I’m not in a rush to use a reimplementation of SQLite — particularly from startup bros that had a very public, one-sided, and unpleasant fight with SQLite over their contribution model.
D. Richard Hipp is a genuinely fantastic human being, and SQLite is a project developed at literally the level of planetary infrastructure given how broadly and everywhere it appears.
Forking his project while using the name to garner recognition and attention is poor form, and it is difficult to have faith in the results.
The don't use the name. They use Turso. Even the HN title is wrong - the article title doesn't mention SQLite.
They refer to SQLite, but how could you not if that's what you forked from, and that's what has the functionality you're changing. That would be a very weird article if we didn't have that context.
How? The whole point of trademark is to avoid confusing users that an alternate product is the same as the original product.
By explicitly saying "Next evolution of SQLite", or "A fork of SQLite", or a "Better SQLite" .. all of this is saying our product is distinct and different from SQLite.
If the fork were called "nue-sqlite" or "sqlitest" or "fastsqlite", there's an argument to be made.
The issue isn’t that you’re mentioning SQLite or acknowledging that it’s a fork.
The problem is that the phrase “the next evolution of SQLite” conveys continuity and endorsement.
A reasonable reader could conclude that Turso is an official successor or the next release of SQLite — that it represents the official lineage of the project.
Phrasing like “SQLite-compatible,” or “a fork of SQLite” would be clear and factual.
Calling it “the next evolution of SQLite” isn’t factual; it’s marketing positioning, and it implies ownership of SQLite’s identity and lineage.
This reflects a broader pattern in how the fork has been presented publicly.
The messaging often treats the original project as something to be fixed rather than a foundation to be respected.
Referring to Turso as a product while leveraging the SQLite name reinforces that framing — co-opting a public-domain engineering gift into a commercial asset.
One ugly thing I remember was the insinuation that SQLite was somehow immoral. Glauber Costa attacked SQLite[1] with lines like:
> We take our code of conduct seriously, and unlike SQLite, we do not substitute it with an unclear alternative. We strive to foster a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion. We encourage others to speak up if they feel uncomfortable.
Sometime after the HN backlash[2], that paragraph was removed. Eventually, Turso released https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso without a code of conduct and hasn't had one since.
For me, the saddest part of the affair is that Richard Hipp and Glauber are both committed Christians. There should be no reason for envy, enmity, or memory games. But when business and money was on the table, it seems only one of them followed Jesus.
What you are pointing to did happen. What you are forgetting to mention is that this was one phrase in a post that was otherwise singing their praises.
The charitable interpretation is that when people pointed this out, I have read it, and come to agree that the wording was too strong and not representative of what we wanted to convey. Therefore, it was taken down.
But why be charitable when one can just throw accusations around from the armchair towards people one barely knows ?
The one thing you are right about, is that I am failing to live up to the Lord. As much as I try, I keep falling short. It happens not only here but in all aspects of my life. If it wasn't for his grace I would be in Hell for sure.
Glauber, your memory is off. That line of attack was not in your blogpost; it's in your now-deleted manifesto, the README.md of libsql[1]. It was a strong statement of intent, praising the software and campaigning against the maintainers. "SQLite needs to open contributions" was a spat you started in front of HN's eyes, and are now denying[2] for reasons I can only guess at. That's the reality that myself and others observed.
Of course, you can take that — all of this — as an accusation. You can choose a narrative that's kinder towards you. The question I'd ask myself is if Jesus really wants to hear our storytelling, or if he wants to see us repent.
That said: on certain key aspects of life, I think you're at least closer to the Lord than I am. So Godspeed to you on your journey.
I get where you're coming from, but isnt the whole idea of open source "if you dont like the approach, you're free to fork the code and do it the way you think is right?"
As long as the fork doesnt violate trademark (turso vs sqlite) it is working-as-intended?
I, for one, encourage this kind of behavior. We should have more forks. More forks = more competition = better results for everyone.
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To make an analogy. Would you say the same thing if this were a for-profit company?
"I cant believe someone else is competing the same space as $x. $x is hugely successful, and so many people use it. I dont know why there's an alternative"
But not all of them, right? I don't need scaling across different hosts, but I need scaling between different threads on the same host. And I don't want for that PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle an other stuff like that.
* You are right not to rush. You should keep using SQLite until Turso matures. Some use cases are more tolerant to new tech than others. It will take time for us to reach the level of trust SQLite has for broad use cases, but we are hoping to add value for some use cases right away. Never rush, tech matters!
* I have never met Hipp, but only heard great things about him.
