4 ms·

Dobase – Open-source, self-hosted workspace with installable tools

94 points by frenkel 6mo ago

hersko 6mo ago
Cool project!
yodon 6mo ago
Can I drag an email directly onto a Kanban or a Todo list, and prioritize it like a task, and then click on the card or task to go directly to the mail message, in the context of its thread?
- warkdarrior 6mo ago
  I wanted to try a demo, but they require you to sign up for an account and configure it with email access, etc. Too painful for a demo.
- mrtesthah 6mo ago
  That’s the kind of thing Apple’s software explicitly tries to support. There’s a reason this stuff works better with native apps.
- smgdkngt 6mo ago
  No, and probably won't be. Each tool is intentionally standalone. You can link to things manually but there's no cross-tool wiring. I'd rather keep the codebase simple and each tool easy to understand on its own.
hperrin 6mo ago
The commit log is filled with AI generated commits. I wouldn’t trust that on my server.
- argee 6mo ago
  I want to know why this [0] needed to be co-authored by Claude. Especially because it seems like the kind of change you'd explicitly want to make without Claude's "help" (presuming that's how that got in there). [0] https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase/commit/597684fc67b67f5a2a21133a1325a96686237a83 https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase/commit/597684fc67b67f5a2a...
  - superice 6mo ago
    Asking Claude to commit and push triggers the Co-Authored-By thing typically, even if the change was made by hand. It could entirely be possible the author just asked it to generate a commit message for this change (although the style doesn't strike me as very Claude like).
- spartanatreyu 6mo ago
  Blocking AI users on github is such a quick way to avoid most slop and get advanced notice when an existing project has started going into tech/cognitive debt. You'll get a warning banner for those repos if you go to these users and block them: - github.com/claude - github.com/cursoragent - github.com/gemini-code-assist --- Example of the warning banner and more discussion here: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/116115453811522063 https://mastodon.social/@mcc/116115453811522063
- AbanoubRodolf 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- smgdkngt 6mo ago
  I use Claude to help me code. I'm a solo developer and this is a side project, AI helps me move faster on things I'd otherwise not get to. The code is all reviewed and tested by me before it ships. I understand the skepticism though.
  - hperrin 6mo ago
    That’s all well and good, but you can’t enforce a license on it. Code written by an AI is in the public domain. So the license you’re using is essentially meaningless, and anyone can do anything they want with the code.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
samdixon 6mo ago
Clickup is kinda like this (trash software btw) where it combines all these things. Its super cumbersome to deal with all of them in the same UI. For example, you will be chatting with someone, need to look at ticket, you have to completely leave the context of the chat to find the ticket. Yeah you can have multiple tabs, but still cumbersome. Would rather have a chat app for chat, documentation in documentation... so on.
- argee 6mo ago
  Could you elaborate on what makes Clickup "trash software", is it something specific to Clickup or your opinion around this entire "class" of all-in-one workspace?
  - samdixon 6mo ago
    Here are a few things off the top: - horrible optimization - video calls will easily bloat 1-3gb of ram - buggy, things that should work sometimes don't - e.g. sometimes you click to write... you get a spinner, wait 10 seconds - poor ux. I have been using it for 4+ years at work, still have trouble finding things - yeah, all things in one interface These are opinions. People can have different. To me, its just a slow and difficult to navigate mess that doesn't know what it wants to be.
    - esafak 6mo ago
      It does know: it wants to be everything -- they remind you in every ad!
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  - BoorishBears 6mo ago
    ClickUp is known to be extremely slow and buggy, in a way that technical people can infer is a reflection of their mission to literally do everything an organization needs. https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1s0tkz8/disappointment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1s0tkz8/disappoint... https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1rxbtla/im_so_tired_clickup/ https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1rxbtla/im_so_tire... Who ever built a piece of quality software by setting out to build multiple otherwise unrelated pieces of software with extremely tight coupling to satisfy enterprise bargain hunting?
anilgulecha 6mo ago
IMO we need more sovereign systems like this (this is too simple IMO). Other sovereign systems are complex to deploy. if good FOSS commodity options come up, then we can expect a hosting/deployment infra and companies to setup and offer it for non self-hosters as well - ala WordPress.
