Comment by jarpineh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jarpineh | Hacker News Reader

The UI looks nice and is by itself a welcome addition.

I am somewhat at odds with it being a default extension build into DuckDB release. This still is a feature/product coming from another company than the makers of DuckDB [1], though they did announce a partnership with makers of this UI [2]. Whilst DuckDB has so far thrived without VC money, MotherDuck has (at least) 100M in VC [3].

I guess I'm wondering where the lines are between free and open source work compared to commercial work here. My assumption has been that the line is what DuckDB ships and what others in the community do. This release seems to change that.

Yes, I do like and use nice, free things. And I understand that things have to be paid for by someone. That someone even sometimes is me. I guess I'd like clarification on the future of DuckDB as its popularity and reach is growing.

[1] https://duckdblabs.com

[2] https://duckdblabs.com/news/2022/11/15/motherduck-partnershi...

[3] https://motherduck.com/blog/motherduck-open-for-all-with-ser...

edit: I don't want to leave this negative sounding post here without addendum. I'm just concerned of future monetization strategies and roadmap of DuckDB. DuckDB is a good and useful, versatile tool. I mainly use it from Python through Jupyter, in the browser and native. I haven't felt the need for commercial services (plus purchasing them from my professional setting is too convoluted). This UI whilst undoubtedly useful seems to be leaning towards commercial side. I merely wanted some clarity on what it might entail. I do hope DuckDB and its community even more greater, better things, with requisite compensation for those who work to ensure this.

One of the DuckDB maintainers here. To clarify - the UI is not built into the DuckDB release. It is an extension that is downloaded and installed like any other extension. This extension happens to be developed by MotherDuck. We collaborated with them to streamline the experience - but fundamentally the extension is not distributed as part of DuckDB and works similarly to other extensions.

To be specific, the work we did was:

* Add the -ui command to the shell. This executes a SQL query (CALL start_ui()). The query that gets executed can be customized by the user through the .ui_command option - e.g. by setting .ui_command my_ui_function().

* The ui extension is automatically installed and loaded when the start_ui function is executed - similar to other trusted extensions we distribute. The automatic install and load can be disabled through configuration (SET autoinstall_known_extensions=false, SET autoload_known_extensions=false) and is also disabled when SET enable_external_access=false.

The nature of UI as an extension is somewhat hard to understand, since its installation method differs from other extensions. Even core ones. Some extensions autoload, some require INSTALL query, and this one has its own special builtin query. It at least feels more ingrained than other extensions by its user experience.

Then there's the (to me) entirely new feature of an extension providing a HTTP proxy for external web service. This part could have been more prominently explained.

Edit: the OP states that "built-in local UI for DuckDB" and "full-featured local web user interface is available out-of-the-box". These statements make me think this feature comes with the release binary, not that it's an extension.

To clarify my point: for me it's not the possible confusion of what this plugin does or how, but what this collaboration means for the future of DuckDB's no-cost and commercial usage.

I agree that the blog post seems to hint at the fact that this functionality is fully baked in in certain places - we've adjusted the blog post to be more explicit on the fact that this is an extension.

We have collaborated with MotherDuck on streamlining the experience of launching the UI through auto-installation, but the DuckDB Foundation still remains in full control of DuckDB and the extension ecosystem. This has no impact on that.

For further clarification:

* The auto-installation mechanism is identical to that of other trusted extensions - the auto-installation is triggered when a specific function is called that does not exist in the catalog - in this case the `start_ui` function. See [1]. The query I mentioned just calls that function. The only special feature here is the addition of the CLI flag (and what that flag executes is user-configurable).

* The HTTP server is necessary for the extension to function as the extension needs to communicate with the browser. The server is open-source as part of the extension code [2]. The server (1) fetches web resources (javascript/css) from ui.duckdb.org, and (2) communicates with localhost to co-ordinate the UI with DuckDB. Outside of these the server doesn't interface with other external web services.

[1] https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/blob/main/src/include/duckd...

[2] https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb-ui

Ok, thank you for the explanation.

I realized that the extension provides a HTTP API to DuckDB. Is this perhaps to become the official way to use DuckDB through HTTP? For me this is much more interesting than one particular UI.

