[HN Gopher] Anytype - local-first, P2P Notion alternative
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Anytype - local-first, P2P Notion alternative
Author : TTTZ
Score : 319 points
Date : 2023-07-20 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (anytype.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (anytype.io)
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Very excited to see an alternative to Notion that checks so many
| of the boxes I care about, especially local-first control of my
| data.
|
| It would be nice if you would let me opt out of all of your
| telemetry. I know it's useful for development but I've had to
| block outbound requests to Sentry, Amplitude, and Graylog
| already.
|
| I would also like the ability to entirely disable cloud-anything,
| including backup.
| TTTZ wrote:
| To allow analytics opt-out is on the roadmap for 2023Q3
| pronkin wrote:
| You can make a fork, disable analytics and make your own
| build. We plan to make smooth anlytics opt-out later this
| year.
| taminka wrote:
| i've been following anytype since 2019, when the initial public
| release plan was for autumn of 2020 (lol), and since then it has
| transitioned from being a libp2p based google docs alternative
| into something more complicated, with relationships, sets, etc,
| and tbh i just never use it, because it's become too complicated
|
| every time i open the app, which uses electron btw ;(, i catch
| myself looking at the explainer videos sent out, explaining all
| the concepts, it's a tool that (for me personally) gets in the
| way of actually doing anything a lot; maybe there are people for
| whom this is an optimal setup, but if you're looking for a
| privacy-friendly google doc alternative, this is not it imo
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| It really is amazing how little competition Google docs has
| with free or open tools. I just want something that lets me
| write a never ending river of rich text documents. I don't want
| to write markdown source (by default), I don't want a "preview"
| as I type, etc.--I want WYSIWYG. I don't want to micromanage
| folders and hierarchies and classifications and tags and
| whatnot, I don't even want to think about storage or files.
| Just an app that instantly starts, lets me capture rich text,
| and search through documents. I've never found anything close
| to that outside Google docs and it's frustrating.
| ukuina wrote:
| Google Docs being free probably has a lot to do with the lack
| of competition.
| taminka wrote:
| real
|
| a libp2p based wysiwyg or even a plaintext app with p2p sync
| + works offline + encrypted + cross device sync +
| collaboration with other users would be invaluable
| catapart wrote:
| Would you need to manage page settings, like margins and tab
| stops, or are those things more than you need?
|
| If it really is just a local-first, rich text editor with
| syncing, searchable documents that you need, there might be
| something on the horizon. But if you need a full blown
| document editor, that's a bit of a different story.
|
| Anything more than formatted text and inline images changes
| the scope in pretty exponential ways.
| rchaud wrote:
| It's not unusual to need several hours of use to understand if
| a tool is right for you. I use Logseq and Obsidian, and without
| going to the forums and watching how the features are supposed
| to be used, I would have continued to use it like Notepad++,
| becuase out of the box, that's all it looks like it does.
| taminka wrote:
| true, i guess i phrased it a little bit wrong
|
| i do understand it now, it's more like i don't have a use
| case for a graph structure to my documents/files, and since i
| sort of went exploring anytype while retaining the initial
| positioning of the app (p2p google documents), i was somewhat
| disappointed
| sdesol wrote:
| Here's some project health insights, for those interested.
|
| https://devboard.gitsense.com/anyproto
|
| https://reviews.gitsense.com/insights/github?q=pull-age%3A%3...
|
| Looks like Jira is used for issue tracking, so insights for
| issues and comments will be incomplete. There also appears to be
| a good mix of seasoned contributors (2+ years) and new (look for
| the gift icon in the review tool to see how long they have been
| contributing).
|
| Full Disclosure: This is my tool
| mdaniel wrote:
| are you aware that the GH org parsing is apparently case
| sensitive? https://devboard.gitsense.com/jetbrains = blank
| https://devboard.gitsense.com/JetBrains = works (although it
| does whine about the number of repos)
| sdesol wrote:
| Yeah this is something I'll need to fix. Also, the repos
| limit is to keep resources in check. For example, crunching
| 5000 repos for Microsoft takes about 10 minutes and ties up 8
| out of 20 query threads.
|
| Thanks for the feedback.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Marketed with "Trust our code" , but doesn't share it?
| TTTZ wrote:
| Here is their github with repos
|
| https://github.com/anyproto
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Those are client libraries, not server
| pronkin wrote:
| Here we are https://github.com/anyproto/any-sync
| idmontie wrote:
| "There's no browser version of the app. Anytype is a stand-alone
| software, that works on desktop or mobile devices. There are many
| points of vulnerability in-browser apps that would compromise our
| commitment to data security and encryption."
|
| What does this even mean? How does having a mobile app mean more
| security than a web app?
|
| Are they worried about browser extensions? Or is this just an
| excuse not to host on the web?
| derbOac wrote:
| Can someone explain this is -- what it does and what it's used
| for? I'm not familiar with Notion at all and the page -- which
| basically says you can use it for everything -- is not helpful in
| this regard.
|
| It sounds like a P2P shared note and document app but it's not
| clear to me.
| rchaud wrote:
| Think of it as a CMS with custom fields and widgets, for a
| personal website or knowledgebase.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Notion is a note taking app. With a shared note feature. (You
| are right.)
|
| And then it has a ton of more features, almost too many too
| mention.
|
| Anything apart from simple unformatted text is (in summary)
| called a component.
|
| It has a wide variety of components. Some of these components
| have a level of intelligence to them. Some of these components
| are references and links to information in other notes. Some of
| them are intelligent components that selectively show
| information in other notes. Some of them are intelligent
| components that selectively show information in other
| components.
|
| Components can be tables, formatted headers, lists, dynamic
| content, charts, "views" similar to sql views, etc.
|
| That is all I know.
| squirtlebonflow wrote:
| [dead]
| pshirshov wrote:
| It is a P2P note taking app with some object-oriented modeling
| capabilities.
| catapart wrote:
| "Knowledgebase apps" try to reconcile the fact that people
| (most people? all people?) think in sporadic and unstructured
| ways with the fact that maintaining data is mostly about
| codifying it into a structure.
|
| So, instead of forcing a person to think "which app do I need
| to start getting some ideas sketched out", the app wants people
| to use it and then do whatever makes sense to them as a means
| of dumping all of the disparate knowledge into a bag so that it
| can be recalled, even if unstructured, later.
|
| In an idealized example: if a writer got an idea, they would
| whip open the knowledgebase app and then...
|
| - they might begin writing a list of characters and start
| detailing their relationships.
|
| - they might upload a few photos of their local environment for
| remembering setting details, later.
|
| - they might open a 'canvas' and put together a rough drawing
| of a new spaceship design they're mulling over.
|
| - they might start working out the economy of their world by
| drafting an accounting table and assigning the trade networks.
|
| The idea being that if any one of those tasks leads to any of
| the others (an inevitability), it's nice to just be able to
| scroll down the page and start on the new data without having
| to think "okay, which app do should I put this in"?
|
| So, overall, it's about velocity of data recording. Some people
| just don't work that fast, or would prefer to consider HOW to
| think about an idea before they want to consider the idea,
| itself. So, for them, this may seem a bit like overkill. But
| there are definitely people whom can be far more productive if
| they can bounce around storing data as it surfaces in their
| mind, rather than when they have time to categorize it.
| rodrigodlu wrote:
| Painful to import things from Logseq or Obsidian. It imports one
| md at a time, and the 'zip' thing does not click me.
|
| It seem to focus too much on individual collections and pages and
| investing time upfront thinking about how to organize and
| navigate.
|
| Awesome replacement for some things I had in OneNote, thou. Like
| an easy personal wiki.
|
| But logseq (and as a second choice obsidian) is taking my heart
| because the activation energy cost is really low to just start
| writing notes, the flow seems more natural.
|
| It's really an alternative to notion and maybe onenote, but not
| to whom just want to write more freely and easily finding things
| later then reorganizing what it's still important with some
| plugins and keyboard shortcuts (auto/semiauto moving blocks from
| one md to another).
