OneNote. There is only Xournal(pp) with a much smaller featureset and more bugs.
Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
201–210 of 283 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#202Clipboard manager
Given the hugely abstract data driven world we live in and the inability of the human brain to have long term cache it should be important.
Open source versions exist but they are simply not up to scratch to paid versions, they are simply crap to be honest. Most paid versions have demo modes to see whats good but even the paid versions could do with improvements.
Don't get bogged down in making it work online. Keep it simple, runs locally. Windows or maybe if possible Android.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#2033D CAD software is light years behind in the open source ecosystem, but competing with Solid Works or Auto Desk is a enormous task... Although Blender seems to be catching up in 3D animation!
Openscad? Or that doesn’t do everything?
Openscad is a completely different paradigm. It is a graphics scripting engine, not a parametric modeler. Openscad is good for what it does, but is a hugely different beast from a parametric modeling system.
In solidworks (to pick on the one I am most familiar with, NOT expert with) you can click on an edge and say "radius this". In Solidworks, you can have a master model drive dimensions down to other drawings, so that multiple people can work on different parts of the same system and get the bolt holes to line up. In Solidworks, you can say "give me 2% draft angles on these faces, and run an injection mold flow analysis."
Openscan is cool and I use it, but nobody would confuse it with Solidworks or similar.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#204There is no good FOSS or even just open source RIS (Radiology Information System).
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not an Excel user. Genuinely curious: Is it really that the alternatives are worse, lacking features, unstable, or does it come down to "they're not Excel", in that they're not a drop in replacement that can perfectly load and run every Excel sheet ever created. Because that would be my gut feeling: Not interoperable enough, since some things just work differently, but not necessarily much worse. If you can't sen…
A PM that worked on Excel in the late 2000s explained it to me like this: Most people use about 20% of the features in Excel - which should make it easy for competitors to copy, right? The kicker is that different people/industries tend to use a “different 20%” of the features, making the barrier to really compete very high.
It was that combined with Microsoft somehow finding a way to make it so the 80% of the features that you didn't use didn't get in the way. Same thing with Word.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#206High level multiphysics, RF, and CAD tools and simulators. Autodesk, Ansys etc. still dominate the field. The state of tools like OpenFoam is like the early days of Gimp and KiCad; theoretically possible to use but only if your background is in software engineering and/or if you are really, really poor and desperate e.g. a grad student on a tight budget. If you look at software like open source FTDT sims, almost all…
100% this. When I startup-ed, I looked hard for a free alternative for RF simulation. There's some FDTD solvers, but as mentioned, they require you to spec the mesh, which is laborious and black magic which Ansys HFSS simply does for you. Only saving grace is that these companies usually have some "start-up" discount (~95% discount), which of course I anticipate feeds the lack of open source development.
What was your startup about? Any links? Would be awesome if you can write a blog post.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst part is that Aspera is actually a proprietary fork of a Free Software project that IBM purchased and then strong-armed institutions into using until it became an industry standard.
FASP, specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_and_Secure_Protocol
Ha, I wrote that article while I was dealing with all this stuff. FASP is the proprietary fork of UDT.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#208Video chat like Paltalk and CamFrog.
Specifically, one that will let you run your own server (Camfrog no longer allows this) and others may connect to it through a public directory or via direct IP address.
With unlimited camera feeds able to be opened.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#209Salesforce CRM? Hosted CRM, with software for customization, built in database, all that. Although I haven't looked around at alternatives.
Re: Ask HN: Which project does not have any good open-source alternatives?
#210- HiDPI support in desktops
Open source makes it hard. Too many choices. Apple and Microsoft have an army and can decide an API from the top down and have an organization put resources into making a consistent experience. Windows 10 and macOS have absolutely beautiful scaling.
On Linux, fractional scaling crashes often. Wayland and Xorg having to handle it separately adds further fragmentation.
PopOS is nice: https://system76.com/pop.
- Mail clients with streamlined UI's:
Geary is as close as you can get to Airmail (macOS) and Mailbird (Windows)
- Window snapping:
Aero snap in Windows, Magnet in macOS. Gnome doesn't want to do quarter scaling, despite it being a common sense request, and the extensions don't like gTile don't use the same behavior at all - so basically it doesn't exist.
(Correction, Gnome seems open to doing it but needs help? https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/b7f3rl/any_future_pl...)
On the other hand, Linux has amazing:
- PDF readers. Every desktop environment seems to have its own PDF reader that does a better job than any proprietary one. Okular, evince, mupdf, xpdf. Any they're lite. Zero bloat.
- Package management. Every distros package management experience and their stock beats any app store. They don't force you to login.
- Terminals. Kitty is fantastic (https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/)
- Input: ibus and fcitx
- Access / Installing shared libraries and headers. No need to download xcode or grab Visual C++
- Not open source, but Spotify, Chrome, Slack, Firefox, Steam all work good