why an ceph run in the real world as a research project?

http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=3807

Weil[1], who founded a web hosting company (DreamHost) before pursuing his doctorate at UCSC, said companies like his need affordable, scalable storage systems for customer data. But he said his main motivation for continuing to work on Ceph is simply a desire to see the project succeed. "I want it to be something people can use and not just a research project," Weil said. "It began as pure research, and now it's actually made it into the real world."

[1] author of ceph