5 ms·

Nocobase, on prem Notion for creating production-ready apps

33 points by mountainview 2y ago

alberth 2y ago
Looks interesting but given that the AGPL scares the bejeebers out of so many companies, I’m not sure how much adoption this will get in middle/large size companies.
- j45 2y ago
  AGPL has nothing to do with end users. Only if they use the source code in their own source code products and try to re-distribute.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Isn't the whole point of AGPL to close the network-boundary loophole of the GPL? I.e. any user of a service over the network is entitled to the source and any changes. This scares companies because where does the need to share stop? Does it 'infect' everything that the AGPL software interacts with? Everything on the same network?
    - ammo1662 2y ago
      It depends on whether you are providing it as a part of your product. Using it as an internal wiki will not violate AGPL.
      - danpalmer 2y ago
        "for creating production-ready apps" – I don't think this is intended for an internal wiki. Also, I believe technically even an internal wiki would necessitate providing the source to your internal users, which many companies may not want to do, and not to all internal users.
        andyferris 2y ago
        As far as I can tell, Nocobase is a platform (like e.g. gnu/linux) which you can build things on top of. You should only need to provide changes to the platform (EDIT and any custom plugins), not the rest of the application. (E.g. if a cloud provider were to create an optimized version for their cloud and then sell that, those changes would need to be public - I saw this as addressing behavior like redis has complained about).
        andyferris 2y ago
        Note - apparently custom plugins are infected by the AGPL unless you pay for a commercial license. (But obviously not your private data, and the schema + UI config would be the same (these are visible to users anyway...)).
        j45 2y ago
        Using the existing platform to build if it’s what it’s designed for doesn’t seem to violate anything compared to modifying the platform and distributing it as a competitor. Of course, if it’s creating a competitor, not probably a good idea. Unmodified self-hosted use doesn’t seem to indicate public distribution, to the extent the agpl may hint at network implying to the public. Happy to learn otherwise
        j45 2y ago
        Production ready app for yourself (as an individual or organization) falls under self-hosting, something that's often advertised to get users. When the procedure taken, is to just run a docker image from the web for an AGPL product, I don't really see what needs to be provided to the users. Notifying them of which docker image and version is being run so they can access it themselves? The key thing here is no modification to the code has happened. "Production ready app" for others outside my individuality, group, organization to others, likely for money, is probably what the AGPL is after, to not let big guys compete with and wipe out the small teams building great software. Happy to learn otherwise, and more too :)
    - andyferris 2y ago
      Yes, the distinction is the networking. If you make changes to Nocobase and provide an app over the network using that changed code, you would need to provide your fork of Nocobase. AFAICT Nocobase is the platform here. Just like when you use linix, compile your code with GCC, or use happen to use a bash script in production, you don't need to provide your application and infrastructure code along with your app, you shouldn't need to provide your application code (or plugin code?) written for Nocobase. Right?
      - andyferris 2y ago
        Apparently I was a bit wrong - the plugins are not seperate (if you want to write closed-source plugins you should use the commerical license, not the AGPL). The schema and data and UI configs should be private though - so enough to build a wiki or notion-like site, and set up some integrations based on the free plugins. https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html
j45 2y ago
The name reminded me of Nocodb
meiraleal 2y ago
How is it related to Notion?
- theogravity 2y ago
  I don't see anything that relates to Notion at all. As a user, I've never seen it as a no-code solution.
jameslk 2y ago
Really confusing name considering there’s an open source Airtable alternative called Nocodb that’s been around for years. https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb
devsda 2y ago
The introductory video in the docs ended with the lines > you can quickly apply for an online demo on our website to experience first hand all the powerful features of nocobase that I have introduced. That's oddly phrased and gives off the impression that it is developed & maintained by a single developer(as is the case for most oss projects and could be true here based on their product hunt page) but it makes commercial users hesitate a bit especially if they want to build important business workflow tools using this software. I think having a demo but gating that with a form asking for email, industry, scale, job title etc is going to harm more than not having a demo. If the goal is to prevent abuse, asking for email signup is reasonable.
unixhero 2y ago
Its comoptitor Baserow has an issue in the open source version/community edition: They have an (to me insane) open source policy, there is not eay to delete a user after [0] 0, https://gitlab.com/baserow/baserow/-/issues/2352 https://gitlab.com/baserow/baserow/-/issues/2352
- benterix 2y ago
  BTW, I assume you are a user of the open source version, so let me hijack this thread and ask what is your experience with it - apart from the issue you mention, are there any other problems people should be aware of before investing their time into it?
  - unixhero 2y ago
    Actually I like it for iterating on an idea
yencabulator 2y ago
A special license is always a scary sight: https://github.com/nocobase/nocobase/blob/main/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/nocobase/nocobase/blob/main/LICENSE.txt These terms are incompatible with AGPL: > 4.1 The Software uses a dual license type of AGPL-3.0 Open Source License https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3..en.htm https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3..en.htm and Commercial License. > 5.4 It is not allowed to remove or change the brand, name, link, version number, license, and other information about NocoBase on the Software interface, except for the main LOGO in the upper left corner of the page. > 5.5 It is not allowed to remove or change all intellectual property statements about NocoBase in the code. > 5.6 It is not allowed to provide any form of no-code, zero-code, low-code platform SaaS products to the public using the original or modified Software.

