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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

#461

Post by naravara »

berkes wrote: post #407
slowtrek wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> very much one of the most reproducible apps ever. It isn't. The proof is simple: there aren't many reproductions that *tick all the boxes*. And no, "a directory of markdown files" isn't even close, it ticks two, maybe three of the dozens of boxes that notion ticks. Joplin (my daily driver) and obsidian (can't get to like it) are closer, but certainly not there - though these alternatives tick some boxes that notion…

The other thing Notion has that’s tough to replicate is the network effects. Enough “influencer” type people use it that there’s a pretty rich universe of readymade and shareable templates and workflows available for other users. These can be replicated in similar applications, but that takes work.

The fact that it got popular with productivity influencers seems pretty key to its initial and sustained popularity, even if it’s performance and the general clunkiness of its interface is frustrating.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#462

Post by Angostura »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #394
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…

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…

I’d quite like good software to be squarely within their area of expertise

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#463

Post by 1oooqooq »

bayindirh wrote: post #404
slowtrek wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Notion's data model is incredible, actually. You can embed almost anything into it, and make it work across your knowledge base. Databases work like spreadsheets, and you can embed pages inside them, too. In fact, every row is a potential page, if you want. While I prefer Obsidian for my technical (public and private) knowledge bases, life organization, and specific help pages I create for relatives live in Notion, a…

are you a notion employee?

the data model is banal. just a tree with limited "type" strings for the special things. it's literally no different than any other file format. and they make it as difficult to export as all the other companies

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#464

Post by ctrlp »

mmooss wrote: post #439
ctrlp wrote: post #203

I just cannot understand the appeal of these browser based note taking apps. Notion, Obsidian, Outline? Is it the collaboration feature? Why not just use Google Docs or equivalent? For notes, I don't see the appeal of having a browser interface. I just put my notes in a text file. No protocol, just search for text strings or text tags. If I need hierarchical organization, I use directories. What am I missing out on?

> I don't see the appeal of having a browser interface. I just put my notes in a text file. Great until you need an image or more than the simplest table, as examples.

Hmm, I find it easy enough to open a link or even embed an image in a text editor.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#465

Post by mmooss »

ctrlp wrote: post #464
mmooss wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see the appeal of having a browser interface. I just put my notes in a text file. Great until you need an image or more than the simplest table, as examples.

Hmm, I find it easy enough to open a link or even embed an image in a text editor.

I mean, when one text document gets to long, moving sections elsewhere and linking to them.

How do you embed an image? ASCII art?

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#466

Post by ctrlp »

e12e wrote: post #279
ctrlp wrote: post #203

I just cannot understand the appeal of these browser based note taking apps. Notion, Obsidian, Outline? Is it the collaboration feature? Why not just use Google Docs or equivalent? For notes, I don't see the appeal of having a browser interface. I just put my notes in a text file. No protocol, just search for text strings or text tags. If I need hierarchical organization, I use directories. What am I missing out on?

> I just cannot understand the appeal of these browser based note taking apps. Notion, Obsidian, Outline? Is it the collaboration feature? Why not just use Google Docs or equivalent? Google docs is also browser based? And obviously not foss or self-hostable. Are you saying "why does Google have docs app in addition to a note taking app?" (Google docs vs Google Keep, Microsoft Word vs Microsoft OneNote etc?)

I'm saying that there are already collaboration tools like Google Docs or whatever. I don't see how managing notes in such a tool beats having some text files. Working with a browser kind of sucks for write operations. It's fine or even good for reading. But writing into a browser goes through obscure layers so that, what? it can go into a database? Files on disk solve this issue. Grep over files or even a more robust index of searchable data solves the findability problem. There can be other sidecar tools to support discoverability, but I'm just focused on the HCI/UX of a browser for text entry and editing, and find it really poor compared to a text editor with files that you control and can run other tools over.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#467

Post by wuming2 »

mmooss wrote: post #438
wuming2 wrote: post #367

The reality is nowadays few documents need desktop publishing features. Because seldom if ever become paper documents. Also the average back office author knows a tiny fraction of Microsoft Word or Excel features. Give them means to type in text, add pictures and collaborate. Templates for beautification. That’s all what is needed. This has been known for ages. Alas Microsoft has a grip on governments and large orgs…

> nowadays few documents need desktop publishing features. Because seldom if ever become paper documents. I rarely read paper, but I find professionally designed documents much easier to read on my screens. It's such a relief to open a PDF of a professionally designed book, for example, after reading screenfuls of html.

Agreed. Here I invoke the wisdom of groff old timers and of younger CSS developers: where the latter stops being useful when a professional looking pdf must be generated?

I can prepare a decent looking document, or spreadsheet, with LibreOffice styles (CSS) without particular effort. With Docs should not be much different.

Have seen official government Word documents with formatting in need of assistance. Teams at very large firms share Word documents, via email, forth and back debating about revisions of text and numbers. Publishing was only the necessary last step.

In most cases authors use the bare minimum of functions to get the job done. Professional looking is something else instead. I don’t know where Docs stands here.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#468

Post by cyberax »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #380
cyberax wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government projects like these are not likely to really push the state-of-the-art forward. Well, if a government project can easily push you out, then you're not really a state-of-the-art. > EU subsidized clones of popular American products feels like admitting defeat. Governments need to think long-term. And one danger of relying on something like Notion is vendor lock-in. You can't easily migrate your data out of…

Government projects today, you mean. The government could act like an immortal mega corp if it had the authority to do so. Such as pushing out competition via loss leaders. And as a bonus, with the government, every program can be a loss leader. The funding potential for this pattern is constrained today, which is why government projects that compete with private industry are generally terrible. But, clearly, the mon…

One limiting factor: the government-produced software will be open source. So the barriers for innovation will be significantly lower for _everyone_.

Right now, I can't fix that one small bug in Notion that keeps bothering me. I have to raise an issue and hope that they add the API required to do that. In the case of open source base produced by the government, I can make a small (perhaps paid) add-on with that functionality.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#469

Post by pfannkuchen »

cyberax wrote: post #468
pfannkuchen wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government projects today, you mean. The government could act like an immortal mega corp if it had the authority to do so. Such as pushing out competition via loss leaders. And as a bonus, with the government, every program can be a loss leader. The funding potential for this pattern is constrained today, which is why government projects that compete with private industry are generally terrible. But, clearly, the mon…

One limiting factor: the government-produced software will be open source. So the barriers for innovation will be significantly lower for _everyone_. Right now, I can't fix that one small bug in Notion that keeps bothering me. I have to raise an issue and hope that they add the API required to do that. In the case of open source base produced by the government, I can make a small (perhaps paid) add-on with that funct…

Yeah totally I think this instance is fine too. I’m kind of speculating why some people seem to get a spooky feeling around stuff like this, even though on the surface it seems totally innocuous.

Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline

#470

Post by cyberax »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #469
cyberax wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One limiting factor: the government-produced software will be open source. So the barriers for innovation will be significantly lower for _everyone_. Right now, I can't fix that one small bug in Notion that keeps bothering me. I have to raise an issue and hope that they add the API required to do that. In the case of open source base produced by the government, I can make a small (perhaps paid) add-on with that funct…

Yeah totally I think this instance is fine too. I’m kind of speculating why some people seem to get a spooky feeling around stuff like this, even though on the surface it seems totally innocuous.

Government crowding out companies is absolutely a concern. I don't want the government running grocery shops or making video games.

But it works fine for infrastructure where competition is not only rare, but often is counter-productive, like for sewer and water delivery. Can this include software infrastructure? Maybe.

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