Riak and the demise of Basho • Hacker News Board

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#41

Post by russelldb74 » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

simonvc wrote: post #8

More importantly, they acquired Russel Brown ( http://basho.com/posts/author/russell-brown/ )

Ah they didn't. I went to work for them after I was let go by Basho in January, but have since moved on to general contract work on Riak. I am lucky enough to remain in contact with the people at bet365. My take, for what it is worth, is that this is a very generous gesture from bet365 and it helps the whole community. bet365 really hide their light under a bushel in terms of how big a UK technology success story they are. I'm looking forward to working on the newly open sourced replication code.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#42

Post by wlesieutre » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

hanikesn wrote: post #24

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #22

I haven't been following this, but from what I can gather: - They raised $60mil (the last round being a Series G for $25mil!) - They're being sold for what I can only this is a pittance / acquihire by Bet365 - Bet365 is buying them because they're heavily invested in Riak internally - They're open sourcing the code (likely because they need help) I'm not trying to disparage anyone here, but this makes my blood run co…

This is not an acquihire. A lot of developers were already let go quite some time ago from Basho.

I didn't specifically ask, but from what I understood they were all gone and this is just assets.

Plus a lot of talented people jumped ship before it sank on account of the management team.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#43

Post by tptacek » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #30

hanikesn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an acquihire. A lot of developers were already let go quite some time ago from Basho.

Then what was it? Genuinely curious what happened here...

The note mentions a receiver, which means the company is being liquidated by a court, which implies that it's effectively (though not technically) bankrupt.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#44

Post by kuwze » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 1:57 PM UTC

andrew_deane_ wrote: post #17

Today bet365 have signed the agreement to purchase all Basho IP. We expect the agreement to be ratified in the US courts next week. Once cleared, our intention is to open source all code, help rebuild the community and collaboratively take the development of RIAK forward. In the coming weeks we will hopefully answer the questions people have and will be calling on the community to help forge the initial RIAK Roadmap.…

GPLv3 and Apachev2 are the best in regards to dealing with patents.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#45

Post by rasjani » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

I've no experience w/ Riak what so ever but years ago I was contacted by hh for an open position at Basho. They where looking for field support engineer to a local gaming company. They would hire me and put me directly to client. Maybe i'd have gotten some training on the Riak, but it was never mentioned during the rounds. All interviews where done remotely. Eventually I did say no to the offer.

Some time later, even the guy who interviewed me was out from Basho.

Idk, whole process just fell very weird.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#46

Post by dmix » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:46 PM UTC

benwilber0 wrote: post #31

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #22

I haven't been following this, but from what I can gather: - They raised $60mil (the last round being a Series G for $25mil!) - They're being sold for what I can only this is a pittance / acquihire by Bet365 - Bet365 is buying them because they're heavily invested in Riak internally - They're open sourcing the code (likely because they need help) I'm not trying to disparage anyone here, but this makes my blood run co…

> Is Riak so critical to Bet365 that the right move was to _buy the company_ versus switching to a different storage system? Quite possibly, yes. Data has incredible inertia. Not only because of the storage system used, but also all of the years of ops tooling, application integration, etc. that surrounds it. I don't know anything about Bet 365, but if they had any non-trivial amount of their business data locked up…

And besides the natural lock-in that comes with investing in a DB, Riak may just be that much better than the other options at what it does.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#47

Post by grkvlt » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

kuwze wrote: post #44

andrew_deane_ wrote: post #17

Today bet365 have signed the agreement to purchase all Basho IP. We expect the agreement to be ratified in the US courts next week. Once cleared, our intention is to open source all code, help rebuild the community and collaboratively take the development of RIAK forward. In the coming weeks we will hopefully answer the questions people have and will be calling on the community to help forge the initial RIAK Roadmap.…

GPLv3 and Apachev2 are the best in regards to dealing with patents.

I think APACHE-2.0 is probably the best for end users in terms of acceptability in enterprises etc. A lot of places have issues with the virality of GPL licensing.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#48

Post by atonse » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

kuwze wrote: post #44

andrew_deane_ wrote: post #17

Today bet365 have signed the agreement to purchase all Basho IP. We expect the agreement to be ratified in the US courts next week. Once cleared, our intention is to open source all code, help rebuild the community and collaboratively take the development of RIAK forward. In the coming weeks we will hopefully answer the questions people have and will be calling on the community to help forge the initial RIAK Roadmap.…

GPLv3 and Apachev2 are the best in regards to dealing with patents.

Please don't do GPL – It's a no-go and too restrictive for a lot of organizations.

Apache 2 or MIT would be the most permissive.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#49

Post by AlimJaffer » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #47

kuwze wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv3 and Apachev2 are the best in regards to dealing with patents.

I think APACHE-2.0 is probably the best for end users in terms of acceptability in enterprises etc. A lot of places have issues with the virality of GPL licensing.

Seconded on Apache-2.0 - it's what we use. GPL is not attractive to enterprise and will limit the adoption of the tech.

Re: Riak and the demise of Basho

#50

Post by andrew_deane_ » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #22

I haven't been following this, but from what I can gather: - They raised $60mil (the last round being a Series G for $25mil!) - They're being sold for what I can only this is a pittance / acquihire by Bet365 - Bet365 is buying them because they're heavily invested in Riak internally - They're open sourcing the code (likely because they need help) I'm not trying to disparage anyone here, but this makes my blood run co…

We use a huge amount of RIAK at bet365, and prior to the IP acquisition had secured the rights to the enterprise code. We have a large development team and are already working on enhancements. Securing the IP, and the subsequent opening of the code allows us, and any other enterprise users in a similar position, to release code for the good of the wider community.