May 10, 2026
Base-ically a tech soap opera
DBase: 1979-2026
A once-mighty computer giant fades out as old users roast, reminisce, and argue over who killed it
TLDR: dBase, once a giant office database program, is effectively being written off after years of legal fights, neglect, and now silent community forums. In the comments, people mix nostalgia, corrections, and jokes about miserable first jobs, turning its downfall into a messy public autopsy.
The death notice for dBase — a hugely popular old-school database program that once powered offices everywhere — has turned into a full-on comment section wake, with equal parts grief, blame, and "wow, I’m ancient." The article argues dBase wasn’t killed by one big mistake, but by years of lawsuits, neglect, and owners who seemed more interested in protecting the brand than improving the product. The final insult? Its official discussion forums have been dark since late 2025, while AI migration tools now promise trapped users a getaway car.
And the community? Absolutely feasting on the postmortem. One commenter called it a perfect example of software history repeating itself through "neglect, litigation, complacency" — basically the tech version of a slow-motion palace collapse. Others piled on with war stories from the dBase trenches: one person remembered using ancient Microsoft Access tools to rescue data from dBase files, while another jumped in to challenge the timeline entirely, saying they were still shipping new dBase features around 2000. So yes, even in death, dBase sparked an argument over the receipts.
The funniest reactions came from people treating this like a cursed childhood memory. One user said their first paid gig at age 12 was wrestling with mailing labels on dBase II and bluntly added, "Didn’t enjoy it." Another recalled managing a university library database in dBase III and had to explain, for the kids, that this was pre-SQL — basically ancient computing civilization. The vibe is half funeral, half reunion, with everyone agreeing on one thing: dBase didn’t just age out, it was left behind.
Key Points
- •The article says dBase.com LLC’s website remained online in April 2026 while its official newsgroups had been offline since November 2025.
- •It describes dBase as a once-dominant PC database platform whose early decline was shaped by litigation, licensing disputes, and delayed server support.
- •The article says competitors such as FoxBase and Btrieve delivered UNIX and Novell-compatible server products in the early 1990s while dBase users were still waiting for similar capabilities.
- •It claims original dBase and BDE source code was lost during the period surrounding the attempted Borland-Corel merger and points to long-unchanged software as evidence.
- •The article says dBase LLC released dBase 9 in 2012 using Visual C++ and CodeJock but retained the legacy BDE through dBase 12+, with meaningful development effectively stopping after 2019.