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Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

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Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#81

Post by shevy-java »

didgetmaster wrote: post #52
2ndorderthought wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish projects like this didn't fall through the cracks and continued to be funded. The struggles of OSS are too real.

The project is being abandoned because the maintainer is tired of working for free. They said that they hoped someone would fork it, change the name, and pick up where it was left off. Why would anyone do that? If the person who was most passionate about it for over a dozen years has given up because it was never worth the trouble; what fool would think things will be different going forward? This is the curse of OSS…

> what fool would think things will be different going forward?

> This is the curse of OSS.

There are examples of failing forks. And there are examples of forks that became better than the original. It is not possible to generalize this into one or the other solely via a curse-of-OSS conclusion. Funding will always be an issue; but funding is not necessarily the main or only criterium as to whether a project fails or succeeds.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#82

Post by faangguyindia »

freakynit wrote: post #23

So sad to see this happening.. I had just last year prepared a detailed guide for reliable postgre backups to local volume as well as cloud storage, using pgBackRest, for my own projects.. pgBackRest have worked so well for me https://github.com/freakynit/postgre-backup-and-restore-guid... Thanks to the author for all the time and effort he put into this project..

One thing people are not taking into account is that many developers now have less time and are working a lot more because AI makes it seem it should be possible to hit those deadlines, etc.

Also, many programers have spent their entire funds on tokens, so neither are left with extra money nor time.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#83

Post by zigzag312 »

hosteur wrote: post #48
joshmn wrote: post #25

I have a moderately sized 2TB production database I have enjoyed using pgBackRest on, and was—this week—going to set it up on another 8TB database we have. What's the next-closest thing? wal-g? barman? databasus? I only get to cosplay as a DBA.

databasus does not do PITR.

Is that info up-to-date? Their readme states:

  **Backup types**
  
  - **Logical** — Native dump of the database in its engine-specific binary format. Compressed and streamed directly to storage with no intermediate files
  - **Physical** — File-level copy of the entire database cluster. Faster backup and restore for large datasets compared to logical dumps
  - **Incremental** — Physical base backup combined with continuous WAL segment archiving. **Enables Point-in-time recovery (PITR)** — restore to any second between backups. Designed for disaster recovery and near-zero data loss requirements
EDIT: It seem PITR has been added this March (for PostgreSQL)

https://github.com/databasus/databasus/issues/411

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#84

Post by ramraj07 »

joshmn wrote: post #25

I have a moderately sized 2TB production database I have enjoyed using pgBackRest on, and was—this week—going to set it up on another 8TB database we have. What's the next-closest thing? wal-g? barman? databasus? I only get to cosplay as a DBA.

Backing up multi terabyte production postgres databases is not merely cos playing ha ha

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#85

Post by piva00 »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #64
piva00 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly gatekeeping, no? You are only entitled to feel sad if you contributed effort or financially, otherwise you aren't allowed to feel. Why can't others that just used the tool feel sad? It is supposed to be used, it's the whole reason for it to exist; not everyone using it will have technical expertise or money to contribute to it, feeling sad about it when it solved issues for someone is a completely nor…

The reason for something to exist is not to be used. He was paid while doing it, and that pay stopped, and he kept doing it. Now he wishes to stop. The reason for something to exist is someone finds joy doing it. Especially when they are unpaid. The sadness should be focused on his inability to support himself with a tool that clearly a lot of companies, and people are using and gaining value for.

The reason for a tool to exist is to be used, even if it's just by a singular person, other projects that aren't tools do definitely fit into the criteria "just for the joy of it" but a tool, by definition, has at least one usage, and building a tool gives someone joy from the tool being useful.

The sadness doesn't need to be focused anywhere, you can feel sad for more than one thing at a time. People can be sad that a tool they think is great, have relied on, and has been important for their use case is going away while also be sad that such a great tool doesn't get enough support from companies. Both can be true, no need to control what people can or should feel.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#89

Post by gjsman-1000 »

tclancy wrote: post #80
didgetmaster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project is being abandoned because the maintainer is tired of working for free. They said that they hoped someone would fork it, change the name, and pick up where it was left off. Why would anyone do that? If the person who was most passionate about it for over a dozen years has given up because it was never worth the trouble; what fool would think things will be different going forward? This is the curse of OSS…

While I tend to agree with the line of thinking in this thread that the ethos of open source (and the web writ large) have been taken advantage of by capitalism, I can't quite see this: things belong to a time and place in one's life. The creator feels like his time with this project is at an end, but why would that be an impediment to someone who needs a package like this stepping up and maintaining it? Better to do…

> have been taken advantage of by capitalism

“And many programmers, they say to me, “The people who hire programmers demand this, this and this. If I don't do those things, I'll starve.” It's literally the word they use. Well, you know, as a waiter, you're not going to starve. So, really, they're in no danger.”

- Richard Stallman in 2001 admitting his ideology can’t explain how a programmer can eat

In my opinion, though this is HN heresy, the free software ideology and ethos was naïve, utopian, and clueless about how power works, from day 1. His dream is literally structurally impossible, capitalism or no capitalism, so long as humans need money to eat.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#90

Post by electroly »

pjmlp wrote: post #39
LetMeLogin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why are you gatekeeping this? People can't comment now that they are sad because of what happened?

Gatekeeping?!? Those that paid , or did any kind of contributions upstream are entitled to be sad. Others should consider this is what happens to that lego piece in Nebraska, when no one contributes, and everyone uses it.

They're right. This is over the top. Your initial post in this thread was sensible (telling the users of Pgbackrest that they should have supported it if they didn't want this to happen, and saying nothing about what emotions are valid to have), but you took it much further here. People should financially support the OSS projects they use, and the lack of such support is why this project is no longer maintained, but claiming people aren't allowed to feel anything about it is just playing a game that isn't helping the cause. We all know this problem, and being sad while having not supported the project isn't a statement that we disagree that the problem exists. It's a big stretch to assume that it is.

I've never heard of this project before and I still think it's a bummer that a tool people liked and that the maintainer cared about was unable to find backing. I was never going to support it; I just heard of it for the first time today and I don't use it! I'm still sad. We're not robots here. We're fellow developers, and we know it's tough out there.

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