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From: Jan Lehnardt <jan@apache.org>
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Subject: The State of CouchDB 2013
Message-Id: <94DBC05D-3AFA-44E9-890A-34E022183DF9@apache.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2013 17:34:18 +0100
To: "dev@couchdb.apache.org Developers" <dev@couchdb.apache.org>,
 user@couchdb.apache.org
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Hi all,

I just published the transcript of my CouchDB Conf, Vancouver Keynote =
(https://blogs.apache.org/couchdb/entry/the_state_of_couchdb), and I=92d =
like to share it with you as well.

My thanks to everyone who helped making this year the success it has =
been! <3

* * *

This is a rough transcript of the CouchDB Conf, Vancouver Keynote.


## Welcome

Good morning everyone. I thank you all for coming on this fine day in =
Vancouver. I=92m very happy to be here. My name is Jan Lehnardt and I am =
the Vice President of Apache CouchDB at the Apache Software Foundation, =
but that=92s just a fancy title that means I have to do a bunch of extra =
work behind the scenes. I=92m also a core contributor to Apache CouchDB =
and I am the longest active committer to the project at this point.

I started helping out with CouchDB in 2006 and that feels like a =
lifetime ago. We=92ve come a long way, we=92ve shaped the database =
industry in a big way, we went though a phoenix from the ashes time and =
came out still inspiring future generations of developers to do great =
things.

So it is with great honour that I get to be here on stage before you to =
take a look at the state of CouchDB.


## Numbers

I=92d like to start with some numbers:

- In 2013 we **added 15 committers** to the project, up to a total of =
30. Thats 2x the number of people regularly contributing to CouchDB!

- The year isn=92t yet over, but these committers already created 3x the =
commits of 2012. And they have committed more than in any other year in =
CouchDB=92s history.

- We have **shipped eight releases**: 1.0.4 1.1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3.0, =
1.3.1, 1,4.0 and 1.5.0 just this year, that is up from one(!) last year.
  - thanks to our new release schedule we are getting more features to =
more people faster by focusing on small iterative changes forward.

- 20% more JIRA tickets and 50% more GitHub issues

We have made a lot of changes in 2012 to make 2013 a great year for =
CouchDB and it sure looks like we succeeded and that 2014 is only going =
to trump that.

I=92d like to thank everyone on the team for their hard work.


## Currently

We=92ve just shipped CouchDB 1.5.0 last week and it comes with a few =
exciting new things as previews, for you to try out and play with and =
report any issues with back to us. And that is on top of all the regular =
bug fixing and other improvements.


1. A completely new developed admin UI, nicknamed Fauxton, that is =
poised to replace the much-loved, but increasingly dated Futon. I=92d =
like to personally thank the Fauxton team: Sue =93Deathbear=94 Lockwood, =
Russell =93Chewbranca=94 Branca, Garren Smith and many more volunteers =
for their work as well as the company Cloudant for sponsoring a good =
chunk of that work. Great job everyone! Fauxton is going to be replacing =
Futon in one of the next few releases and will give us the foundation =
for the next stage of CouchDB=92s life.

2. Plugins. While it was always possible to write plugins for CouchDB, =
you kind of had to be an expert in CouchDB to get started. We believe =
that writing plugins is a great gateway drug to getting more people to =
hack on CouchDB proper, so we made it simpler to build plugins and to =
install plugins into a running instance of CouchDB. It is still very =
early days, we don=92t even have a plugin registry yet, but we are =
surely excited about the prospects of installing GeoCouch with a single =
click of a button in Futon or Fauxton. We also included a template =
plugin that you can easily extend and make your own, along with a guide =
to get you started.

The plugins effort also supports a larger trend we are starting to =
follow with the CouchDB core codebase: decide on a well-defined core set =
of functionality and delegate more esoteric things to a rich plugin =
system That means we no longer have to decline the inclusion of useful =
code like we=92ve done in the past, because it wasn=92t applicable to =
the majority of CouchDB users. Now we can support fringe features and =
plugins that are only useful to a few of our users, but who really need =
them.

3. A Node.JS query server. CouchDB relies on JavaScript for a number of =
core features and we want to continue to do so. In order to keep up with =
the rapid improvements made to the JavaScript ecosystem we have =
tentative plans to switch from a Spidermonkey-driven query server to a =
V8-driven one. In addition, the Node.js project has a really good =
installation story, something that we had trouble with in the past, and =
includes a few utilities that make it very easy for us to switch the =
query server over.

All this however is not to blindly follow the latest trends, but to =
encourage the community to take on the query server and introduce much =
needed improvements. The current view server is a tricky mix of JS, =
Erlang and C and we are not seeing many people daring to jump into that. =
In a second step we expect these improvements to trickle down to the =
other query server implementations like Python or PHP and make things =
better for everyone. For now this is also a developer preview and we are =
inviting all Node.js developers to join us and build a a better query =
server.

4. Docs landed in 1.4.0, but 1.5.0 is seeing a major update to the now =
built-in documentation system. With major thanks to Alexander Shorin, =
Dirkjan Ochtmann and Dave Cottlehuber who were instrumental in that =
effort, CouchDB now has =93really good docs=94 instead of a =93really =
crappy wiki=94, that are shipped with every release and are integrated =
with Futon and Fauxton.


## Beyond

The immediate next area of focus for the CouchDB project is the merging =
of two forks: BigCouch and rcouch.

BigCouch is a =
[Dynamo](http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html) =
implementation on top of CouchDB that manages a cluster of machines and =
makes them look as a single one, adding performance improvements and =
fault tolerance to a CouchDB installation. This is a major step in =
CouchDB=92s evolution as it was designed for such a system from the =
start, but the core project never included a way to use and manage a =
cluster. Cloudant have donated their BigCouch codebase to the Apache =
project already and we are working on an integration.

rcouch is a what I would call a =93future port=94 of CouchDB by longtime =
committer and contributor Benoit Chesneau. rcouch looks like CouchDB =
would, if we started fresh today with a modern architecture. Together =
with BigCouch=92s improvements, this will thoroughly modernise CouchDB=92s=
 codebase to the latest state of the art of Erlang projects. rcouch also =
includes a good number of nifty features that make a great addition to =
CouchDB=92s core feature set and some great plugins.

Finally, we=92ve just started an effort to set up infrastructure and =
called for volunteers to translate the CouchDB documentation and admin =
interface into all major languages. Driven by Andy Wenk from Hamburg, we =
already have a handful of people signed up to help with translations for =
a number of different languages.

This is going to keep us busy for a bit and we are looking forward to =
ship some great releases with these features.

## tl;dr

2013 was a **phenomenal** year for Apache CouchDB. 2014 is poised to be =
even greater, there are more people than ever pushing CouchDB forward =
and there is plenty of stuff to do and hopefully, we get to shape some =
more of the future of computing.

Thank you!

* * *

Best
Jan
--=20


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