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RethinkDB is shutting down

rethinkdb.com

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Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#71
post #51

I'm not familiar with RethinkDB - what was their monetization strategy?

The not-yet-launched but almost ready Horizon Cloud was also going to be a route for monetization. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite make it :/

It also would have had to compete with Firebase.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#73
Why does nobody seem to have any introspection on why RethinkDB failed? Clearly there are some major problems that people re ignoring. If my favorite DB (I must mention Kx Systems once a month) folded, I could give you a laundry list of issues where things went sideways, but all I see is glowing praise and comments about the best tech not always winning (KDB knocks the socks off of everything, but I sure can give you a list of places it fails).

This isn't meant to be harsh, but these are times to learn, not simply pat each other on the back.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#74
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the key product should be open-source. Else it's too scary to invest in it: what if the company behind it folds, and you end up in a dead end? Only certain super-behemoths like Microsoft or Apple can afford to have their infrastructure products being closed-source.

How many people in the world can work on a large DB, even with source? I am all for open source, but it doesn't make things like this is easy as some make it out to be. For example with Linux source, how long would it take me to fix a video driver bug? Perhaps a year?

His point is a little more subtle than that. When you're choosing a database engine to build your company on, knowing that it's open source provides some level of guarantee that someone will continue to maintain it if the company/developer folds, even if that someone is not you.

Therefore, if you're the one building the database, open-sourcing it de-risks your product to your potential customers, to some extent.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#75
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The not-yet-launched but almost ready Horizon Cloud was also going to be a route for monetization. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite make it :/

It also would have had to compete with Firebase.

Oh, by the way, I bought your RH book. Liking it so far!

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MongoDB is like the Microsoft of operating systems. Well promoted and easy to get going with. Hopefully they use the money they have to rewrite MongoDB to be better.

>MongoDB is like the Microsoft of operating systems. I'm not a Windows fan, but that's harsh. http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-ne...

That post is utter garbage. Seriously.

Most of the the points are for issues that were fixed years ago and then you get classics like "forces the poor habit of implicit schemas in nearly all usecases" as if some developer is going to somehow stumble on the fact is it a schemaless database.

It's like trying to say "Linux is shit" because of issues found in 1.0 of the kernel.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay...but if Rethink couldn't make their business self-sustaining, why would Mongo when there are a plethora of other open source databases/datastores that can do Mongo's job better than Mongo? EDIT: We'll just wait for Mongo to burn through all their cash then.

Because having the better product (often) doesn't matter: see Windows vs Apple in the early days. Mongo has a strong community, which translates into a plethora of articles/blog-posts/tutorials/etc that secures its niche. From there it's possible to make money with things like consulting fees to help fix the problems it created in the first place. It's all about execution. Case and point: I know what (purportedly) ma…

At my last workplace, I finally asked: "Since you guys bitch about mongo so much, why do we use it? Why not something else?". Response: "It's not actually that bad, it does the job".

Half the crap people speak about Mongo seems to be from either the early days, or from people who just like to complain. It certainly has it's issues, but there doesn't seem to be much community will to replace it with $superdupernosqldb.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#78
Core tech products are hard to sell. With so many passengers on big data boat - MemSQL / VoltDB / Postgres / DataStax / DataBricks / Cloudera / Horton many more.

Your sales force strength becomes critical.

Waiting for insider insights.

Re: RethinkDB is shutting down

#79

This is honestly quite depressing for me to hear. I've always liked the team and the fantastic product they created. A couple of years ago, when I was working on a DB product myself, I met a few of their team and I was just blown away by how nice and welcoming they were, even to someone developing a product that could potentially compete with theirs. Later onwards, when I was working on an NLP startup earlier this ye…

Hi Haneef :D I was one of the peeps you met at OSCON. Hope to see you around and on Twitter still <3
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