The Official Mahout FAQ

General

1. whatIs What is Apache Mahout?
2. mean What does the name mean?
3. historical Where can I find the origins of the Mahout project?
4. logo Where can I download Mahout logo?
5. presentations Where can I download Mahout slide presentations?

Algorithms

1. algos What algorithms are you planning to implement?

Answers

General

What is Apache Mahout?

Apache Mahout is a suite of machine learning libraries designed to be scalable and robust

What does the name mean?

The name Mahout was original chosen for it's association with the Apache Hadoop project. A Mahout is a person who drives an elephant (hint: Hadoop's logo is an elephant.) We just wanted a name that complemented Hadoop but we see our project as a good driver of Hadoop in the sense that we will be using and testing it. We are not, however, implying that we are controlling Hadoop's development.

Where can I find the origins of the Mahout project?

See http://ml-site.grantingersoll.com for old wiki and mailing list archives (all read-only)

Where can I download Mahout logo?

See MAHOUT-57

Where can I download Mahout slide presentations?

• April 2008 - ApacheCon EU Fast Feather talk by Isabel Drost
• May 2008 - Hadoop UG talk by Jeff Eastman

Algorithms

What algorithms are you planning to implement?

We are interested in a wide variety of machine learning algorithms, some of which are described at index#Algorithms. Initially, we are focused in one the 10 algorithms described in http://www.cs.stanford.edu/people/ang/papers/nips06-mapreducemulticore.pdf, but that's just the core. If you have an algorithm that you would like to implement, by all means submit a patch.