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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

#401

Post by xpe »

ALittleLight wrote: post #375
xpe wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll respond with a connected set of questions... Is it worth the time to deny a (well intentioned) $150 request made by a software developer who costs a company (for example) $150K total (salary, benefits, and fixed costs)? $150 is 0.1% of $150K. What are the benefits and costs? Some questions to ask include: - How much time did the company spend in the process of denying this request? By the time you include emails…

This seems like an argument for buying SDEs needed software. It doesn't seem like an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job. If your job pays well, work is interesting, good commute, good benefits, good manager, good coworkers, important mission, or a net positive combination of these things, that seems way more important than w…

> This seems like an argument for buying SDEs needed software.

It depends on what the company values. This is what I meant when I wrote: "What does a company truly value? Are they mindful and realistic about their costs and benefits?"

> ALittleLight: It doesn't seem like an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job.

Correct, I made no such argument. You are free to make that value judgment.

It depends where you sit. Maybe you want to dig into ways an organization can improve? If so, that gets into questions about organizational values as well as costs and benefits of various options.

> ALittleLight: If your job pays well, work is interesting, good commute, good benefits, good manager, good coworkers, important mission, or a net positive combination of these things, that seems way more important than whether or not they'll buy you arbitrary software.

Again, feel free to make such a value judgement.

However, I would not use the word 'arbitrary' here, since in employment situations, there will be some understanding around expenses, often set out in policies and conversations. Even in organizations that are more flexible with expenses, employees are expected to use good judgment for business expenses.

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

#402

Post by xpe »

ALittleLight wrote: post #375
xpe wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll respond with a connected set of questions... Is it worth the time to deny a (well intentioned) $150 request made by a software developer who costs a company (for example) $150K total (salary, benefits, and fixed costs)? $150 is 0.1% of $150K. What are the benefits and costs? Some questions to ask include: - How much time did the company spend in the process of denying this request? By the time you include emails…

This seems like an argument for buying SDEs needed software. It doesn't seem like an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job. If your job pays well, work is interesting, good commute, good benefits, good manager, good coworkers, important mission, or a net positive combination of these things, that seems way more important than w…

I'm curious: were you expecting that my comment offer "an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job."?

If so, why?

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

#403

Post by b215826 »

ericax wrote: post #173
input_sh wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't the snap package signed? $ snap install obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap error: cannot find signatures with metadata for snap "obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap"

Apologies for our lack of experience on Linux, we'll look into it!

Might I suggest distributing your app as an AppImage? snaps require the snap package manager (snapd) to be installed on your system. AppImages, on the other hand, run out of the box after a chmod +x.

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

#405

Post by nindalf »

ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

This looks incredible, I’m going to try it out today.

One suggestion - would you consider adding videos/gifs of your product on the features page? I feel like that would demonstrate your product much better, especially the linking part.

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

#406

Post by satoshikenzo »

Very interesting! I'm glad to see more development in the field of Personal Knowledge Management. There's a lot of cool features Obsidian has which are essential to me:

1. Markdown 2. Ability to create a Zettelkasten 3. Backlinks

What it currently lacks for me is: 1. native iOS app (one app for all note-taking. This is why I can't see myself using Roam Research right now, despite it being a pretty cool project)

Good job to the dev team and will keep a closed eye on this project :)

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

#407

Post by bmikaili »

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…

You do realize communities can die out as well?

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

#408

Post by auxbuss »

mjayhn wrote: post #301
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.

I got myself stuck in quiver which is a nice tool but has no movement in its project and has horrible exporting. Beware. I still need to move my .qlite notes into markdown. My problem with Quiver wasn't just no updates, its a good tool how it is, but that plus no web/android/windows. Just figured it was time to finally hop of that sinking ship. I.. wish someone had told me this 2 years ago when I started using quiver…

In Quiver, you can right-click a notebook (or All Notes) and export to markdown – as well as png, plain text, pdf, or png.

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

#409

Post by fsloth »

douglaswlance wrote: post #231
woodrowbarlow wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

proprietary software can totally be extensible, that's what plugin APIs are for. foss is cool and all, but i don't buy the implication that it's some sort of civic duty for developers to release under a foss license.

Is an open-source piece of software more extensible than closed-source? If so, then if the goal is to maximize extensibility, then open-source is required.

Hardly. Extending a piece of software requires generally extensive familiarization with the codebase, possibly ranging into millions of lines.

On the other hand, a well documented plugin or scripting system, which sits on top of the existing domain logic and is well documented and full of examples, generally is an excellent way to allow extending the base app.

The base app can be open or closed source. Without scripting or plugin system it's still a black box for most intents (as the time needed to study and change it would likely be too much).

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