Slava, Michael and the RethinkDB team,

Wow... This comes as a complete stunner. Startups are f'ing hard. You had such a great team and there were no obvious signs or slowing of product development. Literally just came out of nowhere. Anyway, wish you all the best and hopefully someday we can learn all the details of what all went so wrong. The quality and beauty (great design) of RethinkDB is something I will continue to admire.

I'm working on my 3rd startup and heavy into development using Node.js + RethinkDB + Thinky (ORM)[1]. It is a bit relieving to hear that RethinkDB will continue to exist as an open source project.

[1] - https://thinky.io/documentation/

Wow, that's a surprise. We like Rethink very much and are also deeply invested in it. We'd be willing to lend a hand with OSS development, especially Java driver (which needs much love).

Btw, this is our Java ORM built on top of RethinkDB Java driver: https://github.com/DevScore/rethinkdb-java-orm

Dammit -- so sorry to hear that. :( As you know, I am a huge fan of RethinkDB, and I certainly know the challenges of building an open source based business. You guys succeeded wildly at building excellent software that will endure -- and I for one will be sporting one of my beloved RethinkDB shirts tomorrow...

Slava: As the commercial strategy is over, please release everything under a very liberal open source license rather than AGPL (the current RethinkDB license). Please. I have invested so much in building on RethinkDB, and you can't just will a genuine open source community into existence without giving them the power that comes with a liberal license. Honestly, right now I'm evaluating how I can rewrite everything I've built to not use RethinkDB, which will take me months of fulltime work...

I really, really, hope that's why they've gone quiet, that they're minimising disruptions while they're re-licensing to a more liberal license while transferring ownership to a foundation.

Sad to hear mate.

I chose RethinkDB for a core component of a project back in 2013 and really liked it. I think we were probably one of the earliest production adopters but sadly we couldn't talk about it much. I wanted a document store done right and RethinkDB was definitely it.

I hope the OSS project is able to gather steam.

Best of luck Slava.

Adding to the forum thread: I'd certainly pay for RethinkDB if that's what it takes to keep the lights on.

And I'm only using it for hobby projects. I don't want to use MongoDB.

Thinking about it, I'll just keep using it for now.

I just love what you created, and really hope that it just keeps getting better. I was discussing with my team to switch to RethinkDB on some services just this Monday.

Such quality work should not be abandoned! In any case, thank you so much with what you and your team came up with. We (me and my colleagues) respect your work.

I hate to wish bad fortune on anyone, but I hope that you're shutting down rather than an acqui-hire. I'm sure that there's enough interest in RethinkDB that most of your individual devs can make a good living developing and doing support for RethinkDB either as contractors or employees elsewhere. I believe that RethinkDB has enough traction that switching to a foundation model will be good for the product.

Really liked the work done in RethinkDB. Hope it stays!

This is heartbreaking to hear... really wish you guys the best, and hoping you can spin things off into a foundation that can at least keep the lights on and the core devs employed.

To everyone who has used RethinkDB for free and now wants the product of the company to be released to open source for free use:

Don't you see this is self fulfilling?

Don't pay for databases, database companies close.

Or, you can take this as a cautionary tale, and consider paying reasonable, good companies for the technology they create. Not out of pity or charity, simply because you're getting value from the software created.

Good luck with your future projects!

Please put RethinkDB under the GPL or an even more liberal license?

Sorry to hear that, but thank you for being forthcoming.

Hi Slava, any update on the "full announcement and details" that you mentioned? Thanks!

Really sad to hear this; you guys were doing really cool work.