Have we tried fixing the current issue and then submitting a pull-request? 

I'd favor first submitting a pull request and any other help that we can 
provide to get it adopted and released soon - failing that we could fork the 
project and go from there. That could offer us a path to correct the immediate 
issue and offer time to consider other alternatives. 

Ed Coleman

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher [mailto:ctubb...@apache.org] 
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 11:36 PM
To: accumulo-dev <dev@accumulo.apache.org>
Subject: [DISCUSS] Moving away from Thrift

Accumulo Devs,

I think it's time we start seriously thinking about moving away from Thrift and 
considering alternatives.
For me, https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/THRIFT-4062 is becoming the last 
straw.

Thrift is a neat idea, but to be blunt: there seems to be a fundamental lack of 
care or interest from the Thrift developers at the current moment.

Some of the problems we've seen over the years: Every version is fundamentally 
incompatible with other versions. Repeated flip-flopping regressions seems to 
occur with each release. Fundamental design concepts like distinguishing 
server-side exceptions (TApplicationException vs.
TException) are undermined without consideration of the initial design. And 
now, a serious bug (a spammy debugging print statement) was left in for nearly 
a year now (still exists in current version), and no response from the PMC to 
indicate any willingness to release a fix. Repeated requests to the developer 
list has gone ignored. And, I'm not even counting my requests for assistance 
debugging a compiler issue on s390x arch having also gone ignored.

These problems are not exclusive to Accumulo. Many of these are problems that 
Cassandra has also faced, and I'm sure there are others.

It's possible that Thrift can remedy the situation. None of these problems are 
insurmountable, and none of them are beyond fixes, particularly if we can 
afford to volunteer more to help out. My intention is not to throw a fellow 
Apache project under the bus, and I do not intend to give up reporting bugs, 
and contributing patches to Thrift where appropriate. But, I think we also need 
to think realistically, and consider alternatives, if Thrift development does 
not go in a direction which is favorable to Accumulo.

So, with that in mind, any suggestions for alternatives? With pros/cons?

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