- Jnr 6mo ago
  Except this is not FOSS. If it was open source, they would have chosen at least AGPL. And also I don't think their architecture is any good for such a product. For me personally, it would be sufficient to avoid it based on the license alone. But altogether it just looks very unappealing.
- kkfx 6mo ago
  Since we have a single mind, we need "everything apps", this one shows various issues but the idea of an everything app is damm good.
- pscanf 6mo ago
  That would simplify things, but in my opinion that is still too high a hurdle. I'm all about privacy and FOSS, but I don't self-host anything (except for my personal website). I wish that more apps would instead move the logic to the client and use files on file syncing services as databases. Taking tasks as an example, if a task board were just a file, I could share it with you on Dropbox / Drive / whatever we both use, and we wouldn't need a dedicated backend at all. The approach has limitations (conflict resolution, authorization, and latency are the big ones), but it is feasible and actually completely fine for lots of apps.
achille 6mo ago
i registered for their demo and it seems to be unable to do any of the advertised features. nearly everything crashes; feels like a ux wireframe not yet wired it
- smgdkngt 6mo ago
  That's strange. I use it daily myself and some of my clients do too (to communicate with me). The main tools work reasonably well for us. There are definitely rough edges and bugs still, it's a one-person project.
yellowapple 6mo ago
> No licensee or downstream recipient may use the Software (including any modified or derivative versions) to directly compete with the original Licensor by offering it to third parties as a hosted, managed, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product or cloud service where the primary value of the service is the functionality of the Software itself. No thanks. These “almost-but-not-quite-FOSS” licenses are a blight.
- nick-sta 6mo ago
  I don't see the issue - the creator is reserving the right to create their own paid hosted version?
  - EvanAnderson 6mo ago
    That's absolutely fine for them, but they shouldn't call it "Open-source" and "Fully open source" (like they do on the linked page). This software is source-available. Open Source licenses don't discriminate on the basis use of the software. Using the term Open Source for license like this is dishonest. It seeks to profit from the goodwill from actual Open Source software.
    - gardnr 6mo ago
      I appreciate your view but consensus reality does not agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
      - EvanAnderson 6mo ago
        I can link to community-edited articles, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition We make the consensus reality. I'm part of the faction that wants this particular reality, so I advocate for it.
        eudoxus 6mo ago
chopete3 6mo ago
What is stopping one to have a chrome or other browser window with pinned links to Email, Calendar, Drive and other web links? Why build a full app?. They could released a Chrome extension to let users configure their links for each of those apps. Wasted effort.
- whilenot-dev 6mo ago
  > They could released a Chrome extension to let users configure their links for each of those apps. Wasted effort. This app isn't just some link aggregator or an admin dashboard, though. It's workplace software that hosts all your data, self-hosted on your system of choice if you wish. I'm neither a user of nor am I affiliated with this project, but it seems like there's the aspiration to provide a unified client interface for every app, and it looks like you could BYOC as well (for CalDAV and Email).
- smgdkngt 6mo ago
  Because I wanted everything on my own server, in one database, under my control. A bunch of pinned tabs to different SaaS apps is a completely different thing. But fair enough, if that works for you, you don't need this.
hikaru_ai 6mo ago
[dead]
esquire_900 6mo ago
This seems exactly not what you want. If fully invested in this, you never have the freedom to switch tools, ie go to a different team chat solution. The benefits of having these apps in one UI / ecosystem are relatively small: files - teamchat makes sense, but todo-email, kanban-recpies doesn't add any value. Like samdixon mentions with ClickUp, the downside is quite large UX wise: you'd be constantly switching context witin dobase. Having 10 pinned tabs for all your tools is very convenient, checking a todo while working on an email in dobase feels messy.
- vanviegen 6mo ago
  I actually rather dislike having my info spread over a gazillion services, all of them having their own paid accounts or advertising. Also, a single unified search for all communication and shared notes would be very helpful. Also, I'm not familiar with ClickUp nor Dobase, but I imagine you can have them open in multiple tabs, allowing for your preferred way of working?

