This is excellent news. I have thought for years that it would be cool to make a locally hosted alternative to S3 that uses the exact same API. Seems like it would be a good solution for corporations that want to use S3-type tools but not store things directly "in the cloud". They could set up their own internal cloud and then use all the tools that work with S3.

The main thing that stopped me from doing anything on it was my fear that re-implementing the S3 API would have legal repercussions from Amazon.

I've been a loyal Amazonian for a while, but the more I hear about Mosso, the more I'm thinking it might be time for a sit down comparison.

This is what Eucalyptus is (http://www.eucalyptus.com/) and apparently it's no coincidence that the next Ubuntu is called Koala: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/ubuntus-koala-t/

Everyone wants to do their own open cloud APIs! First Sun ( http://kenai.com/projects/suncloudapis/pages/Home ) and now Rackspace... who'll be next?

Standards are great, especially when there are plenty to choose from.