6 ms·

Trusting my "personal knowledge" to a proprietary tool seems like a fundamentally bad idea to me, and no amount of clever features is going to fix that.

by m0zg 7y ago

gexla 7y ago
I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to encrypt your data. If you do any sort of public writing, you could use it for your writing process since that info would be private eventually anyways. Or you could expand that idea and include anything which you would be okay with being public. For example, I may not have a reason to share a snippet from an article, but I wouldn't be bothered if it became public. I may also not be bothered if notes on that snippet were shared. And maybe if I did some writing for myself for understanding a subject, then that might be fine as well. That's pretty much how I use the app.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Doesn't it bother you that "the app" will be gone and forgotten in 5 years?
  - gexla 7y ago
    Not if there's no other app which doesn't have the same functionality. I would rather get the power of the app now and then lose that power in 5 years rather than disregard it completely. If the work I did in the app provides an ROI today, then I'm willing to face the possibility of the app evaporating.
    - oursin 7y ago
      I'd like to add to this that since the app lets you export your content, even if/when Roam dies, it would still be possible to move the data to another app somewhat easily.
      - gexla 7y ago
        You can export, but you lose the links and ID's of the sections.
        conaws 7y ago
        Shouldnt be true for JSON export.
        gexla 7y ago
        Touché, I haven't tried the JSON export yet. Thanks!
      - kalleboo 7y ago
        Usually these end with an "Our Incredible Journey" post[0] and 14 days to back up your data, with the site half-broken during that time and nobody manning the support. I'd set up a script to keep your data backed up if the notes are important, or pray you're not on vacation when they get acquired. [0] https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
- Summershard 7y ago
  > I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to encrypt your data. Well, as soon as the encryption comes this product will be usable. Giving my personal data to a non open source note taking project without any encryption capabilities is a big no.
  - conaws 7y ago
    Use nvalt till that ships then, import will be easier, and you'll start to taste power of very fast two-way links.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  If it were me... I'd probably have the data stored in a postgres db, maybe use graphql+elasticsearch indexes to provide the linking and searching... then the user could simply supply aws creds and what not to their own instances and basically host their own data that way. UI/UX still would be proprietary but that data fully owned by user.
BeniBoy 7y ago
Unfortunately, I tend to agree. I was pretty excited skimming over the post, not realizing this was a hosted solution. Any good self-hosted alternatives with the same features? Or good thread about personnal knowledge management?
- conaws 7y ago
  Co-founder here. Best self hosted tools are Org-mode and nValt. Neither have full feature set, or work collaboratively, but nvalt in particular gives a good 80/20. We export to plaintext markdown that reads well in either, planning export to org mode with enough data for a good elisp hacker to build parity of main features -- will do sooner if we know there are takers for that. Have seen cool analysis of JSON export in Wolfram Alpha.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    Nobody in their right mind should put anything they can't afford to lose in your service until this clause is adjusted to include some kind of export: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22105480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22105480
    - conaws 7y ago
      Good point. Will update.
- elbear 7y ago
  There's tiddlywiki.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
I keep falling into the occasional "I need a note-taking / todo app" rabbit hole, and there is a lot of people / companies re-inventing the wheel, but all of them nowadays seem Electron apps with proprietary cloud storage. I should go back to a folder of .md files and todo.txt (http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/). Right now I'm using Evernote and Todoist but both of them ship my data off to the cloud - and I have no clue how secure it is. And sure I could do my due diligence but the companies are neither required to, and/or forbidden to reveal who has access to the data.
- conaws 7y ago
  We store in cloud as it is a collaborative app, designed for building off your own and other's past work. Lots of self hosted options that are much better than evernote or todoist. Org mode for one. Worth learning emacs for that.
  - loriverkutya 7y ago
    I disagree as I don't want to spend time learning a third new tool just to use another tool. Especially not Emacs.