|
| For instance, daily notes: I don't want to put a title. Just give
| me the current date, and ability to see previous days in a few
| keystrokes, some tags for the blocks I'm taking note, that will
| help me find the related blocks and pages later.
|
| The P2P sync is what made me try the first place. It's working
| fine, nice!
|
| I did a similar thing with logseq + syncthing, and all my notes
| are plain files. I can't find the format anytype is using. The
| local working folder just looks like a standard chrome/electron
| folder with everything inside. Unusable for my own backup
| purposes.
|
| Nice to know about in general, ty!
| sharipova wrote:
| (co-founder of anytype) thank you for this feedback! Totally
| agree, that import sucks - very few options. We plan to improve
| the import and also publish an API to engage our community of
| contributors to help us build and improve more of them. on
| titles of daily notes - again, well spotted - again, we have
| plans to improve :) happy you liked p2p sync - this was the
| main objective and the next big thing here is multi-player
| based on p2p
| ocrow wrote:
| I'm not familiar with Notion. How does this compare to something
| like Obsidian?
| arapacana wrote:
| Their philosophies are quite different; Obsidian is much more
| text and link oriented (it's basically a front-end for
| markdown), whereas Notion is object-oriented and gives primacy
| to the kinds of objects that can contain text (blocks, tables,
| quotes, etc.)
|
| Obsidian can be made to work like Notion and vice-versa, but I
| see Obsidian as more of a hypertext environment/wiki creator,
| and Notion as an integrated environment to interface with
| different ways of interacting with knowledge-focused objects.
|
| I prefer Obsidian largely due to its simplicity, and the fact
| that it maps really well to how I think. Notion is also
| incredible for what it does, but it's too much for my brain,
| and the app is still a bit too slow for the speed with which my
| thoughts can escape me.
|
| Anytype purports to be like Notion.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| Obsidian is plaintext, Notion is richtext. This means, it's
| simpler to write complex documents in Notion and you don't need
| to know and handle complicated syntax. Which is good complex
| stuff like layout, tables, images. Anytype seems to have the
| same richtext-interface. But with obsidian on the other side,
| editing can be faster, if you know your syntax, and can type
| well.
|
| And unlike obsidian, Notion has no direct mechanism for
| extension, which means there is no way to modify the app, or
| extend Notion-Documents with new types of data. There is an
| indirect way, by embedding urls, which comes with some
| limitations, and ultimatly it means you are depending on other
| servers, which comes with some more problems.
|
| Not sure how anytype supports extensions.
| Svarto wrote:
| "any-sync networks are permissionless. This means that anyone who
| knows the IP and port of the coordinator node can connect to it,
| create new spaces, or download existing encrypted objects. Data
| inside spaces is always secure, as it requires space encryption
| keys to read it."
|
| From the docs on self-hosting. I am not a security expert, does
| anyone know if this is still considered safe? Feels weird that
| anyone can download my data, even if it is encrypted
| benabbottnz wrote:
| Surely that's just the nature of IPFS, right?
| ianopolous wrote:
| Not necessarily. You can add auth at the encrypted block
| level: https://peergos.org/posts/bats
| hosh wrote:
| I like the Notion and Confluence UIs.
|
| Are there tools for importing from Evernote?
|
| Does this have mobile apps?
|
| And I assume, if I want to back it up somewhere, I can set up a
| peer that would sync from my devices?
|
| A UI specific for journals is a huge selling point for me. That's
| like 80% of my use of Evernotes.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Everything about this smells like "we're going to say we're open-
| source and that you're always fully in control" and then you read
| the fine print and find out there's some way to rugpull or some
| other barrier that will screw the user.
|
| At this stage, having seen so many of these things, I'm
| comfortable _disbelieving them outright_ WITHOUT reading further.
| number6 wrote:
| My feeling to: feels like a free sample and then they will lock
| you in
| sharipova wrote:
| (co-founder of anytype) the whole purpose of anytype is user
| autonomy from software provider. The data standard is open.
| The code is open. You can self-host your network of backup
| nodes (tech skills required as this is self-hosting alpha
| released this week). The app is local first with p2p sync
| (you remove the back up node, you still have your data and
| still have sync in local networks). Most importantly you
| control the keys - encryption keys, access to your account -
| this is not touched by anytype - noone can block you out of
| your account, no central registry of users, all these. There
| are two principles for our business model: self-sustinability
| - support a community of contributors to improve the product
| and build this positive fly wheel and universal accessibility
| - anyone can use anytype for free if they use their
| resources. I hope all of this decisions deserve attention and
| reveal our intention (they are not accidental things)
| jrm4 wrote:
| If you care to answer then -- what is the thing that you
| provide that I must pay for? As in, if I don't give you
| money, then I don't get ....
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| The project seems to come from the crypto-bubble. Bitcoin and
| DAO are mentioned here and there. So the smell either comes
| from them being a bit naive and having a poor socializing
| matching with HN.. or it's a new style of crypto-scam.
| adr1an wrote:
| Here's another notion open source alternative:
| https://affine.pro/
| hosh wrote:
| Although a big selling point for Anytype is that it is local-
| first.
|
| My main gripe with Evernote now, is that in its effort to be a
| collaborative app, there is a lot of network latency for edits
| on my mobile device. By comparison, NotesNook is local-first
| and super fast.
| adr1an wrote:
| I forgot to mention, affine.pro is self-hostable too... and
| it doesn't require any account registration whatsoever on
| their website.
| _visgean wrote:
| Hmm I don't understand whats the benefit of having my notes on
| p2p network. Usually when it comes to notes I would prefer them
| to be private. Here I have some vague claim that the
| cryptographic key is safe enough. Well ok but what is the
| advantage here?
|
| Also the local first approach here just seems like a local
| storage on a disk. Not great. Essentially if I move notes from
| notion to here I am going from a service that has a clear API and
| understandable storage policies to a model where the data is some
| binary blob on a p2p network.. Idk this to me seems I would
| effectively have less control over my data.
| pronkin wrote:
| By default, your account is created on the machine. You can use
| it without connecting to any network. We allow you to sync
| notes in a peer-to-peer way in local networks, or over the
| Anytype network (or your self-hosted network) via the internet.
| Currently, you can sync notes among your devices. Soon, you'll
| be able to collaborate with others using end-to-end encryption.
| I can't agree that the claim about the key is vague, as there
| is documentation and code on GitHub. You can check it, and we
| are happy to hear arguments.
|
| We are genuinely implementing a local-first approach. Why do
| you have doubts? We have a clear description of the data
| format, which is MIT licensed. Feel free to write and read. We
| hope that data adaptors will soon be available with the help of
| the community. You have full control over your data. Compile
| your version, and that's it.
| Lorak_ wrote:
| Do you plan to create native desktop app? Android app looks and
| feels good, but the desktop one is terribly slow (especially
| scrolling), probably due to being written in TS... I used Linux
| AppImage version if that matters.
| tonymet wrote:
| on one hand it's good that we have so many note taking apps.
|
| it could also signal about a huge gap in the platform that's not
| being addressed
|
| is it sync, ux , storage , collaboration
|
| the fact that we are pivoting note taking an productivity trends
| every couple years is interesting
|
| it could also just be another trend like micro services , nosql,
| orm , oop- something people do when they need to procrastinate
| getting work done
| DavideNL wrote:
| Looks nice, was disappointed with the analytics/telemetry
| however...
|
| Also i found the website to be quite chaotic. I'd prefer
| something better organized and informative.
| mingalieva wrote:
| Very nice and well developed product. I've been using it for a
| while! Glad that it's public and has a mobile app now! I've been
| a heavy user of Notion, finally, there is a better and more
| secured alternative!
