Is RethinkDB shutting down?

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.

> 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.