Re: Is Riak dead?

[Carlos Baquero Moreno]

It is sad to see Basho dying, but good to see that there is hope that Riak will 
survive. Being an open source database was very important for academics to 
experiment and propose solutions. Not everything makes sense in an actual 
product, but the Riak developers and architects were always keen to try new 
ideas and take risks. They were crucial for the spreading of ideas like CRDTs 
and DVVs, and letting industry and academia try new concepts together.  Its was 
extremely brave for a company to try such ideas in an active product.

Many CRDT designs were invented or influenced by Riak engineers, and now they 
also live in other systems and languages.

Academia will keep experimenting with ideas. We leave a link to a pre-print of 
a SRDS’17 paper that explores some substantial design changes for a Riak like 
design. Now the time is for supporting the current system and consolidation, 
but the future is always there.

DottedDB: Anti-Entropy without Merkle Trees, Deletes without Tombstones
http://haslab.uminho.pt/tome/files/dotteddb_srds.pdf

-
Carlos Baquero
HASLab / INESC TEC &
Universidade do Minho,
Portugal

c...@di.uminho.pt
http://haslab.uminho.pt/cbm/

> On 15 Jul 2017, at 16:55, DeadZen  wrote:
> 
> Lloyd, I too have a great distaste for the cost of those things.
> 
> I don't believe that's how developers should be forced to climb the
> ladder for knowledge.
> Nor do I believe developers should be pushed to create most of the
> content for those conferences just to be able to afford attending.
> 
> I definitely share your reservations in this regard... I was just not
> compelled to state it as such until you brought it up, I have never
> and will likely never attend one.
> 
> I believe the Academy needs to go along with any effort to recover
> this project, and I think the material should be open source as well.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 11:41 AM, Lloyd R. Prentice
>  wrote:
>> Hi Steve,
>> 
>> Many thanks for your informative and comforting post. The program you're 
>> contemplating sounds sensible and, indeed, promising.
>> 
>> Successful implementation and operation of Riak among enterprise users is in 
>> everyone's interest. Erlang Solutions has an excellent track record in 
>> support of Erlang. No doubt it would be a fine champion and conservator of 
>> open source Riak.
>> 
>> As an army-of-one-developer, with big dreams of an Erlang-based product,  I 
>> do have one concern.
>> 
>> I'm totally dependent on web-based documentation, tutorials, and the good 
>> graces of folks on the mailing lists. As much as I'd like to attend Erlang 
>> Solutions conferences and training sessions, they're priced far beyond my 
>> budget.
>> 
>> So, I do hope that in your support of Riak you don't forget that there are 
>> indie developers with considerable interest in Erlang and Riak who, lacking 
>> corporate backing and travel allowances, simply can't afford your enterprise 
>> offerings.
>> 
>> Beyond that, you have my vote and support in anyway within my means.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Lloyd
>> Writersglen Publications
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Jul 15, 2017, at 4:22 AM, Steve Roberts 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi All
>>> 
>>> Great to see there is so much enthusiasm for Riak.
>>> 
>>> I'm from Erlang Solutions. Just to clarify where things are at the moment. 
>>> The company Basho Technologies still exists - it hasn't filed for 
>>> bankruptcy yet - although we expect it to. There is no grave just yet.  We 
>>> are creditors and shareholders so we will be notified when/if they do file 
>>> for bankruptcy.  Assuming it goes into liquidation, the receiver will sell 
>>> whatever assets can be liquidated in order to pay the creditors.   
>>> Registered names like Riak are things which can be sold... so we will see. 
>>> it will probably take a long time before Basho is truly dead and buried.
>>> 
>>> I've asked our CEO  Stuart Whitfield (who happens to be a lawyer) to look 
>>> at the legal questions and give a more detailed view.
>>> 
>>> As Russell correctly points out existing customers are the priority.  In 
>>> terms of our thoughts of this situation, our priority is to ensure 
>>> enterprise customers have continuity of support since they are the ones 
>>> most likely to abandon Riak as it will be a forced migration situation if 
>>> there is no support. I expect to  launch a paid support service very 
>>> shortly  -  if you're interested, let me know.
>>> 
>>> In terms of Riak software, the open source software is safe since it is 
>>> open sourced under a friendly licence.  The situation with the code for the 
>>> enterprise version is not clear yet (highly dependent who/if it is bought 
>>> in the fire sale since it is closed source) - although we aim, one way or 
>>> another, to have an open source data centre replication layer. Not sure who 
>>> is using the other functionality like super 

Re: Is Riak dead?

