The document discusses the database research community's addiction to relational database technology and outlines steps to address it, acknowledging that relational databases do not scale well for modern web-scale data needs. It notes that companies are turning to systems like Hadoop instead and that the highest impact work is now being done outside traditional database conferences. It suggests a multi-step approach for the community to admit relational databases have scaling problems, embrace new systems like MapReduce, inventory limitations, focus research on fault tolerance and scheduling, and work to remove shortcomings.

1. A Proposed Answer to Phil’s Question: What Does This Say About the Database Field? Daniel Abadi