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Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

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391–400 of 484 posts

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#391

Anyone knows if there is something like that with heavy focus on privacy? basically decentralized offline first, end2end encrypted collaborative note taking/knowledgedb is something iam looking for.

For e2ee you might want to have a look at CryptPad (https://cryptpad.org). You can test it on the free instance https://cryptpad.fr

You'll have plenty of doc types with full end to end encryption, including for your drive.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#393
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.

Speaking from experience, in Germany people refuse to learn any new software and are quickly overwhelmed if 1 thing is different from what they are used to. Open source government solutions are good and all, people will only use them if forced to by law though. Public offices are one of the reasons our digitalization is really far behind.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#394
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…

This will be a controversial take here on HN: I'm not too excited about governments getting directly involved in the development of software, let alone open source. With possibly a few exceptions (internal software for national agencies, etc.), it is way outside their area of expertise. I think it would be better to pay a vendor like Redhat or SuSE or Cannonical to do it. And, the gov't can write the support contract such that for X EUR per year they get Y competent developers to work on LibreOffice, or whatever they like.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#395
post #4

The closest we get is something like USDS, which then gets hijacked in to DOGE. Open source software built and supported by a national government is inspiring. Are there more examples of this I'm not aware of? I hope so.

there was 18f too :(

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#396

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…

This will be a controversial take here on HN: I'm not too excited about governments getting directly involved in the development of software, let alone open source. With possibly a few exceptions (internal software for national agencies, etc.), it is way outside their area of expertise. I think it would be better to pay a vendor like Redhat or SuSE or Cannonical to do it. And, the gov't can write the support contract…

Why do you think software is outside the area of expertise of government?

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#397

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…

> ... seems like a good idea, as long as everyone in the government isn't incompetent. For example, if we had governments with strong tech departments that could fund helping the development of... The US had two very strong and competent tech departments -- 18F and USDS. They got doge'd -- dismantled and coopted, respectively.

All those competent departments. Dismantled on a whim. It is unbelievable. How many billions of investment dollars are wasted that way, spent during many years to organize such departments efficiently?

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#399
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't upvote you more than once. I agree wholeheartedly with your point. Government-funded open source like this, creating alternatives is a good idea. Taxes put to good use!

Yes yes yes and yes Public Money Public Code!

How does it work when gov outsources major tech to the private sector?

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#400
That's a nice shot, that probably is not going to change much. This is a neat alternative for Notion if you are small company, but with strong IT team that will maintain installation (all the boring stuff from updates to backups).

If you are 20 person startup then Notion will cost you around 200 Euro per month. Having Docs installation will be cheaper? Will 200 Euros cover the expenses? I am afraid the math is not on the Docs side.

First question that any bigger organization will ask is: how SSO will work, what is the integration with our company LDAP, etc. If they hear that well, install Docs for yourself and figure out integration by yourself no manager would agree to use Docs, as from his or her perspective it is cheaper, less risky to go with something like Notion. It is also true even with gov administration or public universities, they also operate within IT infrastructure and they gladly take something free, but it must integrate with that IT infrastructure. If not, this is not an option.

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