sqinn VS libsql

First part of the README that hasn't changed in 2 months:

> Sqinn-Go is a Go (Golang) library for accessing SQLite databases without cgo. It uses Sqinn https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn under the hood. It starts Sqinn as a child process (os/exec) and communicates with Sqinn over stdin/stdout/stderr. The Sqinn child process then does the SQLite work.

> If you want SQLite but do not want cgo, Sqinn-Go can be a solution.

This seems pretty clear to me about what's happening. It makes an OS call to a third-party executable (sqinn), pipes the result from stdout back into the Go code. The advantage is you don't have to compile the C code alongside your Go code.

Honestly, I don't really know how much more clear the author could be. I guess if you don't know what stdin, stdout, and stderr are it might be confusing? It's hard to imagine that a programmer who is interested in this library isn't familiar with those concepts though.

I've not used it, but sqinn is one sqlite server meant specifically to be used by languages without c calling conventions:

https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn

The latest supported version is 3.38.3: https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn/releases/tag/v1.1.15

> PS: I've got nothing against Turso, or libSQL. In fact I spent the last year perusing their virtual WAL API. The problem is that I found no documentation, nor any useful open source implementations of it. If there any I'd be very interested. So, thus far, I also don't have anything that drives towards libSQL.

Hey, this is v and I am an engineer at Turso. We do have some documentation and an example implementation of Virtual WAL

docs: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql/blob/ef44612/libsql-...

example: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql/blob/ef44612/libsql-...

for an open source implementation, you may check how Bottomless works. Bottomless is another project which does back up like litestream and it internally implements a Virtual WAL.

Bottomless - https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql/tree/main/bottomless

I am sure we can improve our docs, make it more discover-able and easy to find. I am open to feedback and suggestions!

Astro DB is powered by LibSQL, an open source fork of SQLite that was created by Turso. You can use Astro DB's drop-in database to build features like blogs, comment functionality, forums, feedback systems, and user authentication.

sqlite already had an active community fork started by Turso called libsql. They are fixing longstanding API gaps the upstream team isn’t interested in supporting. For example, they added a native write-ahead log API, so you can plug directly into the WAL for streaming replication. This is possible-ish with upstream sqlite + LiteFs but litefs has to implement a whole FUSE file system and can’t run on Mac for that reason.

It’s more risky to run libsql because new features mean new bugs, but it seems worth it to me.

Libsql: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql

A bit of a tangent but for those who’d like to use SQLite for a backend, running it as a separate daemon could be an interesting choice, which would also remove there need of Cgo for the build and maybe make things like separate background job processes easier to accomplish. See [1], [2].

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1: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql/tree/main/libsql-ser...

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38602175

https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html

To summarize, instead of using one of the OSS licenses, the copyright holders simply declare the source to be in the public domain. In order to preserve that status they don't accept patches unless you submit some signed document that you agree with that.

To make things more complicated, they also use their a relatively niche version management system instead of git. Which would complicate making contributions (if they accepted them).

There's a popular fork that fixes all of these issues: https://github.com/libsql/libsql It is MIT licensed, on Github, and open for contributions.

Kind of a weird legal situation for a popular project like this that so many people depend on to have. Not judging; but it is odd. Seems like a lot of wasted efforts between users, would be contributors, and the people that forked this thing to address all that.

You could try making feature requests for https://github.com/libsql/libsql , which is a community fork of SQLite that aims to speed-up the development of long-wanted features.

For a comprehensive view, check out the issues list for libSQL core and sqld. But mostly, I want libSQL to be a home for all builders who believe there is room to take a lean, mean, and SQLite-compatible embedded database to new heights. I’d love to see your contribution!