I went looking and found that there's community extension of similar functionality: https://duckdb.org/community_extensions/extensions/httpserve...

Official, supported HTTP API with stable schema versioning would be a nice addition.

Reminiscent of what Deno are doing with their Deno K/V feature, which works in the open source project using SQLite but gets a big upgrade if you use it with Deno Deploy: https://til.simonwillison.net/deno/deno-kv

I'm OK with this. Commercial open source projects need a business model. I get why this can be controversial, but the ecosystem needs to find ways to fund future development and I'm willing to compromise on purity if it means people are getting paid for their work.

(Actually it looks like the UI feature may depend on loading closed source assets across the Internet? If so that changes my comfort level a lot, I'm not keen on that compromise.)

https://github.com/denoland/denokv

You can self host Deno KV since over a year.

That doesn't change what they're saying. The self-hosted backend you're linking is a network-accessible version of the local SQLite backend. The hosted backend is transparently globally replicated and built on FoundationDB, with a very different (better) scaling story.

Given the floss implementation, if one wanted, they could create their own DenoKV backed by anything they like... Azure Cosmos, DynamoDB, CockroachLabs are all possible, and given the relatively small API, should be relatively easy to do if anyone wanted to do such a thing.

Right, that's mentioned in my article: https://til.simonwillison.net/deno/deno-kv#user-content-upda...

I don't see this as the same thing. Deno is an OS product within a commercial enterprise. DuckDB is an OS project/org; MotherDuck is a for-profit company. They have tight integration and partnerships but were largely independent. This seems to be blurring that line. There is a huge ecosystem around SQLite without this confusion.

I have thought that the commercial nature of the (heh) mother company here, DuckDB labs, is support contracts and the like. Whilst MotherDuck is just another VC funded company in the DuckDB ecosystem. This new extension being added the list of default extensions blurs the line. That it seemingly is a proxy to closed source product from another company makes things even murkier. I can see a point for a for-pay external extension, but this one feels more like an AD for other company's services.

DuckDB labs has stock in MotherDuck to align ownership.

I actually really like the close partnerships in theory because it aligns incentives, but this crosses the line by not being open enough. The tight motherduck integration with DuckDB for externally hosted DuckDB/Motherduck databases is fine and good: preferential treatment where the software makes it easy to use the sponsoring service. The local UI which is actually fully dependent on the external service is off-putting. It's a little less bad because it's an extension, but it's still worrying from a governance and principals perspective.

I think primary concern is will DucDb pull something like RedisLabs. Wherein they are open source till it gets enough traction and after that pull the rug.

To be fair, the “traction” here was AWS using their massive competitive levers to kill RedisLabs’ long-existing (and quite reasonable/tolerated by open source) monetization avenue, risking the continued funding for redis.

To characterize this as a rug pull is unfair IMO.

I think this is a bit of a non issue. The UI is just that, a UI. Take it or leave it. If it makes your life easier, great. If not, nothing changes about how you use DuckDB.

There is always going to be some overlap between open source contributions and commercial interests but unless a real problem emerges like core features getting locked behind paywalls there is no real cause for concern. If that happens then sure let’s talk about it and raise the issue in a public forum. But for now it is just a nice convenience feature that some people (like me) will find useful.

That's one way of looking at it. To me this UI seems like both a useful tool and an advertisement.

There's another way this could have gone. DuckDB Labs might have published the extension as providing official HTTP API for all to use. Then simultaneously MotherDuck would announce support for it in their UI. Now with access to any and all databases whether in-browser, anywhere through official HTTP API or in their managed cloud service.

I for one would like HTTP API for some things that now necessitates doing my own in Python. I don't see yet much need for the UI. I'm not looking for public, multiuser service. Just something that I can use locally which doesn't have to be inside a process (such as Python or web browser). There's such API in the extension now, but it's without docs and in C++ [1]. There's also the option of using 3rd party community extension that also does HTTP API [2]. Then there's one that supports remote access with Arrow Flight, but gRPC only it seems [3]. But official, stable version would be nice.

[1] https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb-ui/blob/main/src/http_serve...

[2] https://duckdb.org/community_extensions/extensions/httpserve...

[3] https://github.com/Query-farm/duckdb-airport-extension

Reply on news.ycombinator.com