94 points by frenkel 6mo ago

Cool project!

yodon 6mo ago

Can I drag an email directly onto a Kanban or a Todo list, and prioritize it like a task, and then click on the card or task to go directly to the mail message, in the context of its thread?

warkdarrior 6mo ago
I wanted to try a demo, but they require you to sign up for an account and configure it with email access, etc. Too painful for a demo.
mrtesthah 6mo ago
That’s the kind of thing Apple’s software explicitly tries to support. There’s a reason this stuff works better with native apps.
smgdkngt 6mo ago
No, and probably won't be. Each tool is intentionally standalone. You can link to things manually but there's no cross-tool wiring. I'd rather keep the codebase simple and each tool easy to understand on its own.

hperrin 6mo ago

The commit log is filled with AI generated commits. I wouldn’t trust that on my server.

argee 6mo ago
I want to know why this [0] needed to be co-authored by Claude. Especially because it seems like the kind of change you'd explicitly want to make without Claude's "help" (presuming that's how that got in there). [0] https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase/commit/597684fc67b67f5a2a21133a1325a96686237a83 https://github.com/smgdkngt/dobase/commit/597684fc67b67f5a2a...
- superice 6mo ago
  Asking Claude to commit and push triggers the Co-Authored-By thing typically, even if the change was made by hand. It could entirely be possible the author just asked it to generate a commit message for this change (although the style doesn't strike me as very Claude like).
spartanatreyu 6mo ago
Blocking AI users on github is such a quick way to avoid most slop and get advanced notice when an existing project has started going into tech/cognitive debt. You'll get a warning banner for those repos if you go to these users and block them: - github.com/claude - github.com/cursoragent - github.com/gemini-code-assist --- Example of the warning banner and more discussion here: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/116115453811522063 https://mastodon.social/@mcc/116115453811522063
AbanoubRodolf 6mo ago
[flagged]
smgdkngt 6mo ago
I use Claude to help me code. I'm a solo developer and this is a side project, AI helps me move faster on things I'd otherwise not get to. The code is all reviewed and tested by me before it ships. I understand the skepticism though.
- hperrin 6mo ago
  That’s all well and good, but you can’t enforce a license on it. Code written by an AI is in the public domain. So the license you’re using is essentially meaningless, and anyone can do anything they want with the code.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]

samdixon 6mo ago

Clickup is kinda like this (trash software btw) where it combines all these things. Its super cumbersome to deal with all of them in the same UI. For example, you will be chatting with someone, need to look at ticket, you have to completely leave the context of the chat to find the ticket. Yeah you can have multiple tabs, but still cumbersome. Would rather have a chat app for chat, documentation in documentation... so on.

argee 6mo ago
Could you elaborate on what makes Clickup "trash software", is it something specific to Clickup or your opinion around this entire "class" of all-in-one workspace?
- samdixon 6mo ago
  Here are a few things off the top: - horrible optimization - video calls will easily bloat 1-3gb of ram - buggy, things that should work sometimes don't - e.g. sometimes you click to write... you get a spinner, wait 10 seconds - poor ux. I have been using it for 4+ years at work, still have trouble finding things - yeah, all things in one interface These are opinions. People can have different. To me, its just a slow and difficult to navigate mess that doesn't know what it wants to be.
  - esafak 6mo ago
    It does know: it wants to be everything -- they remind you in every ad!
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- BoorishBears 6mo ago
  ClickUp is known to be extremely slow and buggy, in a way that technical people can infer is a reflection of their mission to literally do everything an organization needs. https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1s0tkz8/disappointment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1s0tkz8/disappoint... https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1rxbtla/im_so_tired_clickup/ https://www.reddit.com/r/clickup/comments/1rxbtla/im_so_tire... Who ever built a piece of quality software by setting out to build multiple otherwise unrelated pieces of software with extremely tight coupling to satisfy enterprise bargain hunting?

anilgulecha 6mo ago

IMO we need more sovereign systems like this (this is too simple IMO). Other sovereign systems are complex to deploy. if good FOSS commodity options come up, then we can expect a hosting/deployment infra and companies to setup and offer it for non self-hosters as well - ala WordPress.