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| Why does this smell like a cult? Talking about trust and having
| illusive pictures and designs..
|
| And why do I need to login for an offline app? Where does the
| data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb
| already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-
| mirroring? But it seems there is not a choice to set the local
| storage-path, and the saved files are just your usual electron-
| blob-files. Seems there is no way to really access or control my
| files externally.
|
| This doesn't give much impression to be trustable.
| jordiburgos wrote:
| I think the same. I was trying to find the "How to install the
| server" but here is no option. It just saves the data in their
| servers. There is too many wording about security and control,
| but only in their control.
| [deleted]
| pronkin wrote:
| Here is the link with the instructions
| https://tech.anytype.io/how-to/self-hosting
| taink wrote:
| That's useless if the client also sends the same data to
| Any's node. You can't disable that for now:
| Self-hosting only without a backup node is currently
| unavailable The self-hosting-only feature is not
| released yet. If you don't want to use Anytype node and
| instead use p2p sync between your devices, you can block
| Anytype network traffic (Anytype & Anytype Helper) via your
| firewall.
|
| From https://doc.anytype.io/d/data-and-security/data-
| storage-and-...
| fuksman wrote:
| Thank you for the heads-up, we released the self-hosting
| ability yesterday and didn't update the docs. Now it's
| been updated; self-hosting is available:
| https://tech.anytype.io/how-to/self-hosting
| pronkin wrote:
| The idea that you can compile apps with your network
| configuration, so it's not easy, but it works.
| taminka wrote:
| > Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and
| designs..
|
| it's one of the key features of the app that most other
| alternatives lack, it would be weird for them not to mention
| this
|
| > And why do I need to login for an offline app?
|
| it's not offline only, it can sync to your other devices over
| the internet
|
| > Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote
| storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-
| app with some offline-mirroring?
|
| it's stays on your devices, unless you pay for dedicated
| backups of your data
|
| > and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-files.
| Seems there is no way to really access or control my files
| externally.
|
| your data is encrypted, which is why you can't just access it
| via your file manager
|
| hope this helps :)
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| > it's one of the key features of the app that most other
| alternatives lack,
|
| That's their claim, but it doesn't hold up much so far.
|
| > it would be weird for them not to mention this
|
| There is a difference between mentioning it, and using it as
| a selling-point.
|
| > it's not offline only, it can sync to your other devices
| over the internet
|
| There are many apps who can sync, most of them have it as an
| option, without a forced login and hidden sync.
|
| > your data is encrypted, which is why you can't just access
| it via your file manager
|
| So I can't even access my data and must trust in the app to
| not screw up, and have a well working export. Which
| considering it takes Notion and its poor export as
| inspiration, is not really a good sign
|
| > hope this helps :)
|
| Yes, thanks.
| pronkin wrote:
| >That's their claim, but it doesn't hold up much so far.
|
| are there any arguments?
|
| >There are many apps who can sync, most of them have it as
| an option, without a forced login and hidden sync.
|
| We don't have any forced login. It's just basic keychain
| that generated on your machine, that only can use, and can
| use off-line. It's a way do deal with encryption. Where you
| see a forced login?
|
| >So I can't even access my data and must trust in the app
| to not screw up, and have a well working export. Which
| considering it takes Notion and its poor export as
| inspiration, is not really a good sign
|
| we have described our data format, so your data is yours,
| you can write any adaptor to read/write
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| > We don't have any forced login.
|
| Then how can I use the app without creating first an
| account and space which will sync my data without even
| asking? You talk about trust and offline-first, but the
| first thing you do is uploading data and don't even talk
| about it.
|
| > we have described our data format,
|
| Where?
|
| BTW Don't reinvent menus. I just now realized that
| File->Close does not actually close the app, like in any
| other app. And for whatever reason, there was no
| information about the App still running. Kinda sus..
| pronkin wrote:
| > Then how can I use the app without creating first an
| account and space which will sync my data without even
| asking? You talk about trust and offline-first, but the
| first thing you do is uploading data and don't even talk
| about it.
|
| It's not an account you create in a classical way using a
| server. It's locally generated data wallet ( we need it
| for encryption and sync). We talk via on-boarding that
| your wallet will be synced, and that your data is
| encrypted only with the key generated on your machine.
| It's for people who don't want to mess with self-hosting.
| If you want you can make your build from GitHub,
| disconnect sync, or just self-host yours. This way our
| promise works.
|
| > we have described our data format
|
| we have a GitHub! here it is
| https://github.com/anyproto/any-block
|
| > BTW Don't reinvent menus. I just now realized that
| File->Close does not actually close the app, like in any
| other app. And for whatever reason, there was no
| information about the App still running. Kinda sus..
|
| good point!
| taink wrote:
| They seem to have only one "node" so far, because the software
| is still in alpha? That's what their docs seem to say[1].
| All your data primarily syncs to the encrypted backup node in
| the current alpha. For alpha testers, the application is always
| connected to the backup node and cannot be disconnected.
|
| Their homepage could tell this more clearly. It doesn't look
| like it's in alpha.
|
| [1] https://doc.anytype.io/d/troubleshooting/self-host-your-
| back...
| pronkin wrote:
| We are in open beta now. We have a network of nodes not one
| node.
| taink wrote:
| You should update your docs because this is not what they
| say. I seem to understand you just started the open beta --
| congratulations. You should still mention your product is
| in beta on your homepage (or at the very least, your
| download page).
|
| EDIT: How can I see which nodes are in the network? There's
| only one ID on https://networks.any.coop/ and I don't know
| what to do with it.
| fuksman wrote:
| Thank you for the heads-up, we will review the relevance
| of all the docs.
|
| Regarding the list of nodes: we don't show it in the
| interface now, but will add more network information in
| the coming releases with simplified self-hosting. For
| now, you can see the list of nodes in the code:
| https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-
| heart/blob/release/core/...
|
| If you want to dive into the details, information about
| the underlying protocol and configuration formats can be
| found there: https://tech.anytype.io
| catapart wrote:
| This is awesome! Love to see more local-first, security-focused
| apps! Especially ones that are free.
|
| Asking because I'm currently working on a local-first app that I
| am gaming out how to sync to non-local networks: The docs state
| that the app syncs to local P2P networks. Does that mean it
| doesn't sync across the internet? If so, is that because of the
| cost of maintaining/renting a TURN server? Or is there a
| technical limitation? If it does sync across the open internet,
| are there restrictions to that?
|
| Sorry for the grilling! It's just an area of interest at the
| right time. In trying to come up with a WebRTC solution, I think
| I've settled on defeat. The local network syncing works like a
| charm, but I haven't had any luck in trying to get around a TURN
| server by using an API endpoint to provide routing data. It would
| be nice if there were other prebuilts than COTURN (something
| deployable to a deno/node server would be ideal), but with what
| we currently have, I think I've settled on just pushing the
| encrypted data through my api server, letting users encrypt and
| decrypt with well-known hashing, based on some key they provide
| in each client (exporting client and importing client; they never
| exchange keys).
|
| Anyway, my pet projects aside, this thing looks really full-
| featured! Great work here. I use Notion, daily, and this could
| easily replace it for me. In fairness, I don't take full
| advantage of Notion, but I doubt most people do either. Seems
| like you've covered enough of the bases to provide a real product
| for all but some edge cases, so that's pretty awesome! I'll echo
| others in lamenting a web app; that's what will keep me from
| switching from Notion, because its just not portable enough for
| the work I do. But, otherwise, I'm happy with it so far. Gonna
| try to plan some stuff in it and see if there are any creaky
| wheels!
| klabb3 wrote:
| > In trying to come up with a WebRTC solution, I think I've
| settled on defeat. The local network syncing works like a
| charm, but I haven't had any luck in trying to get around a
| TURN server by using an API endpoint to provide routing data.
| It would be nice if there were other prebuilts than COTURN
| (something deployable to a deno/node server would be ideal),
|
| The bad news is that if you want something that works in all
| instances, you need a relay of _some_ sort, because p2p isn't
| possible/feasible in all cases. Bittorrent (for instance) works
| around that limitation by simply having many-to-many peering
| and relying on large numbers, to be reliable. But that doesn't
| work for 1:1.
|
| The good news is that maintaining a relay (or TURN, with
| WebRTC), need not be expensive. Yes, you need a server, and
| perhaps some IP-based rate limiting, but that can handle a LOT
| of connections and small data.
|
| I created https://github.com/betamos/rdv for this purpose, an
| extremely light-weight alternative to WebRTC, but for TCP only
| (BYO identity, auth and encryption). The p2p success rate is,
| anecdotally, very high. However, you cannot use it from a web
| browser.
|
| Feel free to reach out (see profile), happy to chat about p2p
| whether or not you use this project.
