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Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

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Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their thirst to regulate everything and everyone like they did with GDPR and the gatekeeper legislation? The EU has been a massive force of good for consumer rights As a programmer maybe we weren't meant to just be able to have a "thirst" to store "everything and everyone's" data forever. Just implement the GDPR deletion and the data export batch.

And the AI Act with the FLOPs limit? Or the Cybersecurity Act increasing liability for selling software complete with a box-ticking exercise to force money into consultants? Or the DSA creating loads of bureaucracy for "algorithmic" content when almost everything is an algorithm?

What's the comparative?

The US is restricting nvidias ability to ship GPU's because they're worried about AI. At least the EU's stance is: open, voted on and clear.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/us-govt-restricts-shipment...

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#62
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I hope too. Trump's failure could be our far-right failure to win the 2027 elections.

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Putin has always been "for peace" - meaning, give Ukraine to him, and he'll stop trying to take Ukraine over :)

(and if he still has war fighting capability left, attack the next country going west in ~5 years)

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#63
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't thought about this a ton - but am I wrong that it sounds crazy and inefficient for the government to essentially compete with private industry? It feels like a colliding of worlds and a cannibalization that doesn't make sense to me. Like - if the government launched a messaging app competitive with WhatsApp and it drew users away from WhatsApp and it had better encryption ... Would that actually be better f…

>It feels like a colliding of worlds and a cannibalization that doesn't make sense to me. Like - if the government launched a messaging app competitive with WhatsApp and it drew users away from WhatsApp and it had better encryption ... Would that actually be better for the economy of this country? Something seems off about it to me. The economy works best when anyone does what is supposed to: the Government sticks to…

Many Americans think public healthcare competes with private hospitals and insurance companies. A criticism of public education in the beginning was that it would put (private) schools out of business. All we're talking about here is where the line is.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#64
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a universe where the French government drops a perfect replacement for Notion and causes Notion to go out of business, this is still a net positive for society in the same way that things like Linux existing is a net positive for society. One should not focus on the economic sphere as the be all and end all. We can just have improvements be distributed to everyone sometimes! We can just do good things through coor…

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The annoying thing about pure ideologies is that they're unattainable. This turns out to be convenient for ideologues though, who insist we just have to clap louder.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#65
post #6

This is a really great project from both the French and German governments. I think state-funded open source solutions to digital platforms is a fantastic opportunity to get away from the big tech walled gardens. Of course, there is always the risk that this becomes unmaintained in the future, but the community at least can take over. But until then, it's a nice platform and a nice contribution to the community.

Vendor lock-in is risky and expensive for large corporations and governments, both of which tend to move slowly. I find it completely legitimate that a government would create a tool that's useful to its workforce and helps to avoid vendor lock-in. Insomuch as it's created by the government, it's released as open source.

Most companies and people aren't going to want to maintain the VMs and/or infrastructure to run their own platforms, so they have the option to continue using SaaS offerings like Notion.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#66
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a universe where the French government drops a perfect replacement for Notion and causes Notion to go out of business, this is still a net positive for society in the same way that things like Linux existing is a net positive for society. One should not focus on the economic sphere as the be all and end all. We can just have improvements be distributed to everyone sometimes! We can just do good things through coor…

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I think there’s probably at least 100 missing steps between producing open source applications and communism

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#67
post #19
post #6

This is a really great project from both the French and German governments. I think state-funded open source solutions to digital platforms is a fantastic opportunity to get away from the big tech walled gardens. Of course, there is always the risk that this becomes unmaintained in the future, but the community at least can take over. But until then, it's a nice platform and a nice contribution to the community.

I haven't thought about this a ton - but am I wrong that it sounds crazy and inefficient for the government to essentially compete with private industry? It feels like a colliding of worlds and a cannibalization that doesn't make sense to me. Like - if the government launched a messaging app competitive with WhatsApp and it drew users away from WhatsApp and it had better encryption ... Would that actually be better f…

Your example of WhatsApp is a perfect one for me to say: yes, I would much rather use for my private messaging an open source, publicly founded solution, than a solution which Mark Zuckerberg controls for his own private gain.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#68
post #25
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being dependent on foreign companies is a security issue. The economic value is more subtle and indirect but it is there

It's also not a reliable source of funding as some European open source projects have learned.

Can you provide a source / examples?

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#70
post #56
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a universe where the French government drops a perfect replacement for Notion and causes Notion to go out of business, this is still a net positive for society in the same way that things like Linux existing is a net positive for society. One should not focus on the economic sphere as the be all and end all. We can just have improvements be distributed to everyone sometimes! We can just do good things through coor…

In the short term a free open source govt alternative may be a net positive for society. I don't think it is in the long run. Government projects like these are not likely to really push the state-of-the-art forward. This project even advertises itself as a FOSS Notion alternative. Do government-sponsored clones encourage or stymie innovation? I think the latter. Every week we read in the news that the EU struggles w…

> Europe should be making industry-leading apps. Europe should produce software startups that make products that get used worldwide.

I've kind of lost hope when it comes to commercial services and proprietary apps. They're sadly all sooner or later enshittified. We need something different, not by promises but by design (FOSS).

> EU subsidized clones of popular American products feels like admitting defeat.

I think it's a fresh and needed take on the financing of our common digital infra.

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