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As an expert in the DB space, I'm extraordinarily cynical. But their willingness to license it as truly open, Apache-style, instantly is a big win-over. I'm a

As an expert in the DB space, I'm extraordinarily cynical. But their willingness to license it as truly open, Apache-style, instantly is a big win-over. I'm a competitor, but I can tell these guys/gals are genuine in their efforts. We need more people, teams, and DBs like YugaByteDB in the world. Thank you for your efforts.

the_duke 8y ago
The question is, how many of these very similar databases can the market support? The field is getting crowded, and the database market is already quite competitive as it is, without these new competitors. There just are not that many use cases where a larger Postgres/MySQL instance with one or two replicas is insufficient. From a user perspective, I'd much rather have one or two successful companies where I can be reasonably certain that the product will be maintained in 5 years than too much competition.
- marknadal 8y ago
  This is why the license matters. Even if the commercial/AGPL/GPL ones "win" for a few years, they won't be able to compete with these more Open licensed DBs when they catch up. So at any given moment, too many DBs may be annoying, but for the long term and long game it is important there is this type of competition & research going on. Although, I absolutely agree, when it comes to Master-Slave based systems (I've been very vocal in criticizing them) that market is drying up to some very limited use cases (banking, etc.). 99%+ of use cases will be Strong Eventual Consistency and CRDT with distributed or decentralized/P2P tools. Some really old, yet very relevant, thoughts on this subject: https://hackernoon.com/the-implications-of-rethinkdb-and-parse-shutdowns-c076460058f7 https://hackernoon.com/the-implications-of-rethinkdb-and-par...
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    I'm thourghly confused by your association of (a)GPL and commercial and calling apach/bad licenses more open. AGPL ensures that users always retain the 4 freedoms, by restricting developers. BSD allows developers to do whatever, including restricting the users. Neither is "more open", they both make trade offs and neither is comparable to proprietary except to say the BSD style licences allow for it if the developer chooses. Look at the kurfuffle around mongo, redis, and elastic search because of their licenses. However, you don't hear the same issues coming from the postgres community. The licenses you're claiming will win the day cause problems for for-profit I companies, for exactly the reason you think they're "more open". In the end, either entrenched proprietary software or open, community-focused, community-stewarded software will win the day.
    - marknadal 8y ago
      I believe we both have reasonable arguments from our paradigm, it is just the paradigms have conflicting definitions. When people who share camp with me say "Open" or "Freedom" we mean Free Speech AND Free Beer. Where the disagreement happens is on Free Speech: There are many people/governments that define Free Speech as "Free Speech as long as someone does not shout 'fire' in a crowded room." This is the spirit of (a)GPL in restricting people. The other group defines Free Speech and/or "Freedom" as "without restriction". Not because they want people to yell "fire" but because they attribute restriction/regulation as the mechanism towards monopoly & centralization. Not that regulation/restriction on its own is bad (every individual ought exercise self-discipline), but it is particularly dangerous once monopoly & centralization emerges because it produces totalitarian or fascist structures. To counter my own view, many people in the camp opposite of me, have expressed same end-goal concerns "we want to restrict hate speech so fascism doesn't rise". I think it is admirable we have shared-goals (stopping totalitarianism), but for reasons you probably don't share, I think it is more effective to stop fascism by removing the ability for fascists to enforce rules/regulation/restrictions on individuals, even if that comes at the cost or risk of someone yelling "fire". Why? (I don't assume anyone cares about my view, so don't feel obligated to read) Because I have higher optimism that humans will eventually overcome their individual immaturity (shouting "pen--" in a crowd), especially through incentive design, than in humans overcoming their tendency towards abuse of power (or even worse, most people who "abuse" power don't think they are abusing it, they have a conviction that the use of power is for some greater good). Wielding power is often the end game of any incentive structure, but yelling "fire" or "p--is" often ruins your reputation/power so naturally is disincentivized over time (or where it matters most).
      - jimktrains2 8y ago
        I feel like your "fire" and "totalitarian" examples are confusing, entirely off-base and non-illustrative of anything useful to this conversation. Why? Because the difference between copyleft and non-copyleft licenses isn't akin to censorship vs no-censorship. The argument for the copyleft is more akin to the arguments for laws in general: someone's absolute freedoms needs to be troddened on to have a free society. I similarly fail to see how a copyleft is a power to abuse. Surely the ability to close the source of an application has more power that can be abused?
- DigitalVerse 8y ago
  I do think there are going to be more and more use cases where having more than one or two replicas is necessary, even if there aren't that many right now. IoT strikes me as an example. But even so, I'm with you. I'd much rather have two companies that I know will maintain the software long term than a plethora of competitors that might die out at any time. And while being open source is helpful in that regard, there's no guarantee that the open source community will maintain it after the backing company is gone. Databases are too important to gamble on imo. On the other hand, a little competition to make sure the big guys stay on their toes is a good thing.
mysticaltech 8y ago
Thanks for your honest insight man, really appreciate it! Gun is also extremely cool, here's the link for others https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun

the_duke 8y ago

The question is, how many of these very similar databases can the market support? The field is getting crowded, and the database market is already quite competitive as it is, without these new competitors. There just are not that many use cases where a larger Postgres/MySQL instance with one or two replicas is insufficient. From a user perspective, I'd much rather have one or two successful companies where I can be reasonably certain that the product will be maintained in 5 years than too much competition.