[DeadZen]

Lloyd, I too have a great distaste for the cost of those things.

I don't believe that's how developers should be forced to climb the
ladder for knowledge.
Nor do I believe developers should be pushed to create most of the
content for those conferences just to be able to afford attending.

I definitely share your reservations in this regard... I was just not
compelled to state it as such until you brought it up, I have never
and will likely never attend one.

I believe the Academy needs to go along with any effort to recover
this project, and I think the material should be open source as well.



On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 11:41 AM, Lloyd R. Prentice
 wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Many thanks for your informative and comforting post. The program you're 
> contemplating sounds sensible and, indeed, promising.
>
> Successful implementation and operation of Riak among enterprise users is in 
> everyone's interest. Erlang Solutions has an excellent track record in 
> support of Erlang. No doubt it would be a fine champion and conservator of 
> open source Riak.
>
> As an army-of-one-developer, with big dreams of an Erlang-based product,  I 
> do have one concern.
>
> I'm totally dependent on web-based documentation, tutorials, and the good 
> graces of folks on the mailing lists. As much as I'd like to attend Erlang 
> Solutions conferences and training sessions, they're priced far beyond my 
> budget.
>
> So, I do hope that in your support of Riak you don't forget that there are 
> indie developers with considerable interest in Erlang and Riak who, lacking 
> corporate backing and travel allowances, simply can't afford your enterprise 
> offerings.
>
> Beyond that, you have my vote and support in anyway within my means.
>
> All the best,
>
> Lloyd
> Writersglen Publications
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Jul 15, 2017, at 4:22 AM, Steve Roberts 
>>  wrote:
>>
>> Hi All
>>
>> Great to see there is so much enthusiasm for Riak.
>>
>> I'm from Erlang Solutions. Just to clarify where things are at the moment. 
>> The company Basho Technologies still exists - it hasn't filed for bankruptcy 
>> yet - although we expect it to. There is no grave just yet.  We are 
>> creditors and shareholders so we will be notified when/if they do file for 
>> bankruptcy.  Assuming it goes into liquidation, the receiver will sell 
>> whatever assets can be liquidated in order to pay the creditors.   
>> Registered names like Riak are things which can be sold... so we will see. 
>> it will probably take a long time before Basho is truly dead and buried.
>>
>> I've asked our CEO  Stuart Whitfield (who happens to be a lawyer) to look at 
>> the legal questions and give a more detailed view.
>>
>> As Russell correctly points out existing customers are the priority.  In 
>> terms of our thoughts of this situation, our priority is to ensure 
>> enterprise customers have continuity of support since they are the ones most 
>> likely to abandon Riak as it will be a forced migration situation if there 
>> is no support. I expect to  launch a paid support service very shortly  -  
>> if you're interested, let me know.
>>
>> In terms of Riak software, the open source software is safe since it is open 
>> sourced under a friendly licence.  The situation with the code for the 
>> enterprise version is not clear yet (highly dependent who/if it is bought in 
>> the fire sale since it is closed source) - although we aim, one way or 
>> another, to have an open source data centre replication layer. Not sure who 
>> is using the other functionality like super clusters in the the enterprise 
>> version - ping me if you are.
>>
>> In terms of the products, KV is the priority for support followed by CS/S2.  
>> There aren't many people using TS so it will probably be community support 
>> for the code. I already have some interest from a former developer  to move 
>> TS forward - if others want to work on TS I can help co-ordinate in the 
>> interim.
>>
>> In terms of evolving the code we're happy to co-ordinate a community and 
>> help steer the future direction for the product.  We are looking whether 
>> this should be done through a similar model to the Linux foundation.
>>
>> For major feature development, our thoughts are some kind of crowd funding 
>> model for functionality which requires significant development effort - 
>> Basho funded this activity through support and being closed source which 
>> doesnt really work in a completely open source model.  Our goal would be to 
>> have just the open source version and no closed source code. Where possible 
>> we wouldnt want customers to have closed source forks.
>>
>> We definitely see Riak has a future and want to focus on getting back to 
>> basics of a product which is high performance and does it well - before 
>> adding lots of new functionality. For example ensure there is a clean 
>> demarcation between the data layer and the control layer - 

Re: Is Riak dead?

