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Is RethinkDB shutting down? (horizon.io)
135 points by nodesocket on Oct 3, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 29 comments


First, let me say I am a huge fans of RethinkDB and their entire team. The quality and beauty of their software is something to be admired.

I've been working on my 3rd startup for a few months and decided to use RethinkDB with Node.js. If you follow them at all, they are extremely active on GitHub and Twitter. Then... All the sudden everything stopped. No new commits. No new tweets. Complete radio silence.

I wish them all the best, and hope they can solve whatever issues they are dealing with.


The TL;DR:

> It appears Horizon development slowed to a trickle. https://github.com/rethinkdb/horizon/graphs/contributors52 Are there any updates?

> Slava @ Rethink here. Unfortunately I cannot comment yet (I really wish I could), but your intuition is right. We're working hard to be able to give a full account ASAP (matter of days). Please stay tuned. ... There is no legal action/litigation.


There have been no commits to any of the branches in 18 days https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/branches/all

About the same for Horizon https://github.com/rethinkdb/horizon/branches/all

The monthly Meetup was cancelled http://www.meetup.com/RethinkDB-SF-Meetup-Group/events/23340...

Pretty much no activity on Github/Discuss/Twitter for two weeks, where they used to be very active.


No recent investment since 2013. I would have expected some once you are on the fundraising path: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rethinkdb#/entity

Could this be an acquisition of some type?

A secret acquisition to be announced with the launch of a newly branded product to be released by Google, Amazon or Microsoft?


If it's an acquisition, would they really stop all activity and development? Smells more like they run out of money...


I think this is right (for good reasons I can't repeat).


FoundationDB did that. Overnight, everything gone.


If it's neither of those, maybe a security breach that made them go into lockdown?


I love rethinkdb. I am about to launch my first ever production thing. Its built on rethink. Rethink is fucking great, I really have no idea what the speculation is (or what basis) but I hope for the best.

If we are throwing out radical theories; i'd say acquis/merger with digital ocean or gitlab. Who knows, but I trust all 3 of those companies.


Why would either of those be interested?


My guess is that they got acquired by Apple. Mostly because this is how it happened with FoundationDB from my recollection.

And Apple is the only company I can think of that's secretive enough that they'd force the team to just completely stop communicating out of the blue.


Why would Apple need two NoSQL databases? I understand it is probably pocket change for them, but still. Did they find FoundationDB didn't work for them?


Why did the NEED the first one in such a way that disappeared it? Apple is just Apple; too much money to make complete sense. They were getting raked over the coals for their shite cloud services. How acquiring and sequestering RethinkDB was a necessity in correcting that situation is anybody's guess...


Well disappearance is just their way of acquiring companies. They needed a NoSQL because they have stupid amounts of cash and didn't feel like spending time doing their own.

But why would they need another NoSQL...

Well anyway, now we know they just ran out of money. They probably tried to so some last minute thing and so had to keep it quiet.


This is my guess, too. Apple recently bought TupleJump and I think they're in acquisition mode wrt database technologies and talent.


Seems like this got flagged. HN mods any idea why? Was on the front page #5, then pushed to #48.


Probably because the only thing this says is that there will be more information in a few days.


54 points in 30 minutes. Seems people were interested.


Interested, no doubt, but it will still be interesting when there's something material to discuss.


Well, that would suck a lot for my recent projects.

Also, anyone aware of any close-ish equivalents in the realm of open source, specifically golang?


Yet another open-source scam?

This whole incident is an excellent illustration of how much scam or scam-like activity is going on within open source. OK, I just read what I wrote and it hurts to read what I just wrote, so then let me try to explain why I would inflict so much pain onto myself and likely others.

If RethinkDB ever was an open source project then now there would be no questions about need for new licensing nor its continuity as an open source project. All of that would have already been in place. There are too many "open source" projects [like this] that pretend to be open source but are first and foremost geared towards making a profit for those that have invested in it. There is nothing wrong with making a profit and since there has never been anything like a free lunch, profits must be made because someone must end up paying for it all.

However, the accompanying commercial business plans must be based on added service that are on top of a thriving open source community. Those add-on services must not be replacements for at least basic admin tools nor for poor documentation, which too often is lacking because of the add-on services. If those add-on services can not deliver added value, in form of better quality and/or compressed development timelines because more qualified experts would be doing the work then there is no add-on value to speak of.

I have been personally struggling (at 55+++) to learn and keep up, navigating through all of these web development mine fields and a web development toolbox whose contents are just about totally replaced every year or two. Nevertheless, even I feel that I could come up with multiple ways in which I could make a profit, only if these tools would settle down a bit. In fact, are we all not here because we feel that we can do the same thing? So, how is it that those who were running RethinkDB as a business, with all that inside info and those $12 MILLION raised, that they were unable to direct a tiny portion of all of those resources into ensuring a sustained self-existence?

Take care and shut the lights out behind you.


My guess would be closing stages of an acquisition, code audits etc. etc.


What acquisition makes a company completely stop working on product, cancel events, and stop social media?


Most of them.


Perhaps. My experience (a data point of one) wasn't like that. Why would you risk team productivity until the deal is signed?


Depends on what you're doing with the team. Going dark is not, for instance, a strong indicator that they're going to keep the product alive.


A managed RethinkDB/Horizon is exactly what AWS needs to compete with Firebase... AWS's closest realtime is what, IoT's MQTT?


Maybe an acquisition is in progress and they're in the a due diligence phase or something?


Something to do with the Google pixel event?




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