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| > Does that mean it doesn't sync across the internet?
|
| They currently host their own backup node, so it does sync
| across the internet, but you only get 1GB of storage (or 10GB
| if you were in the alpha) on their backup node. Once that's
| exceeded, additional files are only synced P2P.
|
| They're planning on providing extra storage for a cost and soon
| anyone will be able to self-host their own backup node.
| catapart wrote:
| Right; should have been more specific, thanks!
|
| I meant to ask if the app syncs P2P over the internet, rather
| than just through their provided storage.
|
| My solution is to have short-lived data so that they can't
| reach more than a few MBs of memory on my server, but if
| there's a straightforward way to do P2P across the globe, I'd
| very much prefer that option. Asking people to believe that I
| can't look at their (encrypted) data is fine, but preventing
| me from having their data at all is ideal.
|
| Given what you pointed out, I definitely figure they're not
| doing WWW P2P syncing, but you'd be surprised the technical
| stuff you can figure out by just asking someone who spent way
| too long building it. They're usually happy to tell you all
| kinds of interesting details (especially when it comes to
| 'interesting' bugs/workarounds/hacks)!
| pronkin wrote:
| P2P sync over the internet on our roadmap. We plan to release
| it later this year. Our protocol already supports it, but we
| need to implement peer discovery.
| api wrote:
| Looking forward to seeing if it syncs across ZeroTier networks.
| They emulate a LAN including multicast so it might work out of
| the box.
| pshirshov wrote:
| In contrast with many others crappy things (Notion, Standard
| Notes, Joplin, Notesnook, Obsidian, etc, etc, etc, I tried
| literally dozens of notetaking apps, including some self-hosted
| stuff), Anytype is, at least, barely acceptable.
|
| It can be used to write notes and share them between devices, it
| can be used in offline mode, it is cross-platform, it has
| acceptable navigation and more or less good editor with proper
| code highlighting. Also, you don't have to share your content
| with server owners.
|
| The UX isn't that nice at this point (especially the graph view
| which is totally useless if you have at least hundreds of
| objects) but, again, that's something acceptable and it's free
| (at least for now).
| nashashmi wrote:
| One thing I found amazing about Notion was how nicely my Evernote
| was imported in.
|
| Can I do the same here
| sharipova wrote:
| not yet, we have very limited import options at the moment
| (notion, markdown, csv and protobuf). This surely limits our
| activation > not easy to start. We are working on more import
| options and also plan to publish an API and hope our community
| helps to build more options together with us
| Propelloni wrote:
| Don't bother to download if you are unwilling to create an
| account with their service.
| hresvelgr wrote:
| I've been using this heavily, it's a good tool. Some of how it
| works is not intuitive coming from Notion but the docs are good
| enough that I got up to speed promptly. Anytype feels joyful to
| use in a similar way to Notion but without weight of Notion's
| mountain of features. It's got the right amount of focused
| functionality. There's some QoL issues present which annoy me,
| but they're nitpicks at best.
|
| Some things I would like to see would be alternate card previews
| for objects, and perhaps some options on organising/separating
| disconnected graphs, but I would be perfectly happy without, the
| functionality present is wonderfully spartan and I think I'd weep
| if it became a feature behemoth like Notion.
| iFire wrote:
| I don't understand this license. It's not open-source.
|
| https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-ts/blob/main/LICENSE.md
| pronkin wrote:
| Co-founder of anytype is here. The most of are repos are open-
| source. We have our philosophy regarding open source here
| https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/ Happy to discuss
| concerns regarding our approach.
| icy wrote:
| Yeah no, that's not how open-source works. Your license is
| effectively a "source available" license and not officially
| approved by the OSI: https://opensource.org/licenses/
| iFire wrote:
| I don't see your license on this list --
| https://opensource.org/licenses/
|
| Please don't advertise anytype as open-source.
| cjbprime wrote:
| This is not an open source license:
|
| https://opensource.org/osd/
|
| 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
|
| The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
| program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may
| not restrict the program from being used in a business, or
| from being used for genetic research.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I'm sorry to hijack the thread but as someone forced to use
| Notion as a team wiki, please improve the performance! I can't
| emphasize this enough. The Notion subreddit is filled with
| complaints: if that's not a wake up call to every single PM at
| Notion, I don't know what is.
|
| Stop shipping features until the perf is a joy to your users.
| It's mind-boggling to me that companies would prio anything over
| fixing perf outside of fixing bugs.
|
| Notion is the single biggest frustration of any workplace tool
| I've ever used in my entire software career and it all comes down
| to its performance.
| simongr3dal wrote:
| They could try the WebKit strategy [1]; a strict policy against
| performance regression:
|
| > We adhere to a simple directive for all work we do on WebKit:
| The way to make a program faster is to never let it get slower.
|
| [1]: https://webkit.org/performance/
| pperi11 wrote:
| Notion is definitely quite slow
|
| But I also think a lot of companies in the same stage as Notion
| have fallen into the trap of shipping features (namely AI
| features) ahead of fixing perf bugs
| dilap wrote:
| yeah i hate the slow perf too, but their success in the market
| unfortunately i think validates the "features over perf"
| strategy
|
| (also, as slow as it is now, it's MUCH faster than it used to
| be, if you can imagine that!)
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36799739.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Notion is the single biggest frustration of any workplace
| tool I've ever used in my entire software career and it all
| comes down to its performance.
|
| Even worse than JIRA, or MS Teams? That sounds horrible indeed.
| ponyous wrote:
| Not in my experience. Notion is faster than Jira. But we
| don't have super massive wikis, hundreds of pages at most.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Yes, worse but it depends on what type of page you're working
| in. If it's of medium complexity and up, it's worse (a few
| media elements, maybe a database, etc.)
|
| If it's just text, it's faster than JIRA or Teams.
| nXqd wrote:
| I have the same problem, I understand the enjoyment of
| sales / marketing team when it comes to using Notion, but
| for engineering team, it's just horrible, so slow.
| gemstones wrote:
| I can vouch for it being worse than JIRA, which I was
| absolutely not prepared for when I moved to a company that
| uses Notion for its ticketing system.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I went from being a notion advocate to a hater. Perf, mobile
| apps, and pricing weirdness have just made it clear it's no
| longer a high quality product but another enterprise-y Jira
| type product.
|
| The early notion product was really performant, the mobile apps
| were ok enough and it had good ideas.
|
| Now my last remaining notion sites sit on my to do list to be
| migrated to an alternative. The mobile apps are trash. Working
| with notion is painful.
| esafak wrote:
| What is your alternative?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Most things moved into Obsidian with databases that needed
| to stay databases (versus tables) going into NocoDB (an
| airtable clone that can use sqlite).
|
| I still haven't found a replacement for "online thing that
| anyone can edit easily". Some wiki systems are close but I
| don't want to give up some of the richer component types
| like kanban cards.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| >Computer pioneers
|
| Nice to see Ted Nelson getting some recognition.
| [deleted]
| pgeorgi wrote:
| Note, their idea[0] of "open source" doesn't match the popular
| Open Source Definition [1]
|
| [0] https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-
| kotlin/blob/main/LICENSE...
|
| [1] https://opensource.org/osd/
| zoogeny wrote:
| A lot of the comments to this are angry and I can appreciate
| that. There is obviously some specific nuance to "open source"
| that individuals in this thread want to maintain and feel that
| the OSI has enshrined in stone as a definition that no one
| shall breach.
|
| However, I strongly support the kind of license (in principle)
| that this software is released under. Source code is available
| for anyone to inspect, modify for their own use, contribute to,
| run locally for their own benefit. The main restriction is so
| clearly obvious: you can't create a commercial competitor. You
| can't take their code and with minimal effort or minor changes
| create a competing app and sell it to others.
|
| This to me seems like a completely sane license. So common in
| fact that creative commons asks two basic questions when they
| recommend a license: "Allow adaptations of your work to be
| shared?" and "Allow commercial uses of your work?". In fact,
| they differentiate this difference with the moniker "Free
| cultural works" [1] (those that allow commercial use are termed
| "free").
|
| I'd like to see the same nuance in software licenses. A
| difference between "open" and "free". That way, we can avoid
| this bickering in the comments where those who really want
| completely free software (free from all restrictions including
| those against commercial use) won't jump down the throats of
| those who want to open up their source while protecting
| themselves from competing commercial use.
|
| 1. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-
| domain/fr...
