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Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

forums.ankiweb.net

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Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#21

Post by Aachen »

I'm an Anki user, on and off since 10 years or so, but was still confused. If I understood correctly, the entities here are:

- Anki, as set up by dae aka Damien, is like the brand name and desktop implementation with the spaced repetition algorithm

- AnkiWeb is what I thought this hub thing was. It's where you download decks

- AnkiHub is a third party (started by "AnKing", now 35 employees) who sells decks as a monthly subscription and has their content on the deep web (you need to create an account and agree to terms to even see a listing of what's there besides a few featured parts). This is who is getting ownership of the former two. Because they write that Anki will remain open source at its "core", I presume that means that things will, at best, stay stable rather than anything (like AnkiWeb the deck sharing platform) becoming open

- AnkiDroid is a separate open source project (an Android app). The corporation is hiring the main developer, but it's not yet clear to me whether they're just going to get paid to work more on AnkiDroid or if they're also getting other tasks

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#23

Post by hermanzegerman »

__float wrote: post #10
infotainment wrote: post #5

On the plus side, the actually good mobile Anki client, AnkiDroid, remains out of the hands of this potentially questionable new entity. (AnkiDroid has always been run independently, which is good, considering the state of the iOS client, which has always been neglected.)

The (paid!) iOS client has always been a disappointment to me, and I've long been jealous of the open source Android one. I don't mind so much that it's paid, given how much use I get for the price, but it sucks knowing it sucks and not being able to help make it better.

I've just bought it to support the developer, as it was according to his website his preferred way to support him.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#24

Post by hermanzegerman »

embedding-shape wrote: post #2

In a nice and controlled manner, so seemingly no reason to panic just yet: > I ended up suggesting to them that we look into gradually transitioning business operations and open source stewardship over, with provisions in place to ensure that Anki remains open source and true to the principles I’ve run it by all these years. > This is a step back for me rather than a goodbye - I will still be involved with the projec…

Well every company claims no enshittification when they get acquired, in the end that's rarely the case. It's like Private Equity buying a company out and say "Nothing will change"

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#25

Post by hermanzegerman »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #14
siva7 wrote: post #6

It was a fascinating symbiotic between nerdy med students from all over the world and an obscure open source flashcard app that originally targeted language learners. I've been part of that community for many years and would have never foreseen this outcome but in hindsight it seems the best path forward for anki.

I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)

Amboss

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#26

Post by cosmic_cheese »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #22

Oh for fucks sakes. No please no. AnkiHub was already annoying with shoving AI into their Add-On without anyone asking for it. I don't think this will go well

Can't help but wonder if it might not be time to start a FOSS alternative just in case Anki begins to decline.

It might not be the worst idea to do that anyway. Anki is great, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Off the top of my head, an architecture that doesn't involve fragile and finicky python bits and is designed to support multiple independent clients would be a nice step up (Telegram is a good model here — make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around).

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#27

Post by embedding-shape »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #24
embedding-shape wrote: post #2

In a nice and controlled manner, so seemingly no reason to panic just yet: > I ended up suggesting to them that we look into gradually transitioning business operations and open source stewardship over, with provisions in place to ensure that Anki remains open source and true to the principles I’ve run it by all these years. > This is a step back for me rather than a goodbye - I will still be involved with the projec…

Well every company claims no enshittification when they get acquired, in the end that's rarely the case. It's like Private Equity buying a company out and say "Nothing will change"

The key difference is the outside investors, who more times than not has no interest in what's best for users ultimately.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#29

Post by Aachen »

Aachen wrote: post #21

I'm an Anki user, on and off since 10 years or so, but was still confused. If I understood correctly, the entities here are: - Anki, as set up by dae aka Damien, is like the brand name and desktop implementation with the spaced repetition algorithm - AnkiWeb is what I thought this hub thing was. It's where you download decks - AnkiHub is a third party (started by "AnKing", now 35 employees) who sells decks as a month…

(Same person as above but felt that this part had a separate purpose so I've moved it into its own comment)

The ecosystem is currently such that it seems hard to enshittify it. They say they have no intention of doing that and I believe it, but their vision of a healthy and good product might involve a fair price (for rich countries at least) whereas it was always free so far

Time will tell; it sounds like there's currently no plans either way, but it's also simply open enough that users can always just install the open source software and share decks with each other by whatever file transfer/sharing means. Everything that's already there won't simply go away. I'm going to keep using AnkiDroid and building the language deck I am working on

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#30

Post by pityJuke »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #26
hermanzegerman wrote: post #22

Oh for fucks sakes. No please no. AnkiHub was already annoying with shoving AI into their Add-On without anyone asking for it. I don't think this will go well

Can't help but wonder if it might not be time to start a FOSS alternative just in case Anki begins to decline. It might not be the worst idea to do that anyway. Anki is great, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Off the top of my head, an architecture that doesn't involve fragile and finicky python bits and is designed to support multiple independent clients would be a nice step up (Telegram is a good model h…

> make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around

That is modern Anki. The core is a Rust library, which all the clients (desktop, web, Android and iOS) use. [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897

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