marknadal 8y ago
This is why the license matters. Even if the commercial/AGPL/GPL ones "win" for a few years, they won't be able to compete with these more Open licensed DBs when they catch up. So at any given moment, too many DBs may be annoying, but for the long term and long game it is important there is this type of competition & research going on. Although, I absolutely agree, when it comes to Master-Slave based systems (I've been very vocal in criticizing them) that market is drying up to some very limited use cases (banking, etc.). 99%+ of use cases will be Strong Eventual Consistency and CRDT with distributed or decentralized/P2P tools. Some really old, yet very relevant, thoughts on this subject: https://hackernoon.com/the-implications-of-rethinkdb-and-parse-shutdowns-c076460058f7 https://hackernoon.com/the-implications-of-rethinkdb-and-par...
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  I'm thourghly confused by your association of (a)GPL and commercial and calling apach/bad licenses more open. AGPL ensures that users always retain the 4 freedoms, by restricting developers. BSD allows developers to do whatever, including restricting the users. Neither is "more open", they both make trade offs and neither is comparable to proprietary except to say the BSD style licences allow for it if the developer chooses. Look at the kurfuffle around mongo, redis, and elastic search because of their licenses. However, you don't hear the same issues coming from the postgres community. The licenses you're claiming will win the day cause problems for for-profit I companies, for exactly the reason you think they're "more open". In the end, either entrenched proprietary software or open, community-focused, community-stewarded software will win the day.
  - marknadal 8y ago
    I believe we both have reasonable arguments from our paradigm, it is just the paradigms have conflicting definitions. When people who share camp with me say "Open" or "Freedom" we mean Free Speech AND Free Beer. Where the disagreement happens is on Free Speech: There are many people/governments that define Free Speech as "Free Speech as long as someone does not shout 'fire' in a crowded room." This is the spirit of (a)GPL in restricting people. The other group defines Free Speech and/or "Freedom" as "without restriction". Not because they want people to yell "fire" but because they attribute restriction/regulation as the mechanism towards monopoly & centralization. Not that regulation/restriction on its own is bad (every individual ought exercise self-discipline), but it is particularly dangerous once monopoly & centralization emerges because it produces totalitarian or fascist structures. To counter my own view, many people in the camp opposite of me, have expressed same end-goal concerns "we want to restrict hate speech so fascism doesn't rise". I think it is admirable we have shared-goals (stopping totalitarianism), but for reasons you probably don't share, I think it is more effective to stop fascism by removing the ability for fascists to enforce rules/regulation/restrictions on individuals, even if that comes at the cost or risk of someone yelling "fire". Why? (I don't assume anyone cares about my view, so don't feel obligated to read) Because I have higher optimism that humans will eventually overcome their individual immaturity (shouting "pen--" in a crowd), especially through incentive design, than in humans overcoming their tendency towards abuse of power (or even worse, most people who "abuse" power don't think they are abusing it, they have a conviction that the use of power is for some greater good). Wielding power is often the end game of any incentive structure, but yelling "fire" or "p--is" often ruins your reputation/power so naturally is disincentivized over time (or where it matters most).
    - jimktrains2 8y ago
      I feel like your "fire" and "totalitarian" examples are confusing, entirely off-base and non-illustrative of anything useful to this conversation. Why? Because the difference between copyleft and non-copyleft licenses isn't akin to censorship vs no-censorship. The argument for the copyleft is more akin to the arguments for laws in general: someone's absolute freedoms needs to be troddened on to have a free society. I similarly fail to see how a copyleft is a power to abuse. Surely the ability to close the source of an application has more power that can be abused?
DigitalVerse 8y ago
I do think there are going to be more and more use cases where having more than one or two replicas is necessary, even if there aren't that many right now. IoT strikes me as an example. But even so, I'm with you. I'd much rather have two companies that I know will maintain the software long term than a plethora of competitors that might die out at any time. And while being open source is helpful in that regard, there's no guarantee that the open source community will maintain it after the backing company is gone. Databases are too important to gamble on imo. On the other hand, a little competition to make sure the big guys stay on their toes is a good thing.

mysticaltech 8y ago

Thanks for your honest insight man, really appreciate it! Gun is also extremely cool, here's the link for others https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun