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Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

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11–20 of 153 posts

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#11
Having tried running the whole stack on my local a few times in the past -- which didn't work well at that time -- I'm excited to use it now.

One question I have is: how much compatible will it be eventually with other tools like Roam/Obsidian/Logseq (when we want to import the graphs)?

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#12
post #2

Athens has been incredible for me over the past week, as someone that has bounced around using Workflowy, Dynalist, and Obsidian. The great outliner features of the first two, and the backlinking and graphing of Obsidian. My only real reservation is that files are not in Markdown. Is there a plan to address that, or is a DB central to the architecture? Currently using LogSeq because of this but eager to switch.

Yes! Good import/export functionality is important. Ultimately, it would be awesome if there was direct serialization between our database and markdown. This would allow seamless "import", the same way Obsidian/Foam/Zettlr are directly interchangeable.

What do you see as the advantages vs. Zettlr? I haven't got to a point where perf seems to be an issue that would require a real graph database and having your knowledgebase just be a collection of markdown files is the ultimate in local first no lock-in portability.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#13
Having passed on backing Roam Research multiple times[1], which proved to be a mistake[2], YC now funds a competitor that is quite explicitly a clone.

That said, all the best to the Athens Research team.

[1] https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1229978388787384320?s=20 [2] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/a-200-million-seed-v...

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#14
Hi Jeff! Great to see a Roam alternative backed by YC! Congrats on the launch!

What are you thoughts on the other Roam alternative, Logseq[1]? It seems to be doing really well and has a lot of features, from github sync and encrypted data to custom themes and publishing, it looks like privacy is their main goal, while being local-first and opensource, do you think that such features will be implemented in the near future and will those features become somewhat a standard across PKM's?

Good luck with the launch!

[1] https://logseq.com

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#15
post #14

Hi Jeff! Great to see a Roam alternative backed by YC! Congrats on the launch! What are you thoughts on the other Roam alternative, Logseq[1]? It seems to be doing really well and has a lot of features, from github sync and encrypted data to custom themes and publishing, it looks like privacy is their main goal, while being local-first and opensource, do you think that such features will be implemented in the near fu…

I really am looking forward to Logseq maturing since it offers `org-mode` markup support and can potentially inter-operate with `org-roam`. :)

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#16
This is amazing. I like Roam Research but I refuse to give full control of something so important to any third party. At this point we have all experienced what it is like to give the control over your digital life to FAANG-like entities with priorities other than their own users well-being. We can and should ask for better.

If it will be my second brain (please note how important this sounds), what I want is to be able to be in full control of the data I generated with it.

I'd happily pay for an Open Source SaaS service from which I can download my data and use it in my own computer/server if I wish to do so, much like Sentry or Strapi.

Edit: Clarity, grammar and spelling

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Good import/export functionality is important. Ultimately, it would be awesome if there was direct serialization between our database and markdown. This would allow seamless "import", the same way Obsidian/Foam/Zettlr are directly interchangeable.

What do you see as the advantages vs. Zettlr? I haven't got to a point where perf seems to be an issue that would require a real graph database and having your knowledgebase just be a collection of markdown files is the ultimate in local first no lock-in portability.

The current major difference between markdown-based and db-based apps is block references. Over time, the difference will become significant as knowledge bases grow in size.

CSV -> Excel -> SQL -> Distributed Cloud DBs

Furthermore, our database supports data types, including numbers, dates, etc. I don't think any networked notetaking app has executed well on tables and non-string types. UX for tables is generally not great for markdown.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#18
post #14

Hi Jeff! Great to see a Roam alternative backed by YC! Congrats on the launch! What are you thoughts on the other Roam alternative, Logseq[1]? It seems to be doing really well and has a lot of features, from github sync and encrypted data to custom themes and publishing, it looks like privacy is their main goal, while being local-first and opensource, do you think that such features will be implemented in the near fu…

LogSeq is great, tried collaborating with them a while ago, starting with a shared spec, but it didn't work out. How much of this is standard is up to the tool makers!

All features are possible, especially given similar technologies. The question is about design/product - whether we need to have all these features. Most notetaking apps are too bloated IMO.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you see as the advantages vs. Zettlr? I haven't got to a point where perf seems to be an issue that would require a real graph database and having your knowledgebase just be a collection of markdown files is the ultimate in local first no lock-in portability.

The current major difference between markdown-based and db-based apps is block references. Over time, the difference will become significant as knowledge bases grow in size. CSV -> Excel -> SQL -> Distributed Cloud DBs Furthermore, our database supports data types, including numbers, dates, etc. I don't think any networked notetaking app has executed well on tables and non-string types. UX for tables is generally not…

I'm not really familiar with Roam as I'm not interested in a non open source tool for this type of app (why I am more interested in what you're doing). What are block references?

I guess I can see perf becoming an issue for a company wide knowledge base or a wikipedia type of thing but for a personal knowledge base which is my main use case currently I'm not clear it's necessary to have a real database and the benefits of just a bunch of markdown files are more compelling to me right now. Maybe that would change if my knowledge base got big enough or my needs more complex regarding links and references.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#20
Hey! This looks super cool. The desktop app seems fairly explicitly single-user (looks like 1 big transit file). Do you have any opinions on using these tools in general and Athens in specific to do knowledge sharing among teams? (I would imagine that needs some kind of transaction log, mostly hoping transactions commute and maybe stacking the deck with something like Pijul.)

Is the answer "host it as a web service" (and corollary "let us do it for you")?

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