The picture this article is painting is almost completely wrong on every point that matters. First of all, the NSA has not sponsored development of Accumulo fo

The picture this article is painting is almost completely wrong on every point that matters. First of all, the NSA has not sponsored development of Accumulo for more than a year. The gist of the story is that companies that charge to support other implementations of Big Table-like systems argued that the government support of Accumulo directly interfered with their ability to compete. Their main point was that the government's job was not to compete in an already-thriving industry, and their lobbying was successful: in summer 2012, the NSA was formally ordered to halt production on Accumulo. Some of the employees left to start their own company, last I heard. Second, as other users have noted, this is not the only implementation, and dropping it will certainly not make it impossible to do what they do. Remember that Accumulo was started when no OSS technology could do what it did. Now is a different time, and arguably it is actually behind. I agree that it feels good to stick it to "the man", but let's be realistic here. This move is accomplishing nothing.