Xapian has turned 20!
Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to miss
the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is:
commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f
Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org>
Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000
Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me.
Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and
Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of St
John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/"
strut
below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right of the
photo on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/File:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg
This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago
(actually to the day):
https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=200110
Cheers,
Olly
Congrats Olly, and everyone else too. That's an excellent milestone, and as a user - thank you! Cheers, Bron. On Tue, Oct 22, 2019, at 13:29, Olly Betts wrote:> Xapian has turned 20! > > Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to miss > the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is: > > commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f > Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org> > Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000 > > Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me. > > Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and > Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of St > John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/" strut > below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right of the > photo on: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/File:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg > > This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago > (actually to the day): > > https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=200110 > > Cheers, > Olly > >-- Bron Gondwana brong at fastmail.fm
Congratulations! We were a mile or so away working for Webtop (another part of Brightstation), who used the Xapian (well, Omseek) code as a basis for a half-billion-page web search engine. I remember not everyone got the open source message, especially the management (and a particularly amusing newspaper article), and a large scale data transfer involving a hard disk on a pub table... Subsequently, Tom Mortimer and I formed Lemur Consulting Ltd. as a consultancy focused on Xapian projects for clients including the Financial Times, Durrants and the Newspaper Licensing Agency. Eventually we moved on to work with Lucene-based engines but some clients continued using Xapian for years afterwards. I also remember maintaining the Windows bindings using a slightly crazy build system. Lemur stopped trading this year as we merged the business with our US partners, and last Saturday nearly everyone who ever worked for Lemur gathered in Cambridge to celebrate over 18 years of open source search work. It's been a long road! Best Charlie On 22/10/2019 03:29, Olly Betts wrote:> Xapian has turned 20! > > Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to miss > the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is: > > commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f > Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org> > Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000 > > Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me. > > Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and > Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of St > John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/" strut > below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right of the > photo on: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/File:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg > > This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago > (actually to the day): > > https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=200110 > > Cheers, > Olly > > . >
Many happy returns ! jf Olly Betts writes: > Xapian has turned 20! > > Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to miss > the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is: > > commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f > Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org> > Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000 > > Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me. > > Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and > Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of St > John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/" strut > below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right of the > photo on: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/File:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg > > This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago > (actually to the day): > > https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=200110 > > Cheers, > Olly >
Olly, Thanks for taking the time to write about this. As one Xapian user, I really appreciate all the efforts made by all contributors behind it, and I would like to thank you all :-) Congratulations on turning 20! Best, -Marco On Tue, 22 Oct 2019 03:29:37 +0100 Olly wrote:> Xapian has turned 20! > > Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to miss > the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is: > > commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f > Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org> > Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000 > > Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me. > > Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and > Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of > St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/" > strut below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right > of the photo on: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/File:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg > > This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago > (actually to the day): > > https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=200110 > > Cheers, > Olly >Best,
Happy 20 Xapian! My adventures integrating fuzzy searches in learning management systems started with MnoGoSearch around 2005 (I'm not sure it still exists), then I quickly moved to Xapian (I don't remember how or why exactly I did the switch, though). Despite other search engines being more attractive for specific items, I find the true advantage of Xapian for me is not to be relying on Java, so it can actually safely be run in the background of a PHP web application without introducing horrible dependencies (and thus can also do the job without excessive resources). In particular, Olly, you've been an incredibly consistant project leader and contributor and have always had the right answer for anyone. Thank you very much. If I ever visit Cambridge (not sure you're still there), I'll try to remember and bring you some of our lovely Belgian beers :-) Cheers, Yannick Le mardi 22 octobre 2019 à 03:29 +0100, Olly Betts a écrit :> Xapian has turned 20! > > Strictly speaking it was 20 years ago last month but I managed to > miss > the true anniversary - the oldest commit in the Xapian repo is: > > commit 8ced76ea128c8fb2792477e09b41fa989f2e572f > Author: Richard Boulton <richard at tartarus.org> > Date: Fri Sep 10 09:50:40 1999 +0000 > > Martins initial code, which didn't work for him but did for me. > > Back then Richard, Martin and I all worked for BrightStation, and > Richard and I were working in a small office high above the foyer of > St > John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge, UK - just behind the "/" strut > below the highest part of the roof about 1/4 in from the right of the > photo on: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_Innovation_Centre#/media/Fi > le:St_Johns_Innovation_Centre.jpg > > This was before the project was called Xapian. Then 18 years ago > (actually to the day): > > https://sourceforge.net/p/omseek/mailman/omseek-discuss/?viewmonth=20 > 0110 > > Cheers, > Olly > >