3 ms·

> Obsidian: An Org-Mode replacement? I doubt it. Obsidian is not open source, and the core is maintained by a small group of people, rather than a community. W

> Obsidian: An Org-Mode replacement? I doubt it. Obsidian is not open source, and the core is maintained by a small group of people, rather than a community. What happens when the company dies? That said, I am willing to have more faith in Obsidian, than many other things since they are not [VC funded](https://stephango.com/vcware https://stephango.com/vcware)

raincole 1y ago
Which is a bit of bummer, as I think they would be doing perfectly fine if they had open-sourced Obsidian's client and just sell sync service (as they are doing now anyway).
- trallnag 1y ago
  They also sell a business license. I wonder how much money they make with that compared to the sync service.
  - aquariusDue 1y ago
    I believe it's now free for commercial use. https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/ https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/
    - trallnag 1y ago
      Wow, I totally missed that. Very unexpected to me
    - jll29 1y ago
      The money is not the problem - you want the source code so that if the company disappears, you can still maintain the software. I would prefer to buy from those commercial players that have a clause in their license saying upon sunsetting the commercial offering or closure of the company the source code becomes open source. In the absence of such a clause, I prefer open source solutions. [RMS was right saying "Free as in 'freedom' is not about payment." There can be paid-for open source software, and there can be free-of-charge commercial software, but the freedom to edit and recompile is the most important aspect of "being free".]
      - aquariusDue 1y ago
        I'd prefer if computing wasn't structured around the idea of applications and the social component preferred the UNIX way of piping data through various small programs till the desired output manifested and then shared recipes instead of "software", but here I am enjoying YouTube on a small device that's completely locked. But yeah, your vision is the next best thing I like to day dream about sadly.
        dotancohen 1y ago
        You can still do that with Org files. I would say that grep touches my Org files more often than Emacs does. I had the same workflow with Markdown files if you prefer the closed source Markdown editors. At the time, I was using VIM for editing and viewing the Markdown files.
- exceptione 1y ago
  With so many oss contenders in this space, it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually opensource it. If not, someone might make an api-compatible oss clone, because lots of the value is in the myriad of plugins. Obsidian's ace however is it's great wyiwyg text editor if you ask me, enabling friction-free writing.
iansinnott 1y ago
The author of that post also addresses this question in another: https://stephango.com/file-over-app https://stephango.com/file-over-app > The app will eventually become obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last.
jiri 1y ago
With Obsidian, you have all your markdown files on your disk, so you can use vi or emacs to view and edit them while someone else put together replacement app ...
aquariusDue 1y ago
There's also something nice about having everything in the same place, at least until Obsidian becomes a code editor and email reader. For a while I thought that Neovim might be the next Emacs (if you squint a bit) but looks like Obsidian is halfway there if you take a look at the plugin landscape and what people are doing at the extreme ends. Also stuff like Bases[0] might be the thing that entrenches Obsidian even further as an IDE for knowledge work (more or less). [0]: https://help.obsidian.md/bases https://help.obsidian.md/bases
greymalik 1y ago
It doesn’t matter if Obsidian dies. The files are standard markdown you control and there is no lock-in. You can simply move on to another tool.
- layer8 1y ago
  You seem to be saying that the tool doesn’t matter. However, people who use Obsidian typically use it for a reason (other than the file format) over other tools.
- al_borland 1y ago
  This depends how deep down the rabbit hole someone goes. At a basic level, yes, this is true. However, if someone has built a complex system around properties, data views, and various other plugins, they're going to have a hard time. There is a lot to be said for the value of simplicity, if one of the goals is portability.
  - aerhardt 1y ago
    I use Obsidian with very few plugins, most of which only affect rendering. The UI is clean, minimalistic, beautiful. I came to it because I was looking for a text editor with a Vim plugin. All in all it's the best text editor I have ever used in my life.
oth001 1y ago
Joplin?
jocoda 1y ago
The big win is using standard markdown. If they disappear, you still have your content. The other big win is it's truly cross platform. I initially used syncthing to keep different systems in sync but switched to their sync service. Syncthing works fine but I found adding a new system and integrating was cumbersome if you haven't done it recently. With Obsidian's sync service setting up a new system was trivial. Shortcoming - printing. Need to generate a pdf and use it's print feature. Another shortcoming is merging a hierarchy of folders and notes into a composite document.

