10 ms·

I will never again build any kind of workflow for my knowledge on top of anything that isn’t open source. 5y is a long time and 10y is an eternity for these sor

I will never again build any kind of workflow for my knowledge on top of anything that isn’t open source. 5y is a long time and 10y is an eternity for these sorts of products but its just a fraction of my working life. My own personal setup is a bunch of markdown files and it’s great, so I like that approach, but I’m very cautious about investing time for something so important in a product i don’t control.

ericax 6y ago
We'll likely make a formal guarantee to open source in the case of us shutting down. Didn't realize that was a possibility, thanks for the suggestion!
- loughnane 6y ago
  that sounds good in principle but I still wouldn't feel comfortable with it unless I was aware of similar setups that worked out well for the users. Not saying such examples aren't out there. I just am unaware of any.
- unknown2374 6y ago
  You may want to look into the Gitlab [1] model of open source monetization, as it has strong resemblance of what you are trying to achieve with Obsidian. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed
- prepend 6y ago
  That’s pretty cool and it’s good of you to think about the scenario. The problem is the bankruptcy court/buyer/ex-spouse/whatever may have a different preference. So you may want to set up something legally binding now when everyone is the same agreement. Could you also solve this by GPL+Commercial license for those that pay?
- sneak 6y ago
  Standard Notes is open source (and free software) today, while still in business with a business model similar to yours. It also allows people to read, audit, and trust the crypto code, which your model does not. For people like me, that’s a hard pass.
- ken 6y ago
  "Open source" is both a license and a development model. You're talking about a license, but someone interested in workflow longevity will probably not be satisfied with a source dump from a dead company. They're looking for a community which knows how to maintain it. As JWZ once said: "You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source,' and have everything magically work out." Has there ever been a case where a company as its last act released their software as open-source, and a community formed and picked it up?
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    I can recall a few on the top of my head, but those are the exception rather than the norm: Blender & Mozilla, though that last one wasn't really a last act. I think I saw a few others, but can't recall which ones, I'd be interested in such a list. Now, there are interesting communities that form around games, that tend to be a "dead product" after release, and for which there was a source dump (or not, actually): doom, openMW, openRA, etc.
  - bmikaili 6y ago
    You do realize communities can die out as well?
    - ken 6y ago
      By definition, that's what happens when its developer community dies off down to size n=0. A source dump without a community is essentially fast-forwarding a (potential) developer community to its death. It should be clear why this is strictly worse.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Parse?
- roryokane 6y ago
  If anyone is wonder what this comment is in reply to, this comment is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325105, replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325035.
soapboxrocket 6y ago
I'm in agreement with you on this. I've been playing with a package for Atom that would simplify a bunch of stuff in my process, but in general I don't like the risk of proprietary software/stack for my workflow.
- ThouYS 6y ago
  that’s a funny idea, putting the logic in the editor
m-p-3 6y ago
You could build a knowledge base in https://joplinapp.org/ https://joplinapp.org/ and store/sync it the way you want. I don't see any restrictions regarding corporate usage.
- loughnane 6y ago
  I was actually using Joplin for the past year after migrating to evernote. I really liked it but am now migrating to something with a little more flexibility around structuring. Thinking to structure it around hugo.
  - z3ncyberpunk 6y ago
    Look at Trilium Notes, this is basically a "polished up" clone a bit.
  - s_trumpet 6y ago
    I'm checking out Joplin on this suggestion. Couple of questions - In what way did you use it? And what were your problems with it?
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      Joplin isn't like your typical web app, and you need to either carry a copy of your notes around on every device, or you need to sync them using a cloud service. For that reason, I went with other note-taking and wiki software.
    - loughnane 6y ago
      As the other commenter noted Joplin is a desktop application that syncs (over E2EE) if you like to other machines via gdrive/dropbox/nextcloud etc. I was using it via nextcloud and it worked perfectly for what it was. The web clipper also did a great job of snatching simplified versions of web pages. What killed it for me was just my expanding desires. I want to things like - view my knowledge base from my work machine without downloading the whole knowledge base to it. - Be able to search my notes AND all the books i've read. I tried using pandoc to go epub to md but it was too clunky and the searchability within notes wasn't great. If I was still using it as a drop in replacement for evernote I think it would be great, but to go beyond that starts to stretch the seams a bit. I also second looking at github's awesome-selfhosted.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
What actually happened? I have a really hard time imagining
heavyset_go 6y ago
> I will never again build any kind of workflow for my knowledge on top of anything that isn’t open source. 100% this. The peace of mind I get knowing that all of my data is under my control is worth it, after scrambling to archive content from failed or pivoting services, removing my data from businesses that try to exploit it or trying to migrate my data from one old app to a different newer app. There are many different open-source and self-hosted wikis, note taking apps and mind-mapping tools. Some of them are listed here[1], just Ctrl-F for "wiki", "notes" and "knowledge" [1] https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
- Eugeleo 6y ago
  Just a quick notw, I think everythink (need to archive content, ease of migrating data etc) is solved simply by Obsidian being offline-first and markdown-only. I.e. you don’t need the app to be open-source in the end.
komali2 6y ago
This is what attracted me to org-roam
Aeolun 6y ago
I don’t follow. This app would work on top of your existing markdown files, and if they go out of business there is nothing preventing you from either keep using the app, or take your markdown files and take them elsewhere.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- MayeulC 6y ago
  That's really a nice thing, to be honest, and probably the only reason I'm somewhat interested, even though I mostly run open-source software on my computers, except when such software is a one-off comodity, like videogames. But for something I'm going to invest some time learning, and will rely on, that's a very difficult pill to swallow. I don't want to depend on proprietary software for important parts of my workflow. What if I want to switch to a pinebook, for instance? No ARM build seems to be available yet. And that's just a single example... (a WASM/LLVM IR build could sidestep that issue). That said, I like the idea. Is there any open-source equivalent?
  - udfalkso 6y ago
    vimwiki is pretty close but this adds some nice touches on top.
Thorentis 6y ago
Joplin is the state of the art in terms of open source note taking in my opinion. It too uses Markdown, and supports a whole heap of other features on top of it. But it's been around for a long time, has mobile apps, cloud backups, the lot - and is all open source on Github.

