For quite some time now, Yahoo! has been using an app that according to them, fastens web site loading. The app is called Traffic Server, which Yahoo! acquired alongside their acquisition of Inktomi in 2003. And for a noble cause, the big Y! is releasing it to the Apache Software Foundation as an incubator open-source project.
"We've donated Traffic Server to Apache because we think it's a great piece of code" said Shelton Shuga, Yahoo!'s Senior Vice President for Cloud Computing. Traffic Server is a code package with more than 200,000 lines of C++ codes.
It works by "moving some data and operations closer on the Internet to the people trying using those services". At the moment, Traffic Server software delivers around 30 billion Web objects and about 400 terabytes of data each day.
A source code is a form of high-level programming language turned into a binary machine code for a computer to be able to run the program. Most source code are private like those of Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Tiger OS.
Now that Yahoo! has open-sourced the code, it is now open for all to see, modify and distribute. With this action, people can use the app on their advantage freely as well as modify it for the better, if someone thinks there is more to the code than what it currently offers.
"We think a lot of folks can benefit from this, and by raising the tide, we think we can benefit as well," Shugar said.
"By virtue of basing services on open-source software, we attract people who want to work on open source. They like it, and they like the idea of it. It's a skill they can take with them from one place to another," the executive added.
