ifeelswine · · Score: 2, Funny

    i just wonder if they're as desperate as the couchdb bozos: http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr0n-star

    1. Re:did they use hot chicks to promote it? by maxume · · Score: 2, Informative

      Matt Aimonetti is a Ruby on Rails bozo:

      http://merbist.com/about/

      He doesn't seem to be particularly involved with CouchDB:

      http://couchdb.apache.org/community/committers.html

      I guess he was presenting information about CouchDB to the ruby community.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:did they use hot chicks to promote it? by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Insightful

      when to use couch?

      when availability is more important than consistency

      I think I'd rather not subscribe to that newsletter.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  10. no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Clearly Microsoft is using open source as a tactical weapon here, the way companies often do against entrenched competitors.

    But is this a new tactic for them? No. Back in the '90s, they competed against Netscape in the browser wars by giving away IE for free; unlike Netscape, which was hoping to eventually start charging for Navigator, Microsoft made IE part of Windows (so it was effectively free for anyone who already paid for the PC).

    And Microsoft released an "Open Letter to Netscape", asking its rival to cooperate with the W3C and avoid making proprietary extensions to web protocols. As if anything else about Windows desktop development at the time was based on open standards!

    Going back even further, at one point Borland International was the leading PC software tools vendor. Microsoft wanted this title for itself (remember "developers developers developers developers"), so to compete against Borland's Object Windows C++ framework, they came up with MFC. And following Borland's lead, they made MFC open source (or "shared source" or whatever. Source available).

    So no, they aren't having a change of heart. They will do whatever it takes to get control of this hot market segment.

  11. Lets see by codepunk · · Score: 3, Informative

    100 bucks a copy for os licenses x 50K boxes...hmmmm no thanks..

    --


    Got Code?
  12. I'm familiar with the situation by melted · · Score: 2, Funny

    And I can tell you that the entire original Register article was pulled out of author's ass. The CNet article just extended that ass pulling, Goatse style. Must be a slow news day. None of this will ever end up in Live Search. Nothing to see here, move on.

    Try the Powerset demo, compare it to even current Live Search or Google. Realize that this is just Wikipedia they've managed to index, even at that quality. Scratch your head and wonder why Microsoft paid $100M for it.

  13. HBase isn't a Microsoft product by bryanduxbury · · Score: 5, Informative
    This article is really confused. Powerset, before it was acquired by Microsoft, started work on HBase, which is a BigTable-like storage system that runs on Hadoop. Both HBase and Hadoop are Apache projects that are out in the open basically in no relation to Microsoft.

    Microsoft has allowed two of the primary HBase developers, who work at Powerset, to continue their open-source work on HBase, which is definitely cool. But to say that Microsoft is releasing this is just flat out wrong.

    (Full disclosure: I am a non-Microsoft-employed HBase committer.)

  14. Reign of ignorance? by Nick+Ives · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope that reign of ignorance is over.

    Lets see... Nope, Ballmer is still in charge!

    --
    Nick
  15. Probably HBase by allenw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    None of the articles say it, but they are probably talking about HBase. If this is the case, this is seriously old news.

    HBase was started by the Powerset guys before being acquired by Microsoft. After the acquisition there was a lot of concern in the Hadoop community about whether the Powerset guys would be allowed to continue to contribute. They have, and as far as I can tell, the community is not particularly concerned about MS's involvement.

  16. Re:.Net? by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will be it attached to .Net? Probably, right?

    Java more likely (since it's built on Hadoop, which uses Java).

    Slighty embarrassing for microsoft, perhaps? But remember, this comes from a group that microsoft acquired, not something that has always been a part of microsoft.

    --
    Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
  17. Re:.Net? by perryizgr8 · · Score: 2, Informative

    And how open-source the MS Big Table will be? You can download it and use in your cluster or single PC?

    apache license 2.0
    imo better than gpl.

    --
    Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  18. More Or Less by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's apache, which is more free than GPL.

    More free if you want companies to be able to use the software without giving anything back to you.

    Less free if you want changes to always be public for everyone forever.

    I'm all for BSD style licenses in some cases that allow a company to use code without contributing changes back to anyone. But do not redefine what "free" really means just because you have an irrational fear of prophetic guys with beards.

    Otherwise you are missing the whole point behind open source software, which is that the source in in fact open. Allowing some changes to exist behind locked gates is in fact less free no matter how you weasel it.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  19. Microsoft open source Open Source by HermMunster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft is not distributing open source software. This is not an open source product. It can't be used on multiple platforms. It can't be modified and freely distributed. It is not open source.

    Microsoft does openED source where you can view the code but never use it outside of your project and never on another platform other than Windows.

    Open Source was defined around 15 years ago in the attempt of ensuring that the definition for open source was long standing.

    Microsoft and open source together is an oxymoron.

    Microsoft claimed in 2007 that Open Source was dead and that Linux was dead. Their attempt to do this was about the time they claimed that open source violated 235 of their patents. Then they refused to state which ones even though the consumers world-wide asked for it.

    They were the same company that sued TomTom and backed the company with funding for SCO to sue IBM and other linux backers.

    We do not, in open source, put any trust in Microsoft nor do we let them attempt to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish Open Source by closing it or limiting it. They are trying to get big business to think that the only acceptable form of open source is that which is defined by Microsoft.

    Everyone should be objecting to Microsoft and this 100% of the time.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  20. Re:Microsoft open source Open Source by maxume · · Score: 2, Informative

    They are allowing developers that work for a company they purchased (so the developers work for Microsoft) to continue contributing to software released under the Apache 2.0 license.

    No matter what the rest of the company is doing, this activity is exactly the "Open Source" that you seem to think it isn't.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  21. missing tag: itsatrap by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also, who cares if its 'open source'.

    Its only news if its Free software

    Thank you, but I'll store my data on *MY* server, using protocols implemented in *Free* software.