33 points by mountainview 2y ago

Looks interesting but given that the AGPL scares the bejeebers out of so many companies, I’m not sure how much adoption this will get in middle/large size companies.

j45 2y ago
AGPL has nothing to do with end users. Only if they use the source code in their own source code products and try to re-distribute.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Isn't the whole point of AGPL to close the network-boundary loophole of the GPL? I.e. any user of a service over the network is entitled to the source and any changes. This scares companies because where does the need to share stop? Does it 'infect' everything that the AGPL software interacts with? Everything on the same network?
  - ammo1662 2y ago
    It depends on whether you are providing it as a part of your product. Using it as an internal wiki will not violate AGPL.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      "for creating production-ready apps" – I don't think this is intended for an internal wiki. Also, I believe technically even an internal wiki would necessitate providing the source to your internal users, which many companies may not want to do, and not to all internal users.
      - andyferris 2y ago
        As far as I can tell, Nocobase is a platform (like e.g. gnu/linux) which you can build things on top of. You should only need to provide changes to the platform (EDIT and any custom plugins), not the rest of the application. (E.g. if a cloud provider were to create an optimized version for their cloud and then sell that, those changes would need to be public - I saw this as addressing behavior like redis has complained about).
        andyferris 2y ago
        Note - apparently custom plugins are infected by the AGPL unless you pay for a commercial license. (But obviously not your private data, and the schema + UI config would be the same (these are visible to users anyway...)).
        j45 2y ago
        Using the existing platform to build if it’s what it’s designed for doesn’t seem to violate anything compared to modifying the platform and distributing it as a competitor. Of course, if it’s creating a competitor, not probably a good idea. Unmodified self-hosted use doesn’t seem to indicate public distribution, to the extent the agpl may hint at network implying to the public. Happy to learn otherwise
      - j45 2y ago
        Production ready app for yourself (as an individual or organization) falls under self-hosting, something that's often advertised to get users. When the procedure taken, is to just run a docker image from the web for an AGPL product, I don't really see what needs to be provided to the users. Notifying them of which docker image and version is being run so they can access it themselves? The key thing here is no modification to the code has happened. "Production ready app" for others outside my individuality, group, organization to others, likely for money, is probably what the AGPL is after, to not let big guys compete with and wipe out the small teams building great software. Happy to learn otherwise, and more too :)
  - andyferris 2y ago
    Yes, the distinction is the networking. If you make changes to Nocobase and provide an app over the network using that changed code, you would need to provide your fork of Nocobase. AFAICT Nocobase is the platform here. Just like when you use linix, compile your code with GCC, or use happen to use a bash script in production, you don't need to provide your application and infrastructure code along with your app, you shouldn't need to provide your application code (or plugin code?) written for Nocobase. Right?
    - andyferris 2y ago
      Apparently I was a bit wrong - the plugins are not seperate (if you want to write closed-source plugins you should use the commerical license, not the AGPL). The schema and data and UI configs should be private though - so enough to build a wiki or notion-like site, and set up some integrations based on the free plugins. https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html

j45 2y ago

The name reminded me of Nocodb

meiraleal 2y ago

How is it related to Notion?

theogravity 2y ago
I don't see anything that relates to Notion at all. As a user, I've never seen it as a no-code solution.

jameslk 2y ago

Really confusing name considering there’s an open source Airtable alternative called Nocodb that’s been around for years. https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb https://github.com/nocodb/nocodb

devsda 2y ago

The introductory video in the docs ended with the lines > you can quickly apply for an online demo on our website to experience first hand all the powerful features of nocobase that I have introduced. That's oddly phrased and gives off the impression that it is developed & maintained by a single developer(as is the case for most oss projects and could be true here based on their product hunt page) but it makes commercial users hesitate a bit especially if they want to build important business workflow tools using this software. I think having a demo but gating that with a form asking for email, industry, scale, job title etc is going to harm more than not having a demo. If the goal is to prevent abuse, asking for email signup is reasonable.

unixhero 2y ago

Its comoptitor Baserow has an issue in the open source version/community edition: They have an (to me insane) open source policy, there is not eay to delete a user after [0] 0, https://gitlab.com/baserow/baserow/-/issues/2352 https://gitlab.com/baserow/baserow/-/issues/2352

benterix 2y ago
BTW, I assume you are a user of the open source version, so let me hijack this thread and ask what is your experience with it - apart from the issue you mention, are there any other problems people should be aware of before investing their time into it?
- unixhero 2y ago
  Actually I like it for iterating on an idea

yencabulator 2y ago

A special license is always a scary sight: https://github.com/nocobase/nocobase/blob/main/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/nocobase/nocobase/blob/main/LICENSE.txt These terms are incompatible with AGPL: > 4.1 The Software uses a dual license type of AGPL-3.0 Open Source License https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3..en.htm https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3..en.htm and Commercial License. > 5.4 It is not allowed to remove or change the brand, name, link, version number, license, and other information about NocoBase on the Software interface, except for the main LOGO in the upper left corner of the page. > 5.5 It is not allowed to remove or change all intellectual property statements about NocoBase in the code. > 5.6 It is not allowed to provide any form of no-code, zero-code, low-code platform SaaS products to the public using the original or modified Software.