[Lloyd R. Prentice]

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for your informative and comforting post. The program you're 
contemplating sounds sensible and, indeed, promising. 

Successful implementation and operation of Riak among enterprise users is in 
everyone's interest. Erlang Solutions has an excellent track record in support 
of Erlang. No doubt it would be a fine champion and conservator of open source 
Riak.

As an army-of-one-developer, with big dreams of an Erlang-based product,  I do 
have one concern.  

I'm totally dependent on web-based documentation, tutorials, and the good 
graces of folks on the mailing lists. As much as I'd like to attend Erlang 
Solutions conferences and training sessions, they're priced far beyond my 
budget. 

So, I do hope that in your support of Riak you don't forget that there are 
indie developers with considerable interest in Erlang and Riak who, lacking 
corporate backing and travel allowances, simply can't afford your enterprise 
offerings.

Beyond that, you have my vote and support in anyway within my means.

All the best,

Lloyd
Writersglen Publications

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 15, 2017, at 4:22 AM, Steve Roberts 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi All
> 
> Great to see there is so much enthusiasm for Riak.
> 
> I'm from Erlang Solutions. Just to clarify where things are at the moment. 
> The company Basho Technologies still exists - it hasn't filed for bankruptcy 
> yet - although we expect it to. There is no grave just yet.  We are creditors 
> and shareholders so we will be notified when/if they do file for bankruptcy.  
> Assuming it goes into liquidation, the receiver will sell whatever assets can 
> be liquidated in order to pay the creditors.   Registered names like Riak are 
> things which can be sold... so we will see. it will probably take a long time 
> before Basho is truly dead and buried.
> 
> I've asked our CEO  Stuart Whitfield (who happens to be a lawyer) to look at 
> the legal questions and give a more detailed view.
> 
> As Russell correctly points out existing customers are the priority.  In 
> terms of our thoughts of this situation, our priority is to ensure enterprise 
> customers have continuity of support since they are the ones most likely to 
> abandon Riak as it will be a forced migration situation if there is no 
> support. I expect to  launch a paid support service very shortly  -  if 
> you're interested, let me know.
> 
> In terms of Riak software, the open source software is safe since it is open 
> sourced under a friendly licence.  The situation with the code for the 
> enterprise version is not clear yet (highly dependent who/if it is bought in 
> the fire sale since it is closed source) - although we aim, one way or 
> another, to have an open source data centre replication layer. Not sure who 
> is using the other functionality like super clusters in the the enterprise 
> version - ping me if you are.
> 
> In terms of the products, KV is the priority for support followed by CS/S2.  
> There aren't many people using TS so it will probably be community support 
> for the code. I already have some interest from a former developer  to move 
> TS forward - if others want to work on TS I can help co-ordinate in the 
> interim.
> 
> In terms of evolving the code we're happy to co-ordinate a community and help 
> steer the future direction for the product.  We are looking whether this 
> should be done through a similar model to the Linux foundation.
> 
> For major feature development, our thoughts are some kind of crowd funding 
> model for functionality which requires significant development effort - Basho 
> funded this activity through support and being closed source which doesnt 
> really work in a completely open source model.  Our goal would be to have 
> just the open source version and no closed source code. Where possible we 
> wouldnt want customers to have closed source forks.
> 
> We definitely see Riak has a future and want to focus on getting back to 
> basics of a product which is high performance and does it well - before 
> adding lots of new functionality. For example ensure there is a clean 
> demarcation between the data layer and the control layer - this should make 
> it easier to create new storage types and change the replication layer. Right 
> now for those of Enterprise, migration back  to Open Source is not straight 
> forward because of this.
> 
> If you are planning to set up groups etc, please let me know and our 
> marketing group can help you establish the community.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
>> On 15/07/17 08:08, Russell Brown wrote:
>>> On 15 Jul 2017, at 01:29, Alexander Sicular  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm not dancing on anyone's grave. Im a big fan of Riak, you know? I'm just 
>>> pointing out that there is in fact a grave and if there is any hope for a 
>>> Riak future the project will have to rebrand.
>> This is the thing we disagree on. But like I said before, neither of us is a 
>> lawyer, and 

Re: Is Riak dead?

