Just a note: the comparison with foundation db isn't all that apt -- Sun/Solaris+ZFS/Oracle is probably a more apt comparison to what could hypothetically change if RethinkDB is bought up (by, say, Oracle..).
I'm not suggesting that is likely, but that it's more what would/could happen -- there is already a real, working, full product that wouldn't disappear over night. And a commercial fork would likely be pretty painful for everyone, just as closed Solaris is looking less and less interesting as both many of the minds behind the great parts of Solaris work on Open Solaris in one form or another, and as fewer community resources go into closed Solaris.
I see the AGPL (as opposed to some ad-hoc license) as another benefit for RethinkDB. Many might not like the copyleft-part -- but at least it is a known and well-documented quantity -- no surprises likely to come from/with forking and/or when trying to merge with other Free software (be that BSD or GPL or...).
I'm not suggesting that is likely, but that it's more what would/could happen -- there is already a real, working, full product that wouldn't disappear over night. And a commercial fork would likely be pretty painful for everyone, just as closed Solaris is looking less and less interesting as both many of the minds behind the great parts of Solaris work on Open Solaris in one form or another, and as fewer community resources go into closed Solaris.
I see the AGPL (as opposed to some ad-hoc license) as another benefit for RethinkDB. Many might not like the copyleft-part -- but at least it is a known and well-documented quantity -- no surprises likely to come from/with forking and/or when trying to merge with other Free software (be that BSD or GPL or...).