Do you also dream of loss of certain ACID semantics or crippling performance issues?
In the real world, it is extremely hard to provide all the same guarantees you get out of a single instance of <database vendor> if you turn around and spread it across the internet.
If you have super deep control over the physical & temporal environment around your system, you can cheat the rules a little bit (i.e. Google).
Yes I know that the perfect database cannot exist. I think some trade-off are possible though. Today I use postgresql with a primary and replicas, together with couchdb in the same application. They complement each other, but I think something good between is possible.
Yes. The core database is fully Apache 2 licensed with no strings attached: https://docs.yugabyte.com/latest/legal/. Maybe it will change if the company behind feels they're ripped off. Who knows, but for now, yes, you could.
CockroachDB has an explicit clause is the licensing: Yes, employees and contractors can use your internal CockroachDB instance as a service, but no people outside of your organization will be able to use it without purchasing a license: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v21.1/licensing-faqs.html....
NGL, I've had to explain to enough people by now that the "funny name" is because it was made by ex-Googlers with a view towards resiliency, as per the idiom that only cockroaches will survive global nuclear war.
True, it is developed by Microsoft and available as a service on Azure. It is also open source, actively maintained and improved, and it's a PG13-compatible Postgres extension that adds both distributed database capabilities and columnar storage. :)