Chroniton Labs is a new home for open source work on the distributed systems many of us run every day. Its first project is ChronitonDB, a database built on Apache Cassandra. This note explains why we started it, how it works, and how you can be part of it.
ChronitonDB is in early development. Nothing is ready to run in production yet, and branches, settings and history may change. ChronitonDB is not a project of the Apache Software Foundation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by it.
01 / Why Chroniton Labs
A choice for operators who want to try changes early.
Large open source projects release carefully, because many organisations depend on them. That care is a strength. Some operators also want to run a fix or an improvement before the next upstream release, and are happy to make that call themselves.
Chroniton Labs gives them that option, alongside the upstream projects rather than instead of them. The work happens in public, where anyone can read it and question it.
AxonOps is the steward. A project needs someone to own its name, hold its contributor agreements, make its releases and stand behind them, and AxonOps takes that role. The projects themselves are open source and stay open source.
02 / What ChronitonDB is
Built on Apache Cassandra®.
ChronitonDB is an open source database built on Apache Cassandra. It keeps Cassandra’s architecture, protocol, tooling and operating model, and adds features and fixes. It aims to stay compatible with Apache Cassandra.
There are two lines. chronitondb-5.0 is built on Apache Cassandra 5.0. chronitondb-6.0 follows the Apache Cassandra 6.0 development branch, which the Apache Cassandra project has not released yet. Each line will have its own releases, on its own schedule.
03 / Staying close to Apache Cassandra
Credit where it is due, and a way back.
- We bring in fixes and features from Apache Cassandra, and they keep their original authors.
- We aim to offer our own fixes and features to the Apache Cassandra project, and we name the people who wrote them as their authors.
- We aim to keep a supported path from ChronitonDB back to Apache Cassandra, and we document any feature that makes going back harder.
A cluster that has fully completed its upgrade to Apache Cassandra 5.0 is the starting point for moving to the chronitondb-5.0 line.
04 / How to take part
Early is the best time to join.
Bring ideas and questions to the discussions. Try things, review designs and tell us what you need. To contribute code, you sign the contributor agreement once, on your first pull request, and it covers every Chroniton Labs project. The contribute page has the rest.
Organisations that need a vendor behind their deployment can get support from AxonOps.
More projects are on their way to Chroniton Labs: ChronitonMQ, a broker designed to work with Apache Kafka® clients, and the CQLAI and CQL Workbench tools for Apache Cassandra.
05 / Links