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

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

#391

Post by isbwkisbakadqv »

ericax wrote: post #119
Veen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite an odd choice. It makes sense to tier based on features, but tiers based on how or when people use an app is bizarre. Am I supposed to monitor myself so I don't read a note in Obsidian while I'm doing commercial writing work? (Also, their license page could do with some proofreading)

The idea is that if you're creating value with Obsidian, your employer should expense that, ideally it shouldn't impact you financially. If you're working for a non-profit for example, it's all free. > (Also, their license page could do with some proofreading) Interested to hear more! We did a few rounds of proofreading, did you find any typos?

This seems reasonable to me.

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

#392

Post by rootlocus »

kixiQu wrote: post #358
voxelghost wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, my optical nerve retracted and disconnected from the retina, and is now sitting in some dark corner of some bar in the adrenal cortex drinking whisky in pure protest to your H1 styling.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ kids these days can't handle a little 𝕵𝖗𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖚𝖗

In all fairness, they're pretty hard to read.

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

#393

Post by ncallaway »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #288
colinjoy wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to use it as a knowledge base, you are probably looking at a few years of use. Currently the closest match to this software I have installed is Quiver. Let’s compare costs over a period of 5 years: Quiver: $9.99 Obsidian: $250.00 That may not be a lot of money to you personally, but it fits my mental model of “expensive” pretty well.

Does Quiver solve the same problems? Sorry it's a hard word to Google so not sure I found the app you are thinking of. 50/y is definitely a think about it and review yearly when budgeting type of expense as a personal expense, because all those recurring expenses add up! But as a business expense, if a $100k/y dev asks for a $50 tool I think their boss will say "why you waste my time asking, just get it and we'll pay…

My biggest problem is the license is pretty strict, so I don't really have room to try it and see if it works for me.

90% of my notes are work related, so I don't really generate enough "hobby" notes to stress the tool and see if I want to use it. I'm not going to drop $50 to try and it and see if I like it. I'm also not going to violate their license to see if I like it.

I wish there were a trial for the commercial version. 14 or 30 days would be really useful as an evaluation period. Without being able to try it before I buy, though, it ends up being a pass from me even though $50 isn't _that_ expensive.

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

#394

Post by ncallaway »

ericax wrote: post #233
hkh28 wrote: post #225

As several people have pointed out, both the "Personal" and "Catalyst" licenses are intended for personal use only, making this quite an expensive product should I want to use it for work as well. But in the full license text, there seems to be an even more problematic phrasing: > The use of OBSIDIAN for the exercise of your own trade or profession (...) does not qualify as personal use. I would interpret this to mea…

Hi there! Sorry it's our first time doing a license like this. If I understand correctly, licenses are usually written more strictly for legal purposes, but in my opinion your use case sounds like it should belong to personal use. If anyone has pointers for us to make the license text more clear, please let me know!

As a feedback from me: the license doesn't leave any room for evaluation on the commercial side.

90% of the notes I generate are for my business, and probably ~10% of my notes are for personal stuff. The volume of personal notes isn't enough to be worth having my notes separated out while I trial Obsidian. Since I can't put any of my commercial notes in it without paying for it, I'm just giving up trying it.

If Obsidian works well for me, I'd definitely consider putting down $50/year for it. The price seems a little high to me, but if it works well, then I'd probably do it. But the license doesn't let me evaluate it, so I won't be able to find out if it works well for me. $50/year is way too high for me to put down to see if I like it.

A 14-day or 30-day evaluation period in the commercial license text would be really helpful to letting me see if Obsidian works for me.

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

#395

Post by MayeulC »

ken wrote: post #374
ericax wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

"Open source" is both a license and a development model. You're talking about a license, but someone interested in workflow longevity will probably not be satisfied with a source dump from a dead company. They're looking for a community which knows how to maintain it. As JWZ once said: "You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source,' and have everything magically work out." Has…

I can recall a few on the top of my head, but those are the exception rather than the norm: Blender & Mozilla, though that last one wasn't really a last act. I think I saw a few others, but can't recall which ones, I'd be interested in such a list.

Now, there are interesting communities that form around games, that tend to be a "dead product" after release, and for which there was a source dump (or not, actually): doom, openMW, openRA, etc.

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

#396

Post by MayeulC »

Aeolun wrote: post #326
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.

I don’t follow. This app would work on top of your existing markdown files, and if they go out of business there is nothing preventing you from either keep using the app, or take your markdown files and take them elsewhere.

That's really a nice thing, to be honest, and probably the only reason I'm somewhat interested, even though I mostly run open-source software on my computers, except when such software is a one-off comodity, like videogames.

But for something I'm going to invest some time learning, and will rely on, that's a very difficult pill to swallow. I don't want to depend on proprietary software for important parts of my workflow. What if I want to switch to a pinebook, for instance? No ARM build seems to be available yet. And that's just a single example... (a WASM/LLVM IR build could sidestep that issue).

That said, I like the idea. Is there any open-source equivalent?

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

#399

Post by _frkl »

cxr wrote: post #310
_frkl wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not write my own license. I'd really recommend you get a lawyer look over the text you have (that shouldn't be too expensive, it's a one time cost), or look at existing ones that are actually written by lawyers. For a public license (to restrict commercial use), I'd recommend both LicenseZero Prosperity ( https://prosperitylicense.com/versions/3.0.0 ) and the Polyform licenses ( https://polyformproject.org/ )…

Obsidian folks: please don't use any of the aforementioned licenses. The reality is that they're _not_ a good fit (although the author would probably love to get you as a client to handle your EULA and convince you to use one of the others for your eventually-open-source plans, and that would be an even worse idea).

Why are they not a good fit? From a shallow reading, I thought Prosperity and the Polyform licenses would be fairly similar in intent to the licenses they have on their page. I can't imagine the authors (not author) of Polyform/Prosperity would care either way, and since nobody ever claimed those are open source licenses I don't understand your other ill-made point either. Maybe you refer to the Parity license? That one would make no sense in this context at all, and I doubt anybody would suggest it here.

Also, since your post is fairly negative and unsubstantiated overall, would you care to suggest an alternative?

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

#400

Post by progre »

libria wrote: post #329
codezero wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be more concerned if you had a hard time getting reimbursed for this kind of software at your job.

What's the concern for? A lot of great jobs still have penny-pinching managers. I've worked somewhere notoriously Frugal that was good and paid well but had no problem denying requests like this.

It's sometimes not just about money. Any organisation that alows individuals and teams to freely pick and choose tools will end up with a huge pile of semi-forgotten systems and organisational knowledge spread over multiple wikis, sharepoint sites, trello boards, monday projects and word docs on shared drives and dropboxes. Seen it happen multiple times. Corparate use of "personal/hobbyist" free tiers of popular tools is not just a legal liability, it's also a security nightmare apart from the already mentioned infromation spread problems.
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