[DeadZen]

Riak was and still is a good platform, with the potential to be a
great platform.
I am fairly sure I am not the only one whose staked their reputation
on it.. The name is unimportant.

The question now is where is the focus going to be put next?

To ferret away whatever existing possibly panicking customers that
were abandoned during this transition or
to improve the platform so that it can reach it's potential;
benefiting from people experienced with what it is, what it was trying
to be, and where it was trying to go.
I still think this platform can be a business advantage while
simultaneously being the ladder that engineers can use to climb up and
participate in a difficult field.

As an open source product, everyone can see where it is, it is likely
better than the closed sourced portion of the product even.
As distributed systems programmers many of us knew and were excited
about areas where it could be improved. I often pointed directly
towards Riak Core.
As a business I am fairly certain not even Basho had an idea of where
it was actually trying to go...
I kinda think a lack of organization and priority in the latter two
pegs caused the Basho stool to finally fall down.

Basho created an internal group called Taishi which was in my hopes a
sounding board for the community in a deputized fashion within Basho,
where improvements could be discussed and implemented with assistance
from developers from around the world, but besides being given a
very nice hat and couple glasses, I did not see this materialize at all.

The direction and leadership won't materialize overnight, but at least
the conversation has really started,
I am sure there is some damage control that needs to be done as well
as I believe some customers included governments and hospitals.

I see a future in an Erlang based defacto standard for an open source
implementation of the Amazon Dynamo Paper.
I see this effort being multidisciplinary as Riak ran up against
several issues, many in Erlang itself,
recall github.com/basho/otp being a fork of the entire language distribution.

ESL could possibly be a good steward here, but there are many things
that need serious consideration.

I am motivated to talk more about this.

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 4:22 AM, Steve Roberts
 wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Great to see there is so much enthusiasm for Riak.
>
> I'm from Erlang Solutions. Just to clarify where things are at the moment.
> The company Basho Technologies still exists - it hasn't filed for bankruptcy
> yet - although we expect it to. There is no grave just yet.  We are
> creditors and shareholders so we will be notified when/if they do file for
> bankruptcy.  Assuming it goes into liquidation, the receiver will sell
> whatever assets can be liquidated in order to pay the creditors.
> Registered names like Riak are things which can be sold... so we will see.
> it will probably take a long time before Basho is truly dead and buried.
>
> I've asked our CEO  Stuart Whitfield (who happens to be a lawyer) to look at
> the legal questions and give a more detailed view.
>
> As Russell correctly points out existing customers are the priority.  In
> terms of our thoughts of this situation, our priority is to ensure
> enterprise customers have continuity of support since they are the ones most
> likely to abandon Riak as it will be a forced migration situation if there
> is no support. I expect to  launch a paid support service very shortly  -
> if you're interested, let me know.
>
> In terms of Riak software, the open source software is safe since it is open
> sourced under a friendly licence.  The situation with the code for the
> enterprise version is not clear yet (highly dependent who/if it is bought in
> the fire sale since it is closed source) - although we aim, one way or
> another, to have an open source data centre replication layer. Not sure who
> is using the other functionality like super clusters in the the enterprise
> version - ping me if you are.
>
> In terms of the products, KV is the priority for support followed by CS/S2.
> There aren't many people using TS so it will probably be community support
> for the code. I already have some interest from a former developer  to move
> TS forward - if others want to work on TS I can help co-ordinate in the
> interim.
>
> In terms of evolving the code we're happy to co-ordinate a community and
> help steer the future direction for the product.  We are looking whether
> this should be done through a similar model to the Linux foundation.
>
> For major feature development, our thoughts are some kind of crowd funding
> model for functionality which requires significant development effort -
> Basho funded this activity through support and being closed source which
> doesnt really work in a completely open source model.  Our goal would be to
> have just the open source version and no closed source code. Where possible
> we wouldnt want customers to have closed source 

Alternative to Riak?

