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Apache To Steward NASA-Built Middleware
itwbennett writes "The Apache Software Foundation announced Wednesday that the Object-Oriented Data Technology (OODT), first developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has graduated to a top level project. The software 'provides a one-stop toolkit for building up a database, populating a database, setting up a work flow to get data into that database, and then serving out lots of different content from that database,' said Chris Mattmann, vice president of the OODT project. NASA uses the software to manage data from multiple domains, including astrophysics, earth carbon monitoring and land-water use. The National Cancer Institute also uses the software for its Daily Detection Research Network, which ties together multiple cancer research databases."
When I first saw the acronym, I thought it was about the repeal of "Object-Oriented, Don't Tell", NASA's antiquated requirement for all-procedural programming...
Despite what http://oodt.apache.org/ says, this is not NASA's first "Open Source" project, as Worldwind is older (2007). However, OODT may well be NASA's first Free Software project because Worldwind was released under a non-free license, whereas this is Apache 2 license. Yes, you read correctly. NASA has its own NOSA license (NASA Open Source Agreement - yuck), which is not a free software license by the standards of FSF, but is non the less approved by OSI (which makes it officially "Open Source"). Look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Open_Source_Agreement
or perhaps I've been around the PHBs for too long...
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
JPL never did any work with jet engines. It was founded between 1936 and 1941 (depending on what you consider founding) to work on rocket motors.
However, during that time, jet propulsion was all the rage (a 100mph difference would have been very important during WWII dog fights,) which led to the choice of names. Easier to get funding when you use the right buzzwords.
I read the summary, the article, and a few pages on the website. They all talk about features, but no description of what the thing actually is, except that it's written in Python. I recognize most of the words there, and they have a block diagram with nebulous terms.
So, does anybody actually know what this is?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Something like the Apache foundation is the best place for released government software. A previous attempt at release and public distribution via a private company was a truly dismal failure. OpenPBS (portable batch system) is supposed to be available to anyone that asks. However when you do ask a sales rep strings you along for more than a month trying to sell you something that they can't actually assure you will fit your requirements (and is no longer under development) even when the free one is documented as doing so. It was a truly stupid waste of the salesperson's time and mine that would have exceeded the price of providing the file for download or sending by email by several orders of magnitude and generated a lot of ill will. I'll go as far as saying it was blatant false advertising using a government funded open source product to do a bait and switch to try to sell me an unmaintained product they picked up in a corporate takeover.
My experience appears to have been identical to that of many that attempted to obtain this government funded open source software that NASA had declared was available for anyone. Eventually due to this open source project becoming closed the project just had to fork and the compatible Torque batch system was developed by people that had actually get hold of the original OpenPBS.