* We never had a fight with SQLite over their contribution model (or about anything for that matter, I never even met Hipp or anybody else from SQLite). We just disagree with it - in the sense that we believe in different things. We don't think what they do is fundamentally wrong. Different projects take different paths.
* We are not using the SQLite name. We compare ourselves to SQLite because we are file and API compatible, and we do aspire to raise the very high bar they have set. It is hard to do this without drawing the comparison, but we are a different project and state it very clearly. I am not a lawyer (and neither you seem to be), but we believe we are doing is okay. If we ever have any valid reason to believe we crossed a line here, we will of course change course.
* We are not "startup bros". We spent 20+ years of our lives building databases and operating systems.
I wasn’t describing a legal dispute, and I haven’t made any claim about infringement. “Material misrepresentation” refers to the substance of the public messaging, not to a legal violation.
The issue I raised is that the phrasing and the way the fork has been presented create the impression of continuity and endorsement that doesn’t exist. That’s a reputational and ethical concern, not a legal debate. Calling it “the next evolution of SQLite” is, in practice, absolutely trading on the SQLite name.
There was a very public, one-sided disagreement about SQLite’s contribution model at the time, and you’ve been open about your criticisms of SQLite in the years since. That’s the context for my comment; it isn’t something I’ve imagined.
I understood your criticism. I disagree with it, and I think we are not misrepresenting anything, as we make it very clear that we are not SQLite, we are just a reimplementation that goes beyond it (evolution).
The disagreement about their contribution model of course happened, but the meaning you ascribe to it, perhaps is something you imagined. It boils down to what you understand "criticism" to be.
If I see someone doing something wrong, I will criticize them. That certainly never happened. What happened is that we pointed out pros and cons of an open and closed development model. We believe a piece of technology that plays the role of SQLite would benefit from having an open model. And exactly because they are absolutely not doing nothing wrong with not being open, we created our own thing. Hard to see how that is a "criticism".
I said that a billion times, and here's a billion and one: there's absolutely nothing wrong with a closed model. SQLite is doing nothing wrong. They contributed tremendously to the databases we used every day.
I do think an Open model yields so many benefits that should someone rewrite SQLite with an open model, even starting 20 years later, they would end up ahead.
There is now a very easy way to prove or disprove this particular hypothesis.
You’ve reframed this as a discussion about open versus closed development. That wasn’t the point I raised.
My concern is about presentation, ethics, respect, and about the co-option of a gift to the commons — particularly how your public messaging gives readers the impression of lineage and endorsement that doesn’t exist.
Regardless of your intent, that’s the effect of calling Turso “the next evolution of SQLite.” You’re welcome to disagree; it would be very strange if you didn’t.
Yes, this is (one of) the point(s) you raised. You said there was a public an "unpleasant fight" (never happened) because of "criticism of SQLite" on my part. I calmly explained that such thing never took place. I have a preference towards Open models but never criticized SQLite (as in stated that they are wrong). Where does the unpleasant fight comes from?
Your claim that we are doing something ethically wrong seems to be informed by your pre-existing opinion of me, that itself derives from the "unpleasant fight" (that never happened).
As for the tagline we use, most people don't get the impression that there is any violation of ethics or respect. This is evidenced by other people's reaction here. You do, and you are within your right. I can't, unfortunately, please everybody.
Some people are more relevant than others, though: in this case, if the authors of SQLite expressed their opinion to me that this crosses a line in their view, I'd change it, without blinking an eye.
I have a tremendous respect for them, and we want our messaging to convey nothing but that!
Just to set some context, I remember talking to Glauber and Pekka last year, right around when the Turso folks started toying with the idea of reimplementing SQLite in Rust.
It’s a moonshot, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s these people. If you don’t know their background, checkout ScyllaDB. It never ceases to amaze me how belligerent some HN folks can be - they won’t even take five minutes to do a Google search before calling someone a nobody or “SV tech bro.” Not that I’m saying you should do that to anyone.
Thanks! Appreciate it, and you will see we came a long way with the implementation. It's now right around the corner! We'd love to see you try and report back your impressions.
I'd still give them the benefit of the doubt as most (all?) of the contributors are Finns who you can almost guarantee to have a "no bullshit" type of mentality to essentially everything. And what I'd guess, the team most probably has quite an academic background because of the local culture.
D. Richard Hipp is a genuinely fantastic human being, and SQLite is a project developed at literally the level of planetary infrastructure given how broadly and everywhere it appears.
Forking his project while using the name to garner recognition and attention is poor form, and it is difficult to have faith in the results.