For showerst's comment, he's basically saying that the idea of e.g. having a hardware store refuse to stock a screwdriver just because it was invented by a nuclear weapons development lab is a pretty slippery slope ethically.
After that we won't stock screwdrivers invented by the government (incl. EPA).
Then we won't stock screwdrivers invented by $UNDESIRABLE_GROUP.
That line of reasoning is why both the FSF and DFSG explicitly say that Free software cannot have terms-of-use restrictions. If it's free for one to use it should be free for all to use, even those you hate.
Accumulo is a tool. It's a tool that happened to be useful for NSA, but NSA is not the only group that has "Big Data" problems and so it makes no sense for Apache to punish the rest of us because Accumulo has a source that you personally don't like.
mpyne - thanks for clarifying: I see it now. I've never been a fan of "slippery slope" arguments because once you start on them, you never know where they finish.
I know why FSF takes the line it does, I'm just saying it is a line that has taken us to a strange place where open source advocates are simultaneously supplying the NSA with services to carry out surveillance, defending the practice, but complaining about the surveillance.
And as for "Accumulo is a tool". That's kind of a "guns don't kill people" argument. Would you apply the same argument to private companies supplying authoritarian regimes with deep packet inspection software? I see little difference in the cases.
I'm not a super big fan of slippery slope arguments either. Then you get people opposing programs not on their own merits, but what might happen if that program were in the hands of the "other party", and then later in the hands of some dystopian totalitarian state.
Either way, I'm not sure why you say open source developers are supplying the NSA with Accumulo. You have it completely the wrong way around; NSA supplied us with Accumulo.
After that we won't stock screwdrivers invented by the government (incl. EPA).
Then we won't stock screwdrivers invented by $UNDESIRABLE_GROUP.
That line of reasoning is why both the FSF and DFSG explicitly say that Free software cannot have terms-of-use restrictions. If it's free for one to use it should be free for all to use, even those you hate.
Accumulo is a tool. It's a tool that happened to be useful for NSA, but NSA is not the only group that has "Big Data" problems and so it makes no sense for Apache to punish the rest of us because Accumulo has a source that you personally don't like.