ArangoDB's new licensing has made me not want to use it anymore. Some of my ideas lean very heavily toward being a SaaS and ArangoDB explicitly disallows it's use as that. I know it states "source code", but I would be using it from the openSUSE repository, which would mean it would be compiled from source and not the binary from ArangoDB. I don't like it. It just feels like it would be too easy for them to make an accusation with the way they have it worded. I also don't want to grow to their 100gb limit and then have to find an alternative or agree some to Enterprise version price that they won't even advertise on their web site. I tried to contact them through the web chat and email [for a quote of the Enterprise version's price] and didn't get a response yet from either. It was really for confirmation (that I can't afford it) and not a last ditch effort to keep using it.

So...I started looking for a new database. Initially, I wanted something with an OSI-approved license. Unfortunately, the one I like the most also uses the BSL 1.1 license, but without the extra conditions that ArangoDB has instated. To me, that's fine. It's the MariaDB license. They have to protect their product. I understand all of this. The ArangoDB's BSL wasn't what I had a problem with, it was their extra conditions; I don't want to run a DBaaS or offer managed database hosting, that's not what I'm interested in doing.

And...it looks like I'll be moving on from ArangoDB to SurrealDB. I considered all of the ways I could get around a change; I don't really like change and I've loved everything about using ArangoDB. I considered staying on a version before the license change and just updating every 4 years when the BSL rolls over to become an Apache license. I just don't want to deal with all of that. I don't want to use 4 year old, unmaintained software. SurrealDB doesn't have an Enterprise version. They've held their BSL license for quite some time and it at least appears that a lot more people use SurrealDB than I've ever found to use ArangoDB. Plus, I may be able to actually find someone else who uses it...who knows, I may want to even hire them.

Yeah, it's becoming a thing. Now I just need to find or create the tooling I need to use it and...start using it.