Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#21

Post by patates » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:28 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #12

Slava @ RethinkDB here. I am not able to get into details yet, but the short version is that the commercial entity behind RethinkDB is shutting down. We're working on continuity for the open-source project. Full announcement (and details) coming in a day or two.

I just love what you created, and really hope that it just keeps getting better. I was discussing with my team to switch to RethinkDB on some services just this Monday.

Such quality work should not be abandoned! In any case, thank you so much with what you and your team came up with. We (me and my colleagues) respect your work.

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#22

Post by 5ersi » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:36 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #12

Slava @ RethinkDB here. I am not able to get into details yet, but the short version is that the commercial entity behind RethinkDB is shutting down. We're working on continuity for the open-source project. Full announcement (and details) coming in a day or two.

Wow, that's a surprise. We like Rethink very much and are also deeply invested in it. We'd be willing to lend a hand with OSS development, especially Java driver (which needs much love).

Btw, this is our Java ORM built on top of RethinkDB Java driver: https://github.com/DevScore/rethinkdb-java-orm

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#23

Post by mpk » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:38 AM UTC

lukeholder wrote: post #3

Oh no! Hope everything ends up OK. RethinkDB is so fun to use. Would it be normal for development to slow when an acquisition is happening?

Yes, that would be normal. During an acquisition the future is unknown so you don't have a reliable roadmap you can use to set or update development goals. Other activities that take away from development could be developers working on capability demonstration or participating in technical due diligence.

(I don't know anything about the rethinkdb situation, I'm just speaking generally here)

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#24

Post by bnastic » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:48 AM UTC

wingless wrote: post #10

benjaminwootton wrote: post #4

And people wonder why enterprises are risk averse and nervous of open source and new innovations from startups. Are there any circumstances where a company can reasonably go dark for a week? If it is an acquisition it's pretty disrepectful of people investing in their solution.

On the contrary, I would say that enterprises should take the risk and use such projects. They likely have enough capital to hire the correct people (e.g. one of the core devs) when a problem shows up. Startups can't afford that. Therefore they should use older technology until they grow big enough to tank the damage.

That's not how enterprises work.

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#25

Post by EugeneOZ » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:49 AM UTC

craigyk wrote: post #11

Pick two: 1. Valuable product maintained by professionals 2. Is free 3. Will be around for a long time Yes, I know there are exceptions.

Huh. Apache, nginx, php, js, python, Linux, chromium, asterisk, openvpn... list is very very long. Actually I doubt there is more proprietary software that is widely accepted and reliable, than open-source (or even free) software with same achievements.

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#26

Post by moreentropy » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 7:59 AM UTC

bnastic wrote: post #24

wingless wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I would say that enterprises should take the risk and use such projects. They likely have enough capital to hire the correct people (e.g. one of the core devs) when a problem shows up. Startups can't afford that. Therefore they should use older technology until they grow big enough to tank the damage.

That's not how enterprises work.

Ack. Sadly, enterprise procurement is all about avoiding blame in case something goes wrong. Another issue is contributing to open source projects. I know a case where a customer's in house developer had to wait two months to contribute a few lines patch to a open source project because legal objected. They never dealt with that situation before.

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#27

Post by lima » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 8:06 AM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #12

Slava @ RethinkDB here. I am not able to get into details yet, but the short version is that the commercial entity behind RethinkDB is shutting down. We're working on continuity for the open-source project. Full announcement (and details) coming in a day or two.

Adding to the forum thread: I'd certainly pay for RethinkDB if that's what it takes to keep the lights on.

And I'm only using it for hobby projects. I don't want to use MongoDB.

Thinking about it, I'll just keep using it for now.

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#28

Post by rubber_duck » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 8:07 AM UTC

wingless wrote: post #10

benjaminwootton wrote: post #4

And people wonder why enterprises are risk averse and nervous of open source and new innovations from startups. Are there any circumstances where a company can reasonably go dark for a week? If it is an acquisition it's pretty disrepectful of people investing in their solution.

On the contrary, I would say that enterprises should take the risk and use such projects. They likely have enough capital to hire the correct people (e.g. one of the core devs) when a problem shows up. Startups can't afford that. Therefore they should use older technology until they grow big enough to tank the damage.

Can't say I would want to depend on being able to hire one of the few devs from the core team as my contingency plan in a high risk situation. Precisely because they are fat and have a lot of money to throw around - that leaves room for inefficiency and getting squeezed by Oracle and the likes in exchange for covering their ass.

Didn't the same problem happen to the CloudFlare with LuaJIT where they would like to hire guys that worked on it but couldn't ?

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#29

Post by rtpg » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 8:17 AM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #4

And people wonder why enterprises are risk averse and nervous of open source and new innovations from startups. Are there any circumstances where a company can reasonably go dark for a week? If it is an acquisition it's pretty disrepectful of people investing in their solution.

Well the great thing is that since it's open source (esp. if the OSS community itself is vibrant), the software can outlive the company.

Things can get difficult in some situations, we're all human. But Joyent going bankrupt wouldn't mean the end of Node. But where is Datomic without Cognitent?

Re: Are RethinkDB and Horizon abandoned?

#30

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 8:25 AM UTC

bnastic wrote: post #24

wingless wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I would say that enterprises should take the risk and use such projects. They likely have enough capital to hire the correct people (e.g. one of the core devs) when a problem shows up. Startups can't afford that. Therefore they should use older technology until they grow big enough to tank the damage.

That's not how enterprises work.

That's how at least one of my start-up experiences wound up. The large enterprise entity who'd committed strongly to the product ended up bringing much of the development effort in-house, for several years.

You've got to realise that for enterprise software, there's $10 sales, $100 sales, $1,000 sales ... and then $1,000,000 sales. At the top level, you're looking at entities who have the resources, and occasionally the motivation, to bring product entirely in-house. It might not be their first choice, but it's an option, and quite likely something they've already considered when negotiating for services.