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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

#141

Post by Terretta »

jjice wrote: post #98

It feels like notetaking/wiki software have gotten a resurgence in the last few years. Not that it was ever not a thing, but like a new generation of people realized wanted to build new tools for it. Personally, I think the variety of tools is very interesting, and while I like Obsidian and plain markdown file, I do love to see different options in the space with hosted options and different capabilities. Notion feel…

If you're familiar with the space, ever heard anything that ticks all these boxes:

(a) git versioned

(b) CRDTs

(c) WYSIWYG but Markdown (esp GFM)

(d) front matter + markdown able to be SSGd

(e) comfortable UI for not-devs

(f) native (Swift) MacOS app, else Tauri/Electron self-hosted client+svc

(g) if online, OIDC / SAML SSO

Appears this can be cobbled leveraging Obsidian plugins, but unstable due to git vs. CRDT issues. And there are a few "CMS" for SSG stacks that almost but not quite meet this.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#142

Post by shortsunblack »

thrance wrote: post #14
ksajadi wrote: post #2

[flagged]

[flagged]

And United States still has regulations. Chevron doctrine is not a thing in Europe and European institutions do not get captured by NIMBYs when industry wants to build a railroad, a house or an apartment complex. There are no hundreds of governmental organizations demanding you impact assessments and environmental studies.

For crying out loud, as an American you cannot work on your own house, since a lot of labour is licensed (electrical work, etc) and taped in red.

The regulation Americans talk of in disparaging way is always the regulation that shifts and allows consumer/user surplus.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#143

Post by slowtrek »

KronisLV wrote: post #75
nchagnet wrote: 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.

Personally, even if this software wouldn't be 1:1 capable of replacing the established players, it still feels like a good idea. With how much people (rightfully) complain about how open source is underfunded and with how often we're forced into borderline exploitative dealings with the established players in the market (the likes of MS Office, Adobe products, Atlassian products, even some Oracle stuff), funding the…

Notion is not an example of delightful software and it is very much one of the most reproducible apps ever. I don't know how they managed to make it fashionable amongst startups, but it's certainly not because it's an innovative product.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#144

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

serial_dev wrote: post #77
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #12

Why am I starting to believe that france is now more culturally shited towards being a new super power in this multi polar world instead of USA. Seriously , I never used to really think about france that much , but Emmanuel Macron correcting trump on live air really made me trust france more as a non US citizen.

[flagged]

Sorry mate. hackernews's open source alternative thread is definitely not the right place for this comment. It would have been greater on a hackernews's more political thread and point out the france open sourcing efforts in that point.

Do you want me to delete this comment? I totally would if you want.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#145

Post by Terretta »

bryanhogan wrote: post #16

Does this provide database functionality like seen in Notion? I'm always disappointed by note-taking tools calling themselves a Notion alternative when they do not provide an alternative to Notion and are instead just another note-taking tool with a simple UI. If you want to be a Notion alternative provide the things that make Notion great, e.g. the database functionality. It's okay to be a simple colaborative notes…

Craft has collections for tables of data, also has a variety of other data modeled things like TODOs: https://www.craft.do/

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#146

Post by huslage »

slowtrek wrote: post #143
KronisLV wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, even if this software wouldn't be 1:1 capable of replacing the established players, it still feels like a good idea. With how much people (rightfully) complain about how open source is underfunded and with how often we're forced into borderline exploitative dealings with the established players in the market (the likes of MS Office, Adobe products, Atlassian products, even some Oracle stuff), funding the…

Notion is not an example of delightful software and it is very much one of the most reproducible apps ever. I don't know how they managed to make it fashionable amongst startups, but it's certainly not because it's an innovative product.

Y Combinator. They gave it away to all of them. This is how you become popular with startups.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#148

Post by rglullis »

jdvh wrote: post #117
panarky wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building this allows them to reduce the subsidy that is perpetual software license fees.

In exchange for perpetual development and maintenance costs. Total cost of ownership doesn't go down by rolling your own in-house.

Having a FOSS alternative allows you to share the R&D costs with other interested parties.

At the very least, it works as a bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating contracts with the private sector.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#149

Post by trendschau »

jjice wrote: post #98

It feels like notetaking/wiki software have gotten a resurgence in the last few years. Not that it was ever not a thing, but like a new generation of people realized wanted to build new tools for it. Personally, I think the variety of tools is very interesting, and while I like Obsidian and plain markdown file, I do love to see different options in the space with hosted options and different capabilities. Notion feel…

I’m also a bit surprised by this, but it really seems like there’s a growing need, maybe as a way to handle information overload or keep up with the ever-faster pace of learning and change.

When I started Typemill.net years ago, my focus was actually on ebook publishing. But over time, I noticed that a lot of small businesses were looking for lightweight tools for documentation, note-taking, and similar content. So, I naturally shifted to documentation and small knowledge bases.

For a long time, this space was pretty much dominated by big enterprise tools like Confluence on one side and Evernote on the other. But now, with tools like Obsidian, BookStack, Docmost, Outline, and others, there’s finally a broad range of modern solutions that fit different needs and sizes. I think that’s a great step forward...

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#150

Post by bjackman »

thor-rodrigues wrote: post #97

I really like the idea of shifting the business model for office software. Instead of the current model—where companies develop a tool, lock users into their ecosystem, and profit by bundling software with hosting and storage—we could move to a model where different providers compete to offer the best deployment solutions. This would foster competition based on factors like pricing, encryption, customer support, serv…

> we could move to a model where different providers compete to offer the best deployment solutions.

The Matrix project lead talked at FOSDEM about an issue with this model [0]: a pure market approach to this just doesn't offer any way to fund upstream development.

Luckily the public sector ought to be a an arena where we can solve this problem by being englightened consumers instead of just buying from the provider that provides the most service per dollar. But that enlightenment does require some education.

[0] https://lwn.net/Articles/1009932/

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