I have no statistics on Derby downloads. I think that most downloads
today are from the maven artifactories. As far as I know, Derby distros
will remain in the artifactories.
There are no hard and fast rules about how often a project must produce
a release. However, two years is a long time to go without a new
version. The fact that bugs are not being fixed is more concerning to me.
Thank you for your kind words.
-Rick
On 9/23/25 6:43 PM, bruehlicke wrote:
Uh, scary news. I have not had the need to change the Derby I use and it
has worked flawlessly since the one bug/show-stopper I found years ago with
some triggers (and suggested a fix and got it committed)
Any statistics around who might be using it or if there are active
downloads ? I remember I was checking H2 back years ago and decided rather
to use Derby.
Hmm ... are there any mandatory requirements in the Apache world to have
frequent releases causing the "need" to put it into retirement mode?
Rick & Bryan you have had an enormous impact on that I could use this tool
(even today) - Thank you !
Bernd
On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 12:26 PM Rick Hillegas <[email protected]>
wrote:
It has been almost two years since the Derby sub-project published a new
version. I myself have no interest in managing another Derby release.
Bryan is the only other active Derby committer. Bugs are reported
occasionally but they are never fixed. Mailing-list activity consists
almost entirely of spam rejects. No-one has volunteered to refresh the
Derby website with the new Apache logo.
I think that the time has come to retire Derby. As I understand it, this
means putting Derby into a read-only state:
o The Derby repository would become read-only.
o Distributions would be removed from the Download tab.
o The developer and user lists would be closed down. Mailing list
archives would still be browsable.
o A prominent banner would be added to the Derby website landing page,
stating that Derby was now retired and read-only.
o The Derby website, JIRA, and wiki would be placed in read-only mode.
Before calling a retirement vote, I would like to give the developer and
user communities an opportunity to discuss this change.
What are your thoughts?
-Rick