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| >The main restriction is so clearly obvious: you can't create
| a commercial competitor.
|
| I don't see it. Commercial use there is defined as "where the
| Software facilitates any transaction of economic value other
| than on Allowed Networks". As I understand, it means
| financial application.
| mbreese wrote:
| This isn't bickering. These definitions have existed for
| literal decades. There are multiple models for making source
| code available, and people can choose what license they want.
| But this isn't open source. This is source available, free
| (as in beer, kinda) license.
|
| You don't have to pay, and you can see the source code. But,
| in my quick reading, I don't think you can make
| modifications, distribute modifications, distribute
| unmodified versions, and there is a restriction on how you
| use the software (non-commercial only).
|
| This is the same type of license Microsoft gave certain large
| (TLA) customers for Windows, IIRC. I believe they called it
| "shared source," as in they shared a copy of the source with
| you, but you couldn't use the source for more than review. No
| one would claim that was open source.
|
| There are differences between free, open, and available. This
| is only the later. No one cares about what license something
| is available through. Authors get to do whatever they want.
| People only care when you try to claim one thing, but it is
| really something else. In this case, the company is trying to
| use the term "open source" as a selling point of their
| software, when it isn't. This license doesn't even match the
| definitions they use on their own site!
|
| I'm happy the authors want to make it possible to audit their
| software. That's a laudable goal. If they want to restrict
| usage of the source code to non-commercial use, that's fine
| and up to them. Just don't call it "open source".
|
| Just because something is free doesn't make it open. And just
| because something is open doesn't make it free (as in freedom
| or beer). Similarly, just because something auditable and
| available, doesn't make it free or open.
|
| The fact that the authors don't know the difference (or are
| potentially misrepresenting the difference) will only make
| the community mad - especially the part of the community that
| would care about seeing the source code in the first place.
| If they instead were marketing the project as "source
| available" for auditing or non-commercial use, this wouldn't
| have been an issue.
| zoogeny wrote:
| Your first points: "can't make modifications, distribute
| modifications, distribute unmodified versions" appears to
| contradict the language from their license file:
|
| > Any Association grants you ("Licensee") a license to use,
| modify, and redistribute the Software, but only (a) for
| Non-Commercial Use, or (b) for Commercial Use in Allowed
| Networks.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> These terms do not allow Licensee to sublicense or
| transfer any of Licensee's rights to anyone else._
|
| IANAL, but I thought transferring rights was required to
| redistribute a work. If someone downloads this software
| from me, I can't give them a right to use that software.
| Only the original authors can do that. And even if an
| earlier clause says that I can redistribute, this cause
| suggests that I can't.
|
| As it is, this is a software license that I wouldn't
| touch.
|
| But even if I am wrong on this point, the rest of my
| argument stands. With the restrictions on use, this is
| neither an open nor free (as in freedom) license.
|
| (Side note: this is why new authors shouldn't roll their
| own licenses. Ambiguity is not what you want to see in a
| license agreement.)
| folmar wrote:
| The right you are granted is more specific, so you can
| redistribute, but the next hop cannot. (I'm only reading
| what is quoted here in the thread, but I think the
| important parts are included.)
| IshKebab wrote:
| I think the issue is that they say "open source!" with no
| further qualification. That's misleading and disingenuous.
|
| I support the use of alternative business models like source
| available, Business Source License etc. That's fine. But you
| should accurately describe your licensing. They should have
| said "source available".
| pronkin wrote:
| Co-founder of anytype is here. The most of are repos are fully
| open-source. We have our philosophy regarding open source here
| https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/ Happy to discuss
| concerns regarding our approach.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| You deny your users the most basic freedom there is, the
| freedom to use your software for any purpose without
| discrimination. This is wrong, and so is your attempt to
| misuse and redefine the term "open source software".
| number6 wrote:
| This is the second time today that someone mistakes open
| source and free software.
|
| See: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
| point....
|
| I don't blame you, it's a bit schadenfreude on my part
| because "open source" companies try to dress as free
| software but aren't
| maxloh wrote:
| Which is the first time?
|
| Any hacker news link?
| andrewshadura wrote:
| No. Open source is the same as free software. It is a
| marketing term for free software, that defines the same
| concept in more practical terms. If you actually read the
| article you linked, you would have known that.
| lucideer wrote:
| Open source is not the same as free software.
|
| There are broadly two camps: Camp 1 who advocate for free
| software & free software alone, and Camp 2 who advocate
| for "open source" being an all-encompassing umbrella term
| for a few things, including free software. Those in Camp
| 1 are typically not supportive of the goals of those in
| Camp 2. Those in Camp 2 do often try and equivocate the
| two terms.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| No, it really is. Open source is equivalent to free
| software in everything but definition, and does not
| include anything that is not free software. There are
| minor disagreements between different people from the two
| camps which licenses to accept (e.g. Debian where this
| definition originated from, does not consider GFDL with
| invariant sections free, while FSF apparently does).
|
| It really is the whole point of it, define more clearly
| what criteria must be fulfilled for software to be
| considered free software.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _Open source is equivalent to free software in
| everything but definition_
|
| Is this a typo?
| dancemethis wrote:
| It's not, because Free Software handles practical and
| ethical advantages as an indivisible unit, while open
| source focus only on promoting practical advantages.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| You are missing the point. The definition of free
| software focuses on the freedoms of the user, but these
| freedoms are not easy to verify against a specific
| software license. The practical aspect of the open source
| definition (which really is the Debian free software
| guidelines with the word Debian removed) is that it gives
| you a toolkit, ten criteria that a licence must fulfil to
| be considered free software. Importantly, when this
| definition was created, the alternative, the free
| software definition, was incomplete and lacked the
| freedom zero [0]. Even more importantly, that text
| apparently wasn't widely known back then, and even
| Richard Stallman himself liked the DFSG as a definition
| of free software [1].
|
| [0]: https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt
|
| [1]: https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1129863&ci
| d=268758...
| andrewshadura wrote:
| More specifically, their license doesn't meet these
| criteria of open source software (which are the same as
| the Debian free software guidelines):
|
| 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
|
| 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
| pgeorgi wrote:
| You replied to "You deny your users the most basic
| freedom there is, the freedom to use your software for
| any purpose without discrimination." and caim that open
| source isn't about that.
|
| Let's see https://opensource.org/definition-annotated/,
| _the_ definition for open source, specifically the
| sections titled "No Discrimination Against Persons or
| Groups" and "No Discrimination Against Fields of
| Endeavor":
|
| "The license must not discriminate against any person or
| group of persons."
|
| "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of
| the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example,
| it may not restrict the program from being used in a
| business, or from being used for genetic research."
|
| So what GP claimed seems to be exactly Open Source's
| point, no?