Trusting my "personal knowledge" to a proprietary tool seems like a fundamentally bad idea to me, and no amount of clever features is going to fix that.

by m0zg 7y ago

Trusting my "personal knowledge" to a proprietary tool seems like a fundamentally bad idea to me, and no amount of clever features is going to fix that.

gexla 7y ago

I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to encrypt your data. If you do any sort of public writing, you could use it for your writing process since that info would be private eventually anyways. Or you could expand that idea and include anything which you would be okay with being public. For example, I may not have a reason to share a snippet from an article, but I wouldn't be bothered if it became public. I may also not be bothered if notes on that snippet were shared. And maybe if I did some writing for myself for understanding a subject, then that might be fine as well. That's pretty much how I use the app.

m0zg 7y ago
Doesn't it bother you that "the app" will be gone and forgotten in 5 years?
- gexla 7y ago
  Not if there's no other app which doesn't have the same functionality. I would rather get the power of the app now and then lose that power in 5 years rather than disregard it completely. If the work I did in the app provides an ROI today, then I'm willing to face the possibility of the app evaporating.
  - oursin 7y ago
    I'd like to add to this that since the app lets you export your content, even if/when Roam dies, it would still be possible to move the data to another app somewhat easily.
    - gexla 7y ago
      You can export, but you lose the links and ID's of the sections.
      - conaws 7y ago
        Shouldnt be true for JSON export.
        gexla 7y ago
        Touché, I haven't tried the JSON export yet. Thanks!
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      Usually these end with an "Our Incredible Journey" post[0] and 14 days to back up your data, with the site half-broken during that time and nobody manning the support. I'd set up a script to keep your data backed up if the notes are important, or pray you're not on vacation when they get acquired. [0] https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
Summershard 7y ago
> I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to encrypt your data. Well, as soon as the encryption comes this product will be usable. Giving my personal data to a non open source note taking project without any encryption capabilities is a big no.
- conaws 7y ago
  Use nvalt till that ships then, import will be easier, and you'll start to taste power of very fast two-way links.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
If it were me... I'd probably have the data stored in a postgres db, maybe use graphql+elasticsearch indexes to provide the linking and searching... then the user could simply supply aws creds and what not to their own instances and basically host their own data that way. UI/UX still would be proprietary but that data fully owned by user.

BeniBoy 7y ago

Unfortunately, I tend to agree. I was pretty excited skimming over the post, not realizing this was a hosted solution. Any good self-hosted alternatives with the same features? Or good thread about personnal knowledge management?

conaws 7y ago
Co-founder here. Best self hosted tools are Org-mode and nValt. Neither have full feature set, or work collaboratively, but nvalt in particular gives a good 80/20. We export to plaintext markdown that reads well in either, planning export to org mode with enough data for a good elisp hacker to build parity of main features -- will do sooner if we know there are takers for that. Have seen cool analysis of JSON export in Wolfram Alpha.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Nobody in their right mind should put anything they can't afford to lose in your service until this clause is adjusted to include some kind of export: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22105480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22105480
  - conaws 7y ago
    Good point. Will update.
elbear 7y ago
There's tiddlywiki.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

I keep falling into the occasional "I need a note-taking / todo app" rabbit hole, and there is a lot of people / companies re-inventing the wheel, but all of them nowadays seem Electron apps with proprietary cloud storage. I should go back to a folder of .md files and todo.txt (http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/). Right now I'm using Evernote and Todoist but both of them ship my data off to the cloud - and I have no clue how secure it is. And sure I could do my due diligence but the companies are neither required to, and/or forbidden to reveal who has access to the data.

conaws 7y ago
We store in cloud as it is a collaborative app, designed for building off your own and other's past work. Lots of self hosted options that are much better than evernote or todoist. Org mode for one. Worth learning emacs for that.
- loriverkutya 7y ago
  I disagree as I don't want to spend time learning a third new tool just to use another tool. Especially not Emacs.