StarRocks responded yesterday: Answers to questions about StarRocks

The content of this article is reprinted to the StarRocks WeChat public account, the original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/r8pL5v2Yw1l9iQxhDWaW3w

No thinking yesterday released on StarRocks open source-related disputes after the article, StarRocks come forward to contact us, we hope to help release its reply to the relevant dispute, we do not comment on the full text, which do represent only neutral release in the community, The following is the original content of its response:

The following is the original text of StarRocks' response

First of all, I would like to thank you for your attention to us. Regarding some of our situations, it is necessary to give you an answer.

We are very grateful to the Apache Foundation and the Apache Doris community for creating such an excellent analytical database product. We are also very grateful to everyone who has contributed to Apache Doris. The Doris project has gone from Doris to Palo to contributing to the Apache community and back to Apache Doris. It took 13 years. In the past 13 years, StarRocks's friends have also worked hard and contributed countless time and energy to Apache Doris. Without the Apache Doris project, there would be no StarRocks today. Similarly, without these little partners, there would be no Apache Doris today.

The main reason why I didn't mention Apache Doris before was that I didn't want to continue to cause confusion with the Apache Doris project. At the beginning of our business, almost all of our team members came from Apache Doris, so we referred to the previous practice of PrestoDB when naming the project, named DorisDB, and registered trademarks in China, the United States and Japan. I didn't notice that this move would affect the graduation of the Apache Doris project. In the second quarter of this year, friends from the Apache Foundation formally discussed this matter with us. Although all our actions are legal and compliant, in order not to affect the Apache Doris project, we promised to resolve the issue in the third quarter of this year. Today, we have fulfilled our promise.

Here, we solemnly declare that from DorisDB to StarRocks, from trademarks to code agreements, our work is carried out entirely within the framework of laws and regulations, and we welcome the attention and supervision of people from all walks of life. If there is a substantial infringement on any aspect, we are willing to bear full legal responsibility. We will also resort to legal proceedings in the future for people and the media who have spoken words and harmed our reputation without actual evidence.

At the beginning of 2020, we observed that with the deepening of data driving, users' analysis speed needs to be faster and faster, and traditional architectures can no longer effectively solve these needs. In the history of analytical databases, the storage layer has undergone technological innovation from row-wise storage to column-wise storage. In the future, the computing layer will also begin to upgrade and innovate from row-wise computing to column-wise computing (vectorized computing). "Independent research and development to create a new generation of comprehensive vectorized computing engine." This is the starting point of our project; "Helping customers achieve major achievements" is the original intention of our entrepreneurship.

As we all know, an analytical database has three major components: optimizer, executor, and storage engine. At present, we have rebuilt two major components from scratch: the optimizer and the executor, and completely abandoned the original line-by-line calculation kernel. We will recently release a new version of the real-time inventory engine, and we have also carried out a major restructuring of the original inventory engine. Therefore, although StarRocks uses the framework of Apache Doris, its kernel has been completely independently developed. The original Apache Doris code in the current project retains the original Apache Licence 2. Only the code completely developed independently by us adopts Elastic License 2. This is also a normal practice in the industry.

Therefore, you can use our products with confidence just like using ElasticSearch!

Today, StarRocks' goal has been upgraded to "a new generation of stream-batch integrated lakehouse (Lakehouse)". This is inconsistent with the goals of the Apache Doris project. This is one of the reasons why we did not merge the code back into the Apache Doris project. The era is like the wind, and data is like the sea. In such a great era, StarRocks hopes to work with all parties to focus on customer needs and create a new era of data analysis together!