Derby is officially dead. And while it won't make headlines like Hadoop or Spark, this is the quiet end of an era for Java-based DBMSs. A few things to reflect on: - Born in 1997 (originally JBMS), one of the first DBMSs written in Java - Adopted by IBM, then handed off to Apache and renamed Derby - As of Oct 2025: no active maintainers, now in "read-only mode" Here's a lesser-known fact: Derby was the default embedded metastore for Apache Hive. If you've ever spun up Hive locally, or messed with Oozie, chances are Derby was humming in the background. It was literally the first "database" I ever touched as a junior data engineer. No config, no fuss - just derby.log and some mystery .dat files showing up in your folder. 🔗Link: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-7177