| guide | A few days ago, the RethinkDB project had new developments. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) announced that it purchased the source code copyright of the NoSQL distributed file storage database RethinkDB, changed the license agreement from Affero GPLv3 to Apache v2, and donated it to the Linux Foundation . |
On October 5, 2016, RethinkDB co-founder Slava Akhmechet announced on the official website that RethinkDB was bankrupt. Slava Akhmechet said that it has tried its best, but in the end it was still unable to establish a sustainable business model. Next, Stripe will accept RethinkDB, and the RethinkDB engineering team will join Stripe. The RethinkDB and Horizon open source projects under RethinkDB Corporation will not be shut down during the handover process. Both projects will continue to be available, and everything on the rethinkdb.com and horizon.io websites can be accessed normally. Slava Akhmechet also hopes to maintain an open development process with the efforts of community contributors.
At present, the RethinkDB project has "resurrected from the dead".
Although RethinkDB declared bankruptcy last year, the project is still alive and in good condition: the RethinkDB project continues to be actively developed and has not been interrupted by bankruptcy. Users can continue to use RethinkDB in production environments. RethinkDB's official website, GitHub project and social media accounts are also operating as usual. Today, with the support of the Linux Foundation, the project has strong institutional support and the ability to accept donations.
Since announcing its closure last year, community members have expressed their willingness to fund the follow-up development of RethinkDB. Now, RethinkDB is ready to accept donations and put the funds raised to good use. Stripe has donated a whopping $25,000 to the cause.
Many former RethinkDB employees currently work for Stripe, where they help build infrastructure for developers around the world. This announcement gives credence to the idea that the project has a future in the community.
What is RethinkDB?
RethinkDB first appeared as a MySQL storage engine specially optimized for SSD, and its feature lies in the full utilization of SSD. At present, RethinkDB has separated from MySQL and become an independent storage. RethinkDB is the first open source, distributed, and scalable database designed from the bottom up for real-time web pages, with powerful clustering and automatic failover capabilities. Traditional databases use a query-response database access model. RethinkDB works well on the web mainly because it maps directly to HTTP request responses.
RethinkDB is the first database to use an exciting new database access model, instead of polling the database for changes, developers can instruct RethinkDB to continuously push updated query results to the application in real time. This makes it easy to build modern, real-time applications: developers get a scalable real-time web application that runs in a fraction of the time while using fewer engineering resources.
According to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the RethinkDB database is used by hundreds of startups, consulting firms, and Fortune 500 companies, including NASA, GM, Jive, Platzi, the U.S. Department of Defense, Distractify, and Matters Media.
What's next?
How to define the future of RethinkDB, the community will make some important decisions. Going forward, they will gradually open source more software, content, a large amount of artwork (via @annieruygt), and documentation developed by the core team over the past seven years. They have also been discussing with the CNCF how to become an initial project.
A new version of RethinkDB is already in the works: Over the past few months, volunteer contributors have continued to work hard to improve the database. In the next few days, RethinkDB 2.4 will be released. The new version incorporates community improvements and features developed before closing last year. At the same time, RethinkDB 2.3.6, which provides important bug fixes, will also be released.
In the product roadmap, the community has some preliminary plans for RethinkDB 2.5. Making the code easier to own for new contributors is a high priority. This involves refactoring, whereby technical debt and legacy code or functionality is eliminated. 2.5 may have some performance improvements, improving hard-durability writes.
Who is involved?
Former RethinkDB team members:
Christina Keelan、Etienne Laurin、Sam Hughes；
Community members:
Marshall Cottrell、Ross Kukulinski、Chris Abrams、Matt Broadstone；
Dan Kohn, Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation;
Bryan Cantrill, Cloud Native Computing Foundation TOC member.
RethinkDB founders Mike Glukhovsky and Slava Akhmechet were also on hand to ensure a smooth transition.
Why is it taking so long for new developments?
When the company closed down last year, the source code and other assets of the RethinkDB project were held by creditors. While it is possible to give the source code branch a new name that complies with the terms of the AGPL and continue development, the interim leadership team believes that securing rights and adopting a more permissive license will provide a stronger basis for advancing the project. As a result, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation stepped up negotiations and purchased the source code on behalf of the community.
The sensitive nature of the transaction made it difficult to discuss specifics with the community during the negotiation process. The continued silence is necessary to ensure the successful completion of the transaction and to provide as much continuity as possible to existing users and contributors. Today, the rights to the source code are officially held by the community, and RethinkDB is resurrected from the phoenix.
Internet reaction
Discussion 1: Is it good or bad to close it?
- Netizen Redmega: I am very relieved that they did not die as they claimed before. Great idea!
- Netizen vilmidget38: I like using Rethink very much and hope to see it continue to go on.
- Netizen Solon1: I think it's better for them to close it. There is a group that buys the source and a license and distributes it as BSD. They have no connection with the original company.
Discussion 2: RethinkDB or MongoDB?
- Netizen FlukyS: RethinkDB has super scalability, it can handle PB-level data. However, depending on the configuration, this can lead to some compromises in usability, but in my opinion, the user has a lot of control. Consistency is the weakest point that RethinkDB considers. The great thing about RethinkDB is that it's easy to use. I only use RethinkDB during the development phase, because later the company decided to adopt MongoDB.
- Netizen read_eat_or: May I ask you (FlukyS) why you gave up RethinkDB and chose MongoDB?
- Netizen FlukyS: Frankly speaking, it’s not my decision. I just did an initial test, and the final decision is based on experience. I think it may be because the team is more familiar with MongoDB. This is a decision made several years ago. If it is done again now, the result may be different. Regardless of whether RethinkDB or MongDB is used, we only save log data and do not store commercial data in the market. We are far more read operations than write operations. There is a view that RethinkDB lost to MongoDB, so maybe you can read about MongoDB again.