Jnr 6mo ago
Except this is not FOSS. If it was open source, they would have chosen at least AGPL. And also I don't think their architecture is any good for such a product. For me personally, it would be sufficient to avoid it based on the license alone. But altogether it just looks very unappealing.
kkfx 6mo ago
Since we have a single mind, we need "everything apps", this one shows various issues but the idea of an everything app is damm good.
pscanf 6mo ago
That would simplify things, but in my opinion that is still too high a hurdle. I'm all about privacy and FOSS, but I don't self-host anything (except for my personal website). I wish that more apps would instead move the logic to the client and use files on file syncing services as databases. Taking tasks as an example, if a task board were just a file, I could share it with you on Dropbox / Drive / whatever we both use, and we wouldn't need a dedicated backend at all. The approach has limitations (conflict resolution, authorization, and latency are the big ones), but it is feasible and actually completely fine for lots of apps.

achille 6mo ago

i registered for their demo and it seems to be unable to do any of the advertised features. nearly everything crashes; feels like a ux wireframe not yet wired it

smgdkngt 6mo ago
That's strange. I use it daily myself and some of my clients do too (to communicate with me). The main tools work reasonably well for us. There are definitely rough edges and bugs still, it's a one-person project.

yellowapple 6mo ago

> No licensee or downstream recipient may use the Software (including any modified or derivative versions) to directly compete with the original Licensor by offering it to third parties as a hosted, managed, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product or cloud service where the primary value of the service is the functionality of the Software itself. No thanks. These “almost-but-not-quite-FOSS” licenses are a blight.

nick-sta 6mo ago
I don't see the issue - the creator is reserving the right to create their own paid hosted version?
- EvanAnderson 6mo ago
  That's absolutely fine for them, but they shouldn't call it "Open-source" and "Fully open source" (like they do on the linked page). This software is source-available. Open Source licenses don't discriminate on the basis use of the software. Using the term Open Source for license like this is dishonest. It seeks to profit from the goodwill from actual Open Source software.
  - gardnr 6mo ago
    I appreciate your view but consensus reality does not agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
    - EvanAnderson 6mo ago
      I can link to community-edited articles, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition We make the consensus reality. I'm part of the faction that wants this particular reality, so I advocate for it.
      - eudoxus 6mo ago

chopete3 6mo ago

What is stopping one to have a chrome or other browser window with pinned links to Email, Calendar, Drive and other web links? Why build a full app?. They could released a Chrome extension to let users configure their links for each of those apps. Wasted effort.

whilenot-dev 6mo ago
> They could released a Chrome extension to let users configure their links for each of those apps. Wasted effort. This app isn't just some link aggregator or an admin dashboard, though. It's workplace software that hosts all your data, self-hosted on your system of choice if you wish. I'm neither a user of nor am I affiliated with this project, but it seems like there's the aspiration to provide a unified client interface for every app, and it looks like you could BYOC as well (for CalDAV and Email).
smgdkngt 6mo ago
Because I wanted everything on my own server, in one database, under my control. A bunch of pinned tabs to different SaaS apps is a completely different thing. But fair enough, if that works for you, you don't need this.

hikaru_ai 6mo ago

[dead]

esquire_900 6mo ago

This seems exactly not what you want. If fully invested in this, you never have the freedom to switch tools, ie go to a different team chat solution. The benefits of having these apps in one UI / ecosystem are relatively small: files - teamchat makes sense, but todo-email, kanban-recpies doesn't add any value. Like samdixon mentions with ClickUp, the downside is quite large UX wise: you'd be constantly switching context witin dobase. Having 10 pinned tabs for all your tools is very convenient, checking a todo while working on an email in dobase feels messy.

vanviegen 6mo ago
I actually rather dislike having my info spread over a gazillion services, all of them having their own paid accounts or advertising. Also, a single unified search for all communication and shared notes would be very helpful. Also, I'm not familiar with ClickUp nor Dobase, but I imagine you can have them open in multiple tabs, allowing for your preferred way of working?