raincole 1y ago

Which is a bit of bummer, as I think they would be doing perfectly fine if they had open-sourced Obsidian's client and just sell sync service (as they are doing now anyway).

trallnag 1y ago
They also sell a business license. I wonder how much money they make with that compared to the sync service.
- aquariusDue 1y ago
  I believe it's now free for commercial use. https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/ https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/
  - trallnag 1y ago
    Wow, I totally missed that. Very unexpected to me
  - jll29 1y ago
    The money is not the problem - you want the source code so that if the company disappears, you can still maintain the software. I would prefer to buy from those commercial players that have a clause in their license saying upon sunsetting the commercial offering or closure of the company the source code becomes open source. In the absence of such a clause, I prefer open source solutions. [RMS was right saying "Free as in 'freedom' is not about payment." There can be paid-for open source software, and there can be free-of-charge commercial software, but the freedom to edit and recompile is the most important aspect of "being free".]
    - aquariusDue 1y ago
      I'd prefer if computing wasn't structured around the idea of applications and the social component preferred the UNIX way of piping data through various small programs till the desired output manifested and then shared recipes instead of "software", but here I am enjoying YouTube on a small device that's completely locked. But yeah, your vision is the next best thing I like to day dream about sadly.
      - dotancohen 1y ago
        You can still do that with Org files. I would say that grep touches my Org files more often than Emacs does. I had the same workflow with Markdown files if you prefer the closed source Markdown editors. At the time, I was using VIM for editing and viewing the Markdown files.
exceptione 1y ago
With so many oss contenders in this space, it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually opensource it. If not, someone might make an api-compatible oss clone, because lots of the value is in the myriad of plugins. Obsidian's ace however is it's great wyiwyg text editor if you ask me, enabling friction-free writing.

iansinnott 1y ago

The author of that post also addresses this question in another: https://stephango.com/file-over-app https://stephango.com/file-over-app > The app will eventually become obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last.

jiri 1y ago

With Obsidian, you have all your markdown files on your disk, so you can use vi or emacs to view and edit them while someone else put together replacement app ...

aquariusDue 1y ago

There's also something nice about having everything in the same place, at least until Obsidian becomes a code editor and email reader. For a while I thought that Neovim might be the next Emacs (if you squint a bit) but looks like Obsidian is halfway there if you take a look at the plugin landscape and what people are doing at the extreme ends. Also stuff like Bases[0] might be the thing that entrenches Obsidian even further as an IDE for knowledge work (more or less). [0]: https://help.obsidian.md/bases https://help.obsidian.md/bases

greymalik 1y ago

It doesn’t matter if Obsidian dies. The files are standard markdown you control and there is no lock-in. You can simply move on to another tool.

layer8 1y ago
You seem to be saying that the tool doesn’t matter. However, people who use Obsidian typically use it for a reason (other than the file format) over other tools.
al_borland 1y ago
This depends how deep down the rabbit hole someone goes. At a basic level, yes, this is true. However, if someone has built a complex system around properties, data views, and various other plugins, they're going to have a hard time. There is a lot to be said for the value of simplicity, if one of the goals is portability.
- aerhardt 1y ago
  I use Obsidian with very few plugins, most of which only affect rendering. The UI is clean, minimalistic, beautiful. I came to it because I was looking for a text editor with a Vim plugin. All in all it's the best text editor I have ever used in my life.

oth001 1y ago

Joplin?

jocoda 1y ago

The big win is using standard markdown. If they disappear, you still have your content. The other big win is it's truly cross platform. I initially used syncthing to keep different systems in sync but switched to their sync service. Syncthing works fine but I found adding a new system and integrating was cumbersome if you haven't done it recently. With Obsidian's sync service setting up a new system was trivial. Shortcoming - printing. Need to generate a pdf and use it's print feature. Another shortcoming is merging a hierarchy of folders and notes into a composite document.