| pronkin wrote:
| The way we crafted it is not clear. Our idea is
| straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can
| do so for free, whether for personal use or within an
| organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit,
| you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this
| is why permission is required. At least, that's the case
| at this early stage.
| Kerrick wrote:
| That means it's zero-cost and source available, not open
| source. As it's your software that's your choice, but
| please don't abuse the term "open source" to describe it.
| It's no more "open source" than, say, DaVinci Resolve is.
| number6 wrote:
| Yes you are right. It's not even open source...
| pronkin wrote:
| Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the
| software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use
| or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it
| for profit, you need to contribute to its creation in some
| way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's
| the case at this early stage.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _This is wrong_
|
| This is a highly subjective take - it might be better to
| stick to objective dictionary definitions.
|
| This project clearly isn't open source, & shouldn't be
| advertised as such, but on the other hand the intent here
| is a common/popular one these days, & its not the first of
| its kind: I'm surprised no-one has yet coined a term for
| this relatively new breed of "faux-pen source" or whatever
| it is.
|
| Fwiw I do think it has it's place - it's certainly more
| than preferable to all rights reserved.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| I was going to come here and post about how this is _exactly_
| what I 've been looking for, but then I read this.
|
| So, my kneejerk reaction to this deceptive use of open source
| is to just say "no" and move on. However, I read through your
| philosphy, and I have a question.
|
| > considering the substantial R&D resources required for the
| application layer, we believe that businesses and networks
| utilizing our software for commercial purposes should
| contribute towards its ongoing development, allowing
| maintainers to support and enhance the platform.
|
| That seems to be the crux of the concern here. I can respect
| that. So, why do existing open source licenses not suit you?
| For example, you could release the software under the AGPL,
| and still dual-license it as you wish.
|
| Rather than assume bad faith, I'm going to give you the
| chance to correct yourself. At the very least, calling
| yourself open source at the moment is deceptive, whether you
| realize it or not.
| pronkin wrote:
| The most of are repost are open-sourced with MIT licence.
| It's clear now, that the way we put words together in the
| license for clients is not clear. Our idea is
| straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can
| do so for free, whether for personal use or within an
| organization. However, if you aim to sell it for
| profit(like change the logo and put price tag on it), you
| need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why
| permission is required. At least, that's the case at this
| early stage.
| [deleted]
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| Using the term Open Source for a product when most of the
| code is under a license that isn't Open Source feels
| dishonest to me. The product you build is certainly yours to
| release however you see fit, but if I'm looking for open
| source software and I find this I'm going to be extremely
| skeptical of everything you say.
|
| On top of that, the license itself is actually incredibly
| restrictive. I'm not a lawyer, but my read of the section on
| economic value seems very broad:
|
| > does not include uses where the Software facilitates any
| transaction of economic value other than on Allowed Networks.
|
| My read of "facilitates any transaction of economic value"
| means that I would be in violation if I used this to keep
| track of trading cards, made a grocery list, or tried to keep
| track of what I want to buy my friends for their birthdays.
| At least it would if I installed this on my home server and
| accessed it from the couch on mh phone.
| pronkin wrote:
| Thank you the comment, it's clear that licence is not clear
| and we need to improve. Our idea is straightforward: if you
| want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether
| for personal use or within an organization. However, if you
| aim to sell it for profit, you need to contribute to its
| creation in some way; this is why permission is required.
| At least, that's the case at this early stage.
| mbreese wrote:
| Serious question - did you have a lawyer write this? The
| license text and some of the comments here lead me to
| believe that it wasn't done by a lawyer.
|
| If not, you should really talk to a lawyer first about
| this. Preferably one with knowledge of open source
| licensing. New software licenses are tricky and should be
| done by a lawyer and not by random HN comments. (Even if
| this is an overly well informed set of users on
| software).
| pgeorgi wrote:
| The problem is that proprietary licenses (such as Source
| Available) are viral: whatever they touch becomes
| proprietary.
|
| As such, "most repos are open source" (from what I can see:
| MIT, some forked ones Apache 2.0) is nice, but the end
| product still isn't open source according to OSD.
|
| There are people who value using "Open Source" for OSD-
| compliant licenses only (I tend to agree with that notion to
| keep things clear), but I didn't really want to discuss this:
| It's your project, after all, license as you wish.
|
| I just wanted to provide a heads-up that the use of "open
| source" in the header here (and the front page on your site)
| doesn't match the expectations of a bunch of folks, so they
| know whether to look closer or not based on that.
|
| I see how making the entire situation transparent muddies the
| message, but "Everything is Source Available, many parts are
| Open Source" would already clear things up a lot.
| pronkin wrote:
| Yep it's clear, you are right!
| itherseed wrote:
| You should be always skeptic but when someone write "Pure
| transparency -- trust our code, not our words" in an EXTRA BIG
| font, you should be extra skeptic.
| sharipova wrote:
| (co-founder of anytype) our main promises are privacy, end-
| to-end encryption, user controlled keys, self-hosting, p2p
| sync - all of which should add up to what we can user
| autonomy from the software provider which we believe to be
| important. To prove these claims the best way is open the
| source code. As promises of encryption and ownership stay
| promises unless you can be sure of it. That was one main
| motivation and why we think it's worth highlighting.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| Is there a way to make sure I am using the code you
| published and not a different version?
| requilence wrote:
| We do releases in the Github Actions CI. So you can
| inspect the CI logs and published
| artefacts(desktop/android). Then you can compare the
| binaries checksums. I would appreciate ideas on how we
| can make it more transparent
| Zambyte wrote:
| So I see the networking portions of the code are Free
| Software - that's great. How are people expected to use it
| if their use does not fall under "non-commercial use" as
| defined in the client license? Do you expect people to
| write their own clients for commercial use, or do you offer
| commercial licenses?
| pronkin wrote:
| For non-commercial use, you're prohibited from selling
| it, but using it within your organization is permitted
| mbreese wrote:
| You do realize this also means that a for-profit company
| can't use the software at all, right?
|
| Unmodified, modified, whatever.
|
| I don't think that was your intent, but that's exactly
| how it reads. Or maybe that is your intent?
| pronkin wrote:
| The idea if you want to sell clients, you need to get a
| permission form our association.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Why not use the GPL?
| pronkin wrote:
| Because we want to provide other organizations with the
| opportunity to offer paid sync services, we needed to
| incorporate the concept of a network into the license. We
| crafted the license with that consideration in mind
| maxloh wrote:
| You may employed a wrong strategy.
|
| To prevent paid sync services, you should license your
| protocols and data formats in AGPL, which requires
| derivative work (third-party sync services) to be open
| sourced.
|
| The client app in contrast, should be fine even in
| permissive licenses.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > Because we want to provide other organizations with the
| opportunity to offer paid sync services
|
| Why do you think the GPL is not compatible with this?
| mbreese wrote:
| Exactly...
|
| Plus, they can always offer other licenses in addition to
| the GPL (or really AGPL would be a better fit for their
| concerns). It's their software, so they can license it to
| anyone with whatever terms they want. (Assuming there
| aren't outside contributions, but even that can be dealt
| with)
| Zambyte wrote:
| > Plus, they can always offer other licenses in addition
| to the GPL
|
| Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking. They're clearly
| offering alternative licenses to the one in the public
| repository. There is no reason the same tactic couldn't
| be applied with the GPL.
| wallmountedtv wrote:
| When will VC companies stop conflating source available with
| open source? It's even worse than just being closed source as
| it's trying to pander to a group for money, and without any
| respect to the actual values of what they are saying.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| Are you seriously trying to suggest that source code being
| publicly accessible is worse than nobody being able to access
| it? What a ridiculous statement.
| JanisErdmanis wrote:
| It was worse in the case of early BIOS, which IBM made
| public in an instruction manual while keeping all relevant
| rights on distribution. I wonder why they did not publish
| it with a GPL or AGPL license, where they would keep
| commercial use to themselves.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| You are intentionally misrepresenting OP.
