mpyne. I expressed it badly - I did not mean to say that open source developers are supplying the NSA with Accumulo, just that Apache is supplying the NSA with

mpyne. I expressed it badly - I did not mean to say that open source developers are supplying the NSA with Accumulo, just that Apache is supplying the NSA with a useful service by hosting Accumulo as a project (and that for some reason open source developers are OK with this in a way that they would not be for private corporations selling closed source software to the NSA). The general picture seems to be what antics says in the first comment: NSA adapted Big Data technologies to suit their own access control and other requirements, and then decided that the best way forward was collaborative. A group of employees set up sqrrl to provide a commercial distribution. But it's an ecosystem that the NSA gains from, all the same, and the broad membership of Apache seems like it makes for a place where people may have leverage.