About LiteDB future

[mbdavid]

Hello everyone,

In recent months, I haven't had the time to dedicate to the LiteDB project. New issues and pull requests need to be reviewed and tested, and the context of each problem needs to be understood.

In the last update I made to version 5, in February of this year, I created routines to try to detect possible data corruption issues in situations that are complex to reproduce and still unresolved. As I have explained in previous posts on GitHub, I started this project 10 years ago, and since then, I have been maintaining LiteDB almost alone, with small external help.

Maintaining LiteDB alone is a complex task that requires great concentration. Besides LiteDB, I have other projects and a lot of code to manage in my daily work. I never imagined that LiteDB would become so popular, with such an active community. I also never thought I would be maintaining the same software for so long.

What is the future of LiteDB?

After all these years developing LiteDB alone, I realized I can't continue this way. If there is such a large community that uses and appreciates LiteDB, I believe there are people interested in helping to maintain it.

One of my major inspirations was SQLite: a very stable open-source database project that, even without many improvements in recent years, continues to be a reference in embedded SQL databases.

My idea is to form a small team, with 1 or 2 people interested in understanding LiteDB and helping with code writing, documentation, and community support. I am willing to have as many calls as necessary to explain how LiteDB works, the ideas behind the implementations, and to exchange ideas and experiences.

The project is not as complex as it seems (although large) but is very interesting and rewarding to work on. Anyone with good knowledge of C# and data structures can contribute. The main goal of this task force would be to stabilize the current version, fixing bugs in testable situations.

Some main activities:

• Rewrite unit tests: create a more complex test suite.
• Improve error handling with clearer messages.
• Review PRs and issues, analyzing the type of error and the implementation.
• Improve documentation by adding tips and best practices for use in applications.
• Improvements and bug fixes in LiteDB.Studio (or migration to Maui).

There are several activities to improve and stabilize LiteDB that I can't do alone (and am not motivated to do). So, if you like LiteDB and want to improve it, leave a message here.

Thank you!

[JKamsker]

Hello @mbdavid ,

First and foremost, thank you for your hard work and dedication as the sole maintainer of LiteDB over the years. Your efforts have greatly benefited the community, and we truly appreciate the time and energy you have invested in this project.

I am interested in helping to maintain LiteDB, though I am unsure if I have the necessary motivation to take on the role of the next sole maintainer (due to on and off hyperfocus). However, I believe that setting up a Discord server could be a great way to find a handful of people who are willing to share the workload and collaborate on maintaining and improving LiteDB.

Thank you once again for all you have done, and I look forward to potentially working with others to support this project.

Best regards and Thank you again :)

Edit: I have created a Discord server we could use for organizing.

[pictos]

Hey @mbdavid I'm open to help you to keep this project alive, feel free to drop me a DM or ping me on this discussion. Just let me know how I can help

[nsxdavid]

@mbdavid I, too, would be willing to help out. Too important of a project to go unattended.

[mbdavid]

Hi guys! Thats so great! Thanks @JKamsker @pictos @nsxdavid

@JKamsker, I just enter in your discord server. We can use discord to chat about this!

[Janek91]

@mbdavid I'm also happy to help if you are still looking for project maintainers.