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If I can't trust their first project (KuzuDB), then why on earth would I trust any subsequent project by them? I won't. This is why I stick to SQLite or Postgr

If I can't trust their first project (KuzuDB), then why on earth would I trust any subsequent project by them? I won't. This is why I stick to SQLite or PostgreSQL when it comes to databases. An LLM can trivially write me the commonly necessary graph queries if I should need them.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Why does an MIT-licensed open source project owe you anything whatsoever?
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  It's not about what is owed; it's about what can be trusted. The people behind Kuzu have shown that they cannot be trusted to be used.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    I don't see why. Every project periodically decides what features they will move forward with and what features they will drop. Some users will have built dependencies on those dropped features. That's their problem, not the software project developers. Python dropped or changed a lot of things between Python 2 and Python 3, creating a lot of rework for a lot of users. Are they not to be trusted as a project? Is every project obligated to support every feature they ever released, forever, to be considered trustworthy? To quote from the MIT license: THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND
    - OutOfHere 1y ago
      Huh. Your examples are not relevant because they do not apply to killing a project altogether, let alone to killing your very first project. Kuzu did both.
      - scosman 1y ago
        They tried something hard and it didn’t work out. In the process they did some great work. Plus they gave it all away for free, allowing literally anyone in the world to continue the work. They are awesome. If the rest of us criticized people making open source like you do, there wouldn’t be any.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        That's not how open source adoption works. For open source to get used, people have to trust that it will be maintained. The people behind Kuzu ruined any trust in them. This is also why people prefer established choices over the fashion of the day.
        scosman 1y ago
        No that's exactly how open source works. They are under zero obligation to wake up tomorrow and continue to work on it. Everyone is lucky they open sourced it, and anyone else is welcome to pick it up where they left off. Contributing a impressive piece of work the community is an accomplishment. Disparaging them and suggesting people should not trust them in the future for not providing ongoing maintenance, when that was never part of the OSS deal, shows a misunderstanding of what OSS is. Pay them for a maintenance contract, or don't expect maintenance. Stop complaining they didn't fulfill some social contract that existed only in your head.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        It's not necessary to think of it as a social contract, and I never said there was one. Your imagining it doesn't make it so. It merely is one of several predictors of whether something is sufficiently reliable for use. In the case of Kuzu, its authors have demonstrated that they're not to be trusted.
- rowanG077 1y ago
  How did you interpret this person comment as about being owed anything? It's simply a fact of life that it's not smart to put your eggs into an unstable basket.
jabr 1y ago
My best guess is the company was acqui-hired and will soon be working on implementing Kuzu's tech in a different database owned by the acquirer. My _hope_ is that it was some IP issue with the University of Waterloo and a new company will appear shortly and pretty much pick up where they left off, but that's probably just wishful thinking on my part.

SoftTalker 1y ago

Why does an MIT-licensed open source project owe you anything whatsoever?

OutOfHere 1y ago
It's not about what is owed; it's about what can be trusted. The people behind Kuzu have shown that they cannot be trusted to be used.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I don't see why. Every project periodically decides what features they will move forward with and what features they will drop. Some users will have built dependencies on those dropped features. That's their problem, not the software project developers. Python dropped or changed a lot of things between Python 2 and Python 3, creating a lot of rework for a lot of users. Are they not to be trusted as a project? Is every project obligated to support every feature they ever released, forever, to be considered trustworthy? To quote from the MIT license: THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    Huh. Your examples are not relevant because they do not apply to killing a project altogether, let alone to killing your very first project. Kuzu did both.
    - scosman 1y ago
      They tried something hard and it didn’t work out. In the process they did some great work. Plus they gave it all away for free, allowing literally anyone in the world to continue the work. They are awesome. If the rest of us criticized people making open source like you do, there wouldn’t be any.
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        That's not how open source adoption works. For open source to get used, people have to trust that it will be maintained. The people behind Kuzu ruined any trust in them. This is also why people prefer established choices over the fashion of the day.
        scosman 1y ago
        No that's exactly how open source works. They are under zero obligation to wake up tomorrow and continue to work on it. Everyone is lucky they open sourced it, and anyone else is welcome to pick it up where they left off. Contributing a impressive piece of work the community is an accomplishment. Disparaging them and suggesting people should not trust them in the future for not providing ongoing maintenance, when that was never part of the OSS deal, shows a misunderstanding of what OSS is. Pay them for a maintenance contract, or don't expect maintenance. Stop complaining they didn't fulfill some social contract that existed only in your head.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        It's not necessary to think of it as a social contract, and I never said there was one. Your imagining it doesn't make it so. It merely is one of several predictors of whether something is sufficiently reliable for use. In the case of Kuzu, its authors have demonstrated that they're not to be trusted.
rowanG077 1y ago
How did you interpret this person comment as about being owed anything? It's simply a fact of life that it's not smart to put your eggs into an unstable basket.

jabr 1y ago

My best guess is the company was acqui-hired and will soon be working on implementing Kuzu's tech in a different database owned by the acquirer. My _hope_ is that it was some IP issue with the University of Waterloo and a new company will appear shortly and pretty much pick up where they left off, but that's probably just wishful thinking on my part.