Cockroach Labs CTO Peter Mattis said new versions of CockroachDB and the Pebble storage engine will no longer be published to the company’s public repository, citing AI’s ability to surface implementation details and reproduce publicly visible code at a scale that erodes the security and copyright protections source availability once relied on. The post stresses that the license itself is not changing, leaving CockroachDB under the CockroachDB Software License after earlier moves from open source to the Business Source License in 2019 and the CockroachDB Software License in 2024, and that the existing public repository will stay available as a frozen snapshot but no longer be maintained or updated. Mattis said keeping the source public while defending against AI-assisted analysis meant fighting with one hand tied behind the company’s back, and said licensing and open source contributions continue.
CockroachDB Moves to Private Source Code Development
Cockroach Labs CTO Peter Mattis said new versions of CockroachDB and the Pebble storage engine will no longer be published to the company's public repository, citing AI's ability to surface implementation details and reproduce publicly visible code at a scale that erodes the security and copyright protections source availability once relied on. The post stresses that the license itself is not changing, leaving CockroachDB under the CockroachDB Software License after earlier moves from open source to the Business Source License in 2019 and the CockroachDB Software License in 2024, and that the existing public repository will stay available as a frozen snapshot but no longer be maintained or updated. Mattis said keeping the source public while defending against AI-assisted analysis meant fighting with one hand tied behind the company's back, and said licensing and open source contributions continue.
Source: Cockroachlabs