|
| > When will VC companies stop *conflating source available
| with open source*?
|
| *Misrepresenting* "open source" is the problem. "source
| available" is the correct phrase
| pronkin wrote:
| Our philosophy surrounding open-source is uncomplicated and
| clear. All essential protocols and data formats are subject
| to the MIT license. However, considering our clients' needs
| and with the MongoDB situation as a reference, we must
| maintain some degree of defensibility.
|
| Our objective is to foster a collaborative atmosphere, co-
| creating with the community. The size of the community
| matters to us; when it reaches a significant scale, we want
| to make collective decisions regarding licensing, reflecting
| a democratic approach.
|
| Antype, a creation of our non-profit organization, is aimed
| at sustainability rather than becoming another digital ghost.
| Our mission isn't simply to exist, but to thrive and make
| meaningful contributions to the open-source landscape. By
| intertwining our growth with that of our community, we're
| setting the stage for a sustainable future.
| lucideer wrote:
| These are all noble goals, and I don't think many
| commenters here are arguing that they're not justified.
| Just that the specific use of the term "open source" is
| incorrectly applied (to your own benefit).
|
| If a subset of things you do are open source, that's great.
| Say that.
| pronkin wrote:
| Yep, you right, we'll correct it.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Thank you! Terminology matters. I really appreciate that
| you're willing to make that change.
| dspillett wrote:
| Your goals sound laudable, but they do not alter the fact
| that your use of the term "open source" is, deliberately or
| otherwise, misleading.
|
| _> Our philosophy surrounding open-source is uncomplicated
| and clear._
|
| It does not appear to be the case that your philosophy
| surrounding open-source is clear. You state very clearly,
| without caveats, that the product is open-source, which
| strongly implies that the product is, well, open-source
| without caveats - and this is not the case. That feels
| rather disingenuous, if not deliberately dishonest.
|
| It is not unlike printer manufactures loudly proclaiming a
| page-per-minute value without any note about that rate is
| only attainable feeding entirely blank A6 sheets out of the
| device.
| pronkin wrote:
| Most of our repositories are MIT licensed, which holds
| significant value. Some of our repositories are source-
| available. We believe we are building an open-source
| product, and we reserve the right to define what 'open-
| source' means for us. Our only prohibition is against
| competitors making minor modifications and then selling
| our product. Our position on this is clear. We recognize
| that our definition may not align with others'
| perspectives here, and we are open to understanding that.
| However, labeling our approach as dishonest isn't
| something we consider accurate. To avoid any confusion
| for those who uphold the traditional notion of 'open
| source', we will change the term 'open source' to 'open
| code' on our website.
| dancemethis wrote:
| It's unfortunate it's not actually going to be Free
| Software, but being able to at least audit and do non-
| commercial is... better than Notion, I guess. But I do
| retract a fair portion of my excitement over the project.
|
| Your "reserved right" to define what a word means to
| you... puts the work to somehow figure out what you mean
| onto the reader. This isn't quite nice. The speakers are
| the ones that should strive to make themselves understood
| in the first place.
|
| I don't have any love for "open source" since it is just
| "the part of Free Software that appeases people in
| suits", but please, use the thing as it is.
| kykeonaut wrote:
| Hence why the "free" in "Free and Open Source Software" really
| matters. :)
| npteljes wrote:
| Not really, someone could just use that misleadingly too,
| just as with "open source".
|
| "Open Source" already doesn't cover these special licenses,
| instead, the "source available" is used. Any also
| acknowledges this actually - the license they are using is
| called the "Any Source Available License 1.0".
| kykeonaut wrote:
| After a bit of brushing up on my acronyms, one could indeed
| use FOSS or FLOSS to denote that a piece of software is
| either free (or libre) or just open source [0].
|
| The term "open source" is not referring to software with a
| free license, but to software whose source code is
| available to the public irrespective of license [1].
|
| [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html
|
| [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
| point....
| pgeorgi wrote:
| That article you post as [1] refers to
| https://opensource.org/osd/ for "The official definition
| of open source software (which is published by the Open
| Source Initiative and is too long to include here)"
|
| The FSF article directly follow with this, which
| contradicts your claim: "However, the obvious meaning for
| the expression "open source software" is "You can look at
| the source code." Indeed, most people seem to
| misunderstand "open source software" that way. (The clear
| term for that meaning is "source available.") That
| criterion is much weaker than the free software
| definition, much weaker also than the official definition
| of open source. It includes many programs that are
| neither free nor open source."
|
| And the OSD also disagrees: "The license must allow
| modifications and derived works, and must allow them to
| be distributed under the same terms as the license of the
| original software."
|
| Terms that can be summarized as "whose source code is
| available to the public" are called "source available",
| even by the FSF.
| kykeonaut wrote:
| You are indeed correct, should have dug a little deeper
| (or maybe not doubt the OSD's definition in the first
| place). Thank you for the clarification :)
| npteljes wrote:
| GNU also misses the point a bit. With open source, the
| source is open, but some other general rights are
| included too, like to restriction to the type usage.
| Lately, people and corporations made a lot of money on
| the backs of open source developers, so a new type of
| license emerged, and this would be the one that really is
| just about the "open" "source", but to make it distinct
| from the already widely known term, people call these
| "source available". Getting back to the topic, Any knows
| these distinctions too - or at least their lawyer did,
| because they call their license a "Source Available
| License"[0]. Source-available however doesn't carry the
| coolness of what "open source" brings - so on the
| marketing page, they refer to the project as "open
| source", which kind of can be argued, since the majority
| of it is indeed proper open source.
|
| [0] https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-
| kotlin/blob/main/LICENSE...
| sydon wrote:
| Damn, didn't even think about that.
| api wrote:
| The conventional open source model makes everything free labor
| for billion dollar companies and hustlers who just take it and
| slap it up behind a paywall. It's used to underpin SaaS models
| that are significantly less open or free than closed-source
| local commercial software.
|
| It'd be nice if the OSI or the open source community addressed
| this issue head-on, but so far they refuse and insist nothing
| is wrong. This refusal leads to a proliferation of almost-open-
| source licenses that just muddy the waters.
|
| If they continue to refuse I think we'll see more and more of
| this until the definition of open source becomes hopelessly
| muddy and the whole community starts to wither.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| So what is the appropriate term then for "source code freely
| available, but cannot be used for commercial use?"
|
| I guess probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't see why
| "open source" must imply that anyone should be allowed to fork
| the repo and sell it.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > I guess probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't see
| why "open source" must imply that anyone should be allowed to
| fork the repo and sell it.
|
| Because that is the definition of "Open Source"[0]. As was
| already said, "source available" is the correct term here.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition
| eudoxus wrote:
| Sorry but this is _not_ the definition of "open source", I
| would argue there is only a conceptual and cultural
| definition of "open source". What you are linking to is The
| Open Source Initiative (OSI) Foundation's declaration
| called the "Open Source Definition".
|
| They are a single organization, that have done a tremendous
| job at trying to come up with a global and shared legal
| framework to which people can license code under. They have
| gone so far to come up with _a_ pretty good definition of
| "open source", but not _the_ definition.
|
| This would be equivalent to saying that "Freedom" is
| defined by the US Constitution or the Canadian Charter of
| Rights & Freedoms. It is not, those are both examples of
| _a_ legal definition of freedom, but neither are the sole
| authority for the global and cultural concept of "Freedom"
| Zambyte wrote:
| > This would be equivalent to saying that "Freedom" is
| defined by the US Constitution or the Canadian Charter of
| Rights & Freedoms.
|
| The idea of freedom existed before both documents. The
| idea of Open Source was proposed in 1998 [0], and the OSI
| was created to define it in the same year [1]. This is
| not at all equivalent.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-
| sourc...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative
| e12e wrote:
| Source Available.
| mcfedr wrote:
| It's not freely available, it's available for a limited set
| of uses. So it's not open source.
