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Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

obsidian.md

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Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#361

Post by repiret »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #282
usr1106 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free Not really. The license says you are not allowed to take notes about work you get compensated for. So free only for 100% hobby projects. Working in a start-up I don't have big 100% hobby projects that would require a lot of note keeping. YMMV

It's not like there's a realistic way to enforce that license, so it's essentially free. Edit: typo

Very few licenses are easily enforced, but that does not entitle folks to violate them. Most desktop software can easily be found with the copy protection removed, but that doesn’t make it free - there’s no moral difference between warez, GPL violations, and violating a free-for-non-commercial-use license.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#366

Post by JSavageOne »

ericax wrote: post #125
JSavageOne wrote: post #68

Would be nice to see a live example, I can't tell from the website what this actually does or how it would be useful to me

Sorry but because it works on a local folder, online demo is unrealistic. I would recommend installing, opening an empty folder, and going to Settings - Help to grab our hel & demo folder to play around with it and get a feel.

You could have a video demoing it on your landing page. Most site visitors aren't going to take the time to install a random desktop application and toy with it just to see if it might be something they find useful. Maybe you're ok with that, just giving you my advice if you want to increase usership.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#368

Post by sneak »

ericax wrote: post #57
loughnane wrote: post #36

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.

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!

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.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#369

Post by prepend »

ubercow13 wrote: post #350
prepend wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. $50 for note taking app only is expensive compared to something like Google Docs which does much more functionality and includes cloud storage. The product is applicable to anyone who needs a knowledge base so it’s $50/employee and that adds up quickly. While the developer is free to charge whatever they like, I don’t like the trend of these products priced based on people thinking $50 isn’t that much and…

Yeah. Photoshop is only $10/mo. Many IntelliJ IDEs are $12.50/mo and you get to keep them if you stop paying. Both of those are core revenue drivers for many of the employees who use them. $4/mo is quite expensive for a markdown editor IMO.

I think it’s cool that the markdown still works when I stop paying.

Imagine if the author of grep charged $5/month for the utility.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#370

Post by unqueued »

ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

This looks really cool! I can't wait to check it out.

I've been using various personal wikis for years, and this hits most of what I am looking for.

But, I'd like to offer some suggestions.

- It would be cool if you would consider some tweaks for how the text is rendered. It can still be Markdown compatible, but for example allow linebreaks to be interpreted as linebreaks. Text used for reference often has different needs than what is being exported to HTML.

- Git integration. I just use git for syncing my knowledge bases. It makes the most sense for my multiple devices, and it is very rare that I even have conflicts and can't automatically merge differences.

I actually have a script that lets me use Dropbox or another syncing provider to sync my working tree, separate from the repo itself, so that my history isn't polluted with excessive automated commits, but it is still tracked relative to where it was checked out, and resolved automatically. That way you can have the strengths of git without the drawbacks.

You may also want to check out git-annex/datalad. I combine it with my home grown Markdown wikis for embedding references to files in my wikis, keeping my git history just pure text. One of my goals is to bridge file management with text management.

I'd be happy to share any of this if you're interested. I've had plenty of free time recently to further develop it.

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