The database with no server, and the error box that started it

Suppose a pipe bursts on a warship. Someone has to know which valves to close on either side of the break, which to open elsewhere, and where those valves are. Around 2000, Richard Hipp was a contractor writing software to answer exactly that, for US Navy destroyers.

The program relied on a separate database server, already installed on the ship and outside the team's control. "Sometimes the server would go down, and then our application wouldn't run," Hipp said in a 2021 interview. A box would appear: "Can't connect to database server."

That box could appear at the worst moment. The software was meant to work after battle damage, when, in his words, "there's going to be smoke and blood and chaos." Nobody wants to read an error about a server then.

Why is there a server at all?

Hipp asked why the program could not read its data straight off the disk. He could find no SQL database that worked that way, and a colleague told him to write one. In 2000, during a gap in his government contract work, he did. The first code went into SQLite's history on 29 May 2000, and version 1.0 came out that August.

SQLite never officially ran the ship. Hipp says the team used it on the project only for testing, because the customer insisted on the database it already had. "It was never an official part of the project, but I put it out there on the internet and other people started picking it up."

Some retellings name the ship and call it a battleship. The name comes from the podcast host, not Hipp, and it was a guided-missile destroyer.

Where it went

sqlite.org's own list of places SQLite runs includes every Android device, every iPhone, every Mac, every Windows 10 and 11 installation, and the Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers. sqlite.org reports that Airbus has confirmed it is used in the flight software of the A350 family.

The project estimates there are "over one trillion" SQLite databases in use. That is an estimate. It multiplies more than four billion smartphones by hundreds of database files each, and the page says only that the figure "seems likely."

A peer-reviewed study of WhatsApp on Android, published in 2014, found that the app kept its chat history in SQLite databases on the phone. WhatsApp itself has not published anything saying so, and that study examined the app as it was in 2014.

A small team, and code nobody owns

SQLite is maintained by a small team employed by Hwaci, a North Carolina company owned by Hipp and his wife, Ginger Wyrick. sqlite.org used to list the developers' names and photos. It took them down, saying some people might misuse the information, so Hipp is the only developer we name.

The code is dedicated to the public domain. Anyone can copy, change or sell it with no licence at all. Every code author has signed a legal statement, an affidavit, to that effect, and the originals are stored in a fireproof safe at Hwaci's offices.

That is also why SQLite calls itself open source and, in its own words, "not open-contribution." It does not accept changes to its code from people who have not signed the affidavit. There is a process for those who have, though the project warns it may rewrite your change from scratch.

The team says it plans to support SQLite until 2050. Its words are "we plan as if we will be supporting SQLite until 2050," and it says it cannot absolutely promise that SQLite will still be useful that far out.

It is also tested to the standard Hipp learned from aircraft software. As of 2023, the project had about 590 times as much test code as product code. One of its test suites checks every point where the program can go one way or the other.

The team also has a Code of Ethics. Drawn from the Rule of St Benedict, it began as a "Code of Conduct" written to fill in a box on customers' supplier forms, and was renamed after criticism in 2018. It is a promise about the developers' own behaviour; no one else is required to follow it.

Who pays for free software

Big users do. Hipp recalls Motorola asking for phone support in about 2001 or 2002, for a fee he remembers as about USD 80,000. Symbian chose SQLite after testing ten database engines. Around 2005 he worked with Google's Android team before Android launched.

In 2007 Mozilla and Symbian became the first members of the SQLite Consortium. Mozilla's Mitchell Baker advised him that the developers should keep control, and the companies get "the honor of contributing money." Membership is listed at USD 150,000 a year. Paid support starts at USD 1,500 a year. The code stays free for everyone.

What it means for your business

Ask Hipp's question about your own systems. Which of them stop working when the internet, or one server, goes down? The till, the booking system, the accounting package? For each one, ask whether it could keep running on its own for a day.

Then ask each software vendor you depend on how many years they commit to supporting it, in writing. sqlite.org calls SQLite the most used database engine in the world, and it publishes a plan to 2050.