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I think that open source database startups (or even ones that do data management like Elasticsearch) a big problem (other than finding traction obviously ). On

I think that open source database startups (or even ones that do data management like Elasticsearch) a big problem (other than finding traction obviously ). One is if you release your source code it’s very easy for someone else to just copy the straight forward business model of selling it as SaaS. The second one would be keeping your promises or even competing entrenched databases. Even when you have gotten this far a way that you can exit is to get one enterprise customer convinced to use it so badly they must acquirer you. The biggest lie I have seen across databases is actual time travel for your data. Or in other words given a date and time in the past it gives you what the data was then.

lumost 5y ago
> The biggest lie I have seen across databases is actual time travel for your data. Or in other words given a date and time in the past it gives you what the data was then. I worked at a company where we built this for our internal HBase clusters. Given any timestamp (or even better a commit ID) we could restore the cluster to that point in time. This was done through a combination of backing up the store files + write ahead logs. As I recall we had a retention limit for how much time we could do this for - but they were high enough for all of the "oh crap" moments.
- pengaru 5y ago
  That seems like it would burn a lot of space on store file snapshots to replay the relevant WAL atop. Did they integrate with an underlying filesystem's snapshotting feature to make the store file snapshots differentials, or was that also implemented in the database? Or just threw space at the problem?
bushbaba 5y ago
While not a database. Apache iceberg has the time travel functionality for read heavy big data analytics, among other optimizations.
Traster 5y ago
On the business model side of things, I think the most important thing to think about is the threat of the cloud providers. In the same way that MSFT were able to take most of the profits from the 90s/00s PC business, and Apple were able to take most of the profits from the appstore, and Amazon takes most of the profits from the Amazon market place, in the same way the cloud providers are realistically going to take the vast majority of the profits from running your DB in the cloud. Elasticsearch has exactly this problem. If they're lucky, Amazon will buy them. If they're unlucky Amazon will just steal their tech and take the profits (some would argue this already happened). They're by and large living in someone elses ecosystem.
christkv 5y ago
Thus the reason they have created new licenses that poison the well for companies trying to offer SaaS services using mongo or elastic as two examples or just GPL for Neo4j
- zitterbewegung 5y ago
  I don’t know if they understood the implications of the Apache Software License when they should have used a closed source and or AGPL license.

lumost 5y ago

> The biggest lie I have seen across databases is actual time travel for your data. Or in other words given a date and time in the past it gives you what the data was then. I worked at a company where we built this for our internal HBase clusters. Given any timestamp (or even better a commit ID) we could restore the cluster to that point in time. This was done through a combination of backing up the store files + write ahead logs. As I recall we had a retention limit for how much time we could do this for - but they were high enough for all of the "oh crap" moments.

pengaru 5y ago
That seems like it would burn a lot of space on store file snapshots to replay the relevant WAL atop. Did they integrate with an underlying filesystem's snapshotting feature to make the store file snapshots differentials, or was that also implemented in the database? Or just threw space at the problem?

bushbaba 5y ago

While not a database. Apache iceberg has the time travel functionality for read heavy big data analytics, among other optimizations.

Traster 5y ago

On the business model side of things, I think the most important thing to think about is the threat of the cloud providers. In the same way that MSFT were able to take most of the profits from the 90s/00s PC business, and Apple were able to take most of the profits from the appstore, and Amazon takes most of the profits from the Amazon market place, in the same way the cloud providers are realistically going to take the vast majority of the profits from running your DB in the cloud. Elasticsearch has exactly this problem. If they're lucky, Amazon will buy them. If they're unlucky Amazon will just steal their tech and take the profits (some would argue this already happened). They're by and large living in someone elses ecosystem.

christkv 5y ago

Thus the reason they have created new licenses that poison the well for companies trying to offer SaaS services using mongo or elastic as two examples or just GPL for Neo4j

zitterbewegung 5y ago
I don’t know if they understood the implications of the Apache Software License when they should have used a closed source and or AGPL license.