ericax 6y ago

We'll likely make a formal guarantee to open source in the case of us shutting down. Didn't realize that was a possibility, thanks for the suggestion!

loughnane 6y ago
that sounds good in principle but I still wouldn't feel comfortable with it unless I was aware of similar setups that worked out well for the users. Not saying such examples aren't out there. I just am unaware of any.
unknown2374 6y ago
You may want to look into the Gitlab [1] model of open source monetization, as it has strong resemblance of what you are trying to achieve with Obsidian. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#self-managed
prepend 6y ago
That’s pretty cool and it’s good of you to think about the scenario. The problem is the bankruptcy court/buyer/ex-spouse/whatever may have a different preference. So you may want to set up something legally binding now when everyone is the same agreement. Could you also solve this by GPL+Commercial license for those that pay?
sneak 6y ago
Standard Notes is open source (and free software) today, while still in business with a business model similar to yours. It also allows people to read, audit, and trust the crypto code, which your model does not. For people like me, that’s a hard pass.
ken 6y ago
"Open source" is both a license and a development model. You're talking about a license, but someone interested in workflow longevity will probably not be satisfied with a source dump from a dead company. They're looking for a community which knows how to maintain it. As JWZ once said: "You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source,' and have everything magically work out." Has there ever been a case where a company as its last act released their software as open-source, and a community formed and picked it up?
- MayeulC 6y ago
  I can recall a few on the top of my head, but those are the exception rather than the norm: Blender & Mozilla, though that last one wasn't really a last act. I think I saw a few others, but can't recall which ones, I'd be interested in such a list. Now, there are interesting communities that form around games, that tend to be a "dead product" after release, and for which there was a source dump (or not, actually): doom, openMW, openRA, etc.
- bmikaili 6y ago
  You do realize communities can die out as well?
  - ken 6y ago
    By definition, that's what happens when its developer community dies off down to size n=0. A source dump without a community is essentially fast-forwarding a (potential) developer community to its death. It should be clear why this is strictly worse.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Parse?
roryokane 6y ago
If anyone is wonder what this comment is in reply to, this comment is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325105, replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23325035.

soapboxrocket 6y ago

I'm in agreement with you on this. I've been playing with a package for Atom that would simplify a bunch of stuff in my process, but in general I don't like the risk of proprietary software/stack for my workflow.