[Alex De la rosa]

Hi there,

As Riak's future is uncertain and despite I love it as it covers everything
I was needing, I'm on the look for another NoSQL DB that replaces it for my
project. What are your suggestions? Some of my requirements (Riak features)
would be:

1. Master-less (all nodes can read/write)
2. Schema-less (except if I need a SOLR-style custom index for a certain
bucket)
3. Replication
4. Counters, Sets, Maps...
5. Python client instead of REST interface
6. Indexing (SOLR-like) for background data analysis
7. Self-hosted (for example, DynamoDB adds latency to my communications)

Thanks,
Alex
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Re: Is Riak dead?

[Russell Brown]

On 15 Jul 2017, at 01:29, Alexander Sicular  wrote:

> I'm not dancing on anyone's grave. Im a big fan of Riak, you know? I'm just 
> pointing out that there is in fact a grave and if there is any hope for a 
> Riak future the project will have to rebrand. 

This is the thing we disagree on. But like I said before, neither of us is a 
lawyer, and even if you’re right, it hardly matters. It’s inconsequential.

> 
> I'm sorry, but no company in their right mind would seriously consider using 
> Riak today if they weren't already using Riak. That's today, the story may 
> change tomorrow. 

Again, I disagree, but I’m personally not that interested in looking for new 
Riak users at the moment. I think now is the time to shore up the existing 
customers who want to stay with Riak. Chasing non-existent new business whilst 
ignoring the core users is a large part of what did for Basho.

> 
> 
>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Russell Brown  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 14 Jul 2017, at 23:36, Dave King  wrote:
>>> 
>>> You asked what difference the tm made.  The tm invokes clause 6.  So yes it 
>>> means moving forward means a new name.  That's one of the things to be 
>>> considered.
>> 
>> Agree, so if we’re sticking to the subject, “Is Riak dead?” the worst case 
>> is: “No, but potentially the name could be some time in the future”, right?
>> 
>> I asked rhetorically what difference the TM made. I’ve also read the 
>> license, and taken legal advice. This was not in any way a surprise.
>> 
>>> 
>>> - Peace
>>> Dave
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 4:30 PM, Russell Brown  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 14 Jul 2017, at 23:28, Dave King  wrote:
>>> 
 No, but I can read.
>>> 
>>> I read it too. I’m not sure what your point is. A day may come when the 
>>> name has to change?
>>> 
 
 - Peace
 Dave
 
 
 On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 4:27 PM, Russell Brown  
 wrote:
 
 On 14 Jul 2017, at 23:26, Dave King  wrote:
 
> 6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade 
> names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, 
> except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the 
> origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file.
> 
> So At minimum I read that as there would need to be a new product name, 
> and the docs for that product could say formerly known as Riak.
 
 You are lawyer?
 
> 
> - Peace
> Dave
> 
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 4:22 PM, Russell Brown  
> wrote:
> 
> On 14 Jul 2017, at 23:17, Dave King  wrote:
> 
>> Looks like Basho has the trademark on Riak.
>> http://www.trademarkia.com/riak-77954950.html
> 
> They sure do. And if you look at the Apache2 license you’ll see that it 
> grants use of the name to identify the source.
> 
> Look, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m guessing you’re not a lawyer. What 
> difference does the name or trademark make? There are a bunch of active 
> users of Riak, some of whom have made it clear they plan to continue 
> using it. Dance on Basho’s grave all you want, but Riak isn’t dead yet.
> 
>> 
>> - Peace
>> Dave
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 4:08 PM, Alexander Sicular  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jul 14, 2017, at 11:32, Russell Brown  wrote:
>>> 
>>> What do you mean “encumbered”? Riak is the name of an Apache2 licensed 
>>> open source database, so it can continue to be used to describe that 
>>> apache 2 licensed database, please don’t spread FUD.
>> 
>> You willing to invest time in a project that could be legally encumbered 
>> at some point in the future because lawyers? You willing to put that 
>> beyond the clown fiesta that is Basho? I don't think so.
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> 


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