
RethinkDB needs a new home - chrisabrams
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1yY2qy25viVc8MiM0XCsyMCpbalgzXrpT3MQAd_d3C1-jhA/viewform?c=0&w=1
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chrisabrams
OP here. I'm an open source contributor, not affiliated with RethinkDB Co.
I've been using RethinkDB in production for years, and it has been one of the
greatest blessings of my engineering career.

I am a big believer in RethinkDB and I want to see the project continue
forward just like many fellow HN members have expressed in the past few days.
I plan to share this with open source foundations to help spark an opportunity
to help find RethinkDB a new home.

I would encourage constructive communication here. This is about the RethinkDB
community working together to help the project end up in a good spot. What
foundation or company is not the goal here. Saying this foundation is "good"
and another is "bad" is not the goal here. The goal is to work together and
make it clear we the community support and thank the RethinkDB team for all of
their hard work.

~~~
nailer
Node went to the Linux Foundation which seems to have worked well for the last
couple of years.

~~~
chrisabrams
Node was in a very tough position as the community had actually split into
multiple factions. Uniting under a foundation has only strengthened Node's
community.

We can only hope that RethinkDB's community can use this time to unite
together and help push the project forward, no matter where the project ends
up.

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Artemis2
Why not the Cloud Native Computing Foundation
([https://cncf.io](https://cncf.io))? They manage Kubernetes (cluster
orchestration) and recently adopted Prometheus (metric monitoring & alerting).
A real-time distributed database as good as RethinkDB could be a great
addition, if they are willing to accept it.

~~~
bcantrill
I am on the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee, and speaking personally, I
would love to see RethinkDB in the CNCF! I would be happy to champion it, but
I already know that the biggest issue is going to be the license: I am hoping
that Slava and crew are considering relicensing everything to be under Apache
2.0 -- AGPL is going to make the CNCF path more challenging, I fear.

~~~
rattray
Wow, the RethinkDB server currently is indeed AGPL v3:
[https://www.rethinkdb.com/faq/#how-is-rethinkdb-
licensed](https://www.rethinkdb.com/faq/#how-is-rethinkdb-licensed)

> Require users who are unwilling to release the patches to the software
> development community to purchase a commercial license.

It definitely looks like they'd be willing, if not eager, to relicense to a
less commercially-motivated server now that the company is shutting down.
Obviously we'll have to wait and see.

Note for posterity and the lazy, the client drivers are Apache v2.

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koolba
For something like to succeed, you don't need corporate backing or a large
structured organization. You need programmers who are familiar with the
language (C++?), familiar with the code base, actively interested in adding
features, and (preferably) have a vested interest from their day jobs to
improve the product.

Looking at other open source databases (PG, MariaDb, etc), the total number of
contributors may be large but the core contributors who work on the nuts and
bolts of the internals is small. If you don't have that core set, any new home
for RethinkDB is going to remain vacant.

~~~
hodgesrm
RethinkDB _would_ benefit from corporate backing but it needs to be the right
sort. I was deeply involved in the MySQL community for a number of years. Both
Facebook and Google made significant contributions to the codebase over a
number of years and Facebook also funded other open source efforts around
MySQL.

For instance a lot of the "vested interest" in improving MySQL performance has
come from great engineers like Mark Callaghan and Domas Mituzas (hi Domas!)
having jobs that paid them to help run MySQL at a grand scale at Facebook.

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Artemis2
There's a GitHub issue to track the transfer of control of the project:
[https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6137](https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6137)

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jkot
Any chance to start a new company? I think original company failed because it
had too much overhead (SF office, marketing, investors...)

There is a good brand, existing user base, big customers with references...

Lean distributed company could make a good profit here with minimal
investment.

~~~
mamadrood
I think, sadly, that the only way to save Rethink would be to hire a big
marketing team / evangelist team and try to dethrone Mongo. But i don't see
that coming.

~~~
buckbova
mongodb folks are indeed aggressive.

I had one person really hounding me to pitch mongodb to my organization
basically suggesting it as a huge boon to productivity and it would be trivial
to rewrite all our rdbms based apps on top of mongodb.

I'm not sure how well they're doing, but some less knowledgeable than I might
have taken the bait.

~~~
iagooar
If it wasn't for aggressive marketing, no one would even consider such a
madness.

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oh_well
As long as RethinkDB is AGPL most will just stick with postgres.

Is it possible (or likely) to get the creditors of Rethink to change the
license?

~~~
timmaxw
From reading your other comments in this thread, it seems like you have
misunderstood what the AGPL does. If you modify RethinkDB and run the modified
RethinkDB server as part of a public-facing web app, you must release the code
for your modified RethinkDB server to the community. But you have no legal
obligation to release the rest of your web app to the community. Writing a web
app that connects to RethinkDB over the network doesn't count as "modifying"
the RethinkDB source code, so most RethinkDB users would never have to release
any source code.

You've probably heard that the difference between the GPL and the AGPL is
whether they apply to access over a network or not; but you seem to have
misinterpreted how that works. The GPL says that if you modify GPL-licensed
software and distribute compiled binaries to users, you must also distribute
the source code under the GPL. The AGPL says the same thing as the GPL, except
that making the modified software available over the network is treated the
same as distributing the modified software as a compiled binary.

~~~
oh_well
> it seems like you have misunderstood what the AGPL does.

I've read the AGPL license. I disagree with your interpretation.

~~~
zackelan
Your interpretation also disagrees with the interpretation, and explicitly
stated goals, of RethinkDB itself:

[https://rethinkdb.com/faq/](https://rethinkdb.com/faq/)

> The RethinkDB server is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License
> v3.0. The client drivers are licensed under the Apache License v2.0.

> We chose to release the client drivers under the Apache License v2.0 to
> remove any ambiguity as to the extent of the server license. You do not have
> to license any software that uses RethinkDB under AGPL, and are free to use
> any licensing mechanism of your choice.

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thecity2
Why doesn't it become an Apache project?

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jlebrech
why not just buy rethinkdb.org or is the trademark now part of Stripe?

what about freethinkdb.org?

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tshannon
freethinkdb is a good name, maybe for a future fork :)

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vacri
'freethink/freethought/freethinker' is a politically-loaded term

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought)

~~~
jlebrech
it's not a negative term, so what's the problem?

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rattray
What a cool effort. I wish this kind of thing happened more often. I really
hope they get a big response.

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halite
I hope other open source projects are watching this unfold and some good
lessons learned come out of this. I don't want this to happen to Meteor!

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tbrock
Anywhere but Apache please!

This product is forward thinking and edgy, not ready to die.

~~~
Thaxll
Yeah Hadoop, Mesos, Storm those are definitely not "edgy"products...

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ryeguy
Cassandra is also dead and not used by any notable companies.

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imagist
Cassandra is used by Reddit and Uber.

There's a word for unjustified confidence.

~~~
simonbw
I'm pretty sure the parent comment was joking.