ThouYS 6y ago
that’s a funny idea, putting the logic in the editor

m-p-3 6y ago

You could build a knowledge base in https://joplinapp.org/ https://joplinapp.org/ and store/sync it the way you want. I don't see any restrictions regarding corporate usage.

loughnane 6y ago
I was actually using Joplin for the past year after migrating to evernote. I really liked it but am now migrating to something with a little more flexibility around structuring. Thinking to structure it around hugo.
- z3ncyberpunk 6y ago
  Look at Trilium Notes, this is basically a "polished up" clone a bit.
- s_trumpet 6y ago
  I'm checking out Joplin on this suggestion. Couple of questions - In what way did you use it? And what were your problems with it?
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    Joplin isn't like your typical web app, and you need to either carry a copy of your notes around on every device, or you need to sync them using a cloud service. For that reason, I went with other note-taking and wiki software.
  - loughnane 6y ago
    As the other commenter noted Joplin is a desktop application that syncs (over E2EE) if you like to other machines via gdrive/dropbox/nextcloud etc. I was using it via nextcloud and it worked perfectly for what it was. The web clipper also did a great job of snatching simplified versions of web pages. What killed it for me was just my expanding desires. I want to things like - view my knowledge base from my work machine without downloading the whole knowledge base to it. - Be able to search my notes AND all the books i've read. I tried using pandoc to go epub to md but it was too clunky and the searchability within notes wasn't great. If I was still using it as a drop in replacement for evernote I think it would be great, but to go beyond that starts to stretch the seams a bit. I also second looking at github's awesome-selfhosted.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago

What actually happened? I have a really hard time imagining

heavyset_go 6y ago

> I will never again build any kind of workflow for my knowledge on top of anything that isn’t open source. 100% this. The peace of mind I get knowing that all of my data is under my control is worth it, after scrambling to archive content from failed or pivoting services, removing my data from businesses that try to exploit it or trying to migrate my data from one old app to a different newer app. There are many different open-source and self-hosted wikis, note taking apps and mind-mapping tools. Some of them are listed here[1], just Ctrl-F for "wiki", "notes" and "knowledge" [1] https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

Eugeleo 6y ago
Just a quick notw, I think everythink (need to archive content, ease of migrating data etc) is solved simply by Obsidian being offline-first and markdown-only. I.e. you don’t need the app to be open-source in the end.

komali2 6y ago

This is what attracted me to org-roam

Aeolun 6y ago

I don’t follow. This app would work on top of your existing markdown files, and if they go out of business there is nothing preventing you from either keep using the app, or take your markdown files and take them elsewhere.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
MayeulC 6y ago
That's really a nice thing, to be honest, and probably the only reason I'm somewhat interested, even though I mostly run open-source software on my computers, except when such software is a one-off comodity, like videogames. But for something I'm going to invest some time learning, and will rely on, that's a very difficult pill to swallow. I don't want to depend on proprietary software for important parts of my workflow. What if I want to switch to a pinebook, for instance? No ARM build seems to be available yet. And that's just a single example... (a WASM/LLVM IR build could sidestep that issue). That said, I like the idea. Is there any open-source equivalent?
- udfalkso 6y ago
  vimwiki is pretty close but this adds some nice touches on top.

Thorentis 6y ago

Joplin is the state of the art in terms of open source note taking in my opinion. It too uses Markdown, and supports a whole heap of other features on top of it. But it's been around for a long time, has mobile apps, cloud backups, the lot - and is all open source on Github.