| DANmode wrote:
| > I don't see why "open source" must imply that anyone should
| be allowed to fork the repo
|
| Apart from 20+ years of historical use in that way?
| JSavageOne wrote:
| You're completely misrepresenting my quote by cutting off
| the "and sell it" at the end, that's incredibly
| disingenuous.
|
| MIT license restrict commercialization. Is the MIT license
| not open source then?
| janober wrote:
| Source available does sadly not really mean that much. Just
| means the source code is available. MIT licensed code and
| code you can see but are not allowed to use can be described
| as source available. That is what https://faircode.io/ got
| created for to solve.
|
| Background: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/issues/40
| mgrandl wrote:
| Just downloaded it. This looks incredibly polished and smooth!
| Will play around with it a bit, although I have never been good
| at taking notes.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| iOS version is very well-crafted, but the type on iPad Mini is
| much, much too small. (I say that as a person who generally
| prefers small type.)
| khobragade wrote:
| I tried this briefly about a year ago but didn't see myself using
| it. They had an hour long induction session over zoom to teach
| how to use the tool before they sent the download link iirc. It
| was too complicated.
|
| Moved on to Zotero and text/plain files for my notetaking and
| journaling needs ever since.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| I see this software has tables - are these able to be used like
| excel sheets?
|
| I see this as a necessity for software like this. It's the one
| feature that Notion has that the competition doesn't seem to
| have, and it's absolutely crucial to everyday work for so many
| people. It seems to be a blind spot for programmer-types, I'm
| guessing because they see Excel as limited?
| sharipova wrote:
| (co-founder anytype here) tables are simple now, no formulas.
| Plan to add formulas to data-bases (what I think you mean by
| notion having it) - it's one of the top requested features on
| our forum
| TTTZ wrote:
| I don't think Notion has formulas for tables. I think you mean
| formulas for databases.
|
| The formulas for databases like Notion has is actually the
| second-most requested feature right now and is tagged as
| Acknowledged, so hopefully we will get it soon.
| niam wrote:
| Coda has the most powerful tables I've seen of the Notion
| alternatives, and was a fair bit cheaper for my team since they
| don't charge per viewer or editor but per "creator". But
| unfortunately it's not open-source or local.
|
| They have a pretty good
| [writeup](https://coda.io/blog/productivity/tables-not-
| spreadsheets) on why "spreadsheets" were avoided in favor of
| more traditional "tables" (a la RDBMS).
| squirtlebonflow wrote:
| [dead]
| 6uhrmittag wrote:
| Sorry but the landing page is super annoying.
|
| Everything gives the impression of being clickable and not even
| half of it is.
|
| Then I click on "crazy fast loading times" and a slow popups
| overlay appears.. the slider and the animations are feel
| deliberately annoying - slow slide.. when a slide is in the
| center it stops.. takes a deep breath and then is beeing reminded
| that it has to load it's three arms and bubbles... and all that
| for explaining in 2 sentence what open source is.
|
| (And the overlay not being dismissable with ESC is annoying)
| jklinger410 wrote:
| The UI for the website reminds me of the app itself. It paints
| its own canvas and is simplified to the point of adding more
| confusion.
| moneywoes wrote:
| How do you make money
| sharipova wrote:
| hey everyone, Zhanna - co-founder of anytype here (with my co-
| founder Anton also here). If you have questions or feedback, we
| are here to answer and listen :)
| ch_sm wrote:
| I haven't tried it yet, but damnit, you guys really touched a
| nerve with the aesthetics of the landing page and the references
| to personal computer pioneers. It gives me OpenDoc vibes. I'm so
| easily manipulated.
| [deleted]
| chambers wrote:
| The proportion of philosophy to features in their marketing seems
| off. They say "trust our code, not our words" and then spend
| several paragraphs of words talking up their ideals. It feels
| like something is being hidden or talked around.
|
| Data-independence may be one aspect that's not transparent.
| Compared to https://obsidian.md/, I can't just use raw Markdown
| or CSV file with Anytype. I've paid Obsidian $300+ just because
| it's data independence with a few obvious strings attached. By
| the same token, if I pursued a local-version of Notion for my
| team, I would also want the same freedom that local, open-
| standard files offer.
| junipertea wrote:
| To be fair, you can compile the code (including the protobuf
| format) and implement your own export to any format. It's a bit
| obtuse, but I had a obsidian vault full of markdown files that
| are also completely useless as they have a bunch metadata that
| needs the obsidian plugin to render. This is not a critique of
| obsidian, but there is a limit of markdown and obsidian is
| bypassing it using a lot of extra code. If obsidian got deleted
| from the internet, I would have my markdown files but a lot of
| the processing would be gone.
|
| If we were to store markdowns only with linking and no advanced
| tables, do we need any advanced app on top?
| pronkin wrote:
| Anytype's functionality cannot operate using Markdown or CSV,
| as these formats are limited for our specific use-cases.
| Instead, we've defined our data format in a protobuf file,
| which is open and MIT-licensed. You can always compile a
| version yourself and use your data without relying on Anytype.
| We hope to include data adaptors in future developments
| Hiko0 wrote:
| Markdown sucks in some ways though. Not being able to merge
| cells in tables? Come on.
| menacingly wrote:
| This is really nice, but I think the perennial curse of
| technology people is producing "<app>, but with <esoteric
| principle>"
|
| People want a thing, not an ideal, and they'll sell their soul to
| get the thing. At this point, it's actually being surprised by
| this that is the ludicrous position. Philosophies are a
| differentiator for a very small portion of population.
|
| If you want them to buy into ideals, you've taken on two
| problems: Make a thing they want with its own differentiators
| outside of the noble pursuit, _and_ trojan in your principles.
| cj wrote:
| Normally I would agree with this.
|
| But with Notion in particular, and how heavily they're pushing
| Notion AI, I could see some c-level exec types being
| uncomfortable with the idea of Notion (or any managed/hosted
| service) to store trade secrets, company IP, etc.
|
| When a company is pushing AI features as heavily as Notion is,
| it raises questions how Notion is planning to (or already
| using) your private data for fine tuning, model training,
| potentially scooping up your company's IP in the process.
| sharipova wrote:
| Those who don't think it matters already have a choice of
| great products. We try to build a better alternative to those
| who think it does. We also think it's our job to make the ux
| great, to make sn analogy we think a healthy and tasty food
| is a better value proposition which for a network is very
| important.
| Qwertious wrote:
| This is true, and I sometimes wonder if the only _true_
| solution is regulation or overhauling IP or such. But I don 't
| see that happening, because proprietary software is too large
| and frankly libre software isn't asshole-proof enough for
| capitalism.
| menacingly wrote:
| My preference would be using this tendency the other way.
| Make it so good they can't resist it, even if they
| accidentally eat their vegetables along the way.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > People want a thing, not an ideal...
|
| So, welcome to Hacker News, where the particular esoteric
| principles discussed here are critically important for many of
| us. This is very much a selling point in this market.
| chaxor wrote:
| You're on a forum for hackers, so most of the people here are
| the ones that care about the specifics of technology.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > You're on a forum for hackers
|
| I wish. "Hacker" news has nothing to do with that.
| DANmode wrote:
| Highly recommend using the search box, New, etc.
| sharipova wrote:
| (co-founder of anytype)
|
| we agree, we have an internal mantra "people use products, not
| protocols". This does not diminish the importance of
| philosophies. The way we design our product and protocols is
| based on principles, because of the role software started to
| play in our lives - the second order consequences of the
| architectural choices lead to the results we get in our social
| life. We are believers of fundamental digital freedoms
| (privacy, ability to connect with those we trust) and
| importance of user and creator autonomy from the software
| provider (these freedoms to be governed by us not by software
| companies). We used these principles to guide our architectural
| decisions.
|
| At the same time, we fully understand that if we want to build
| something meaningful we need to do the hardest part. Turn our
| ideals into the UX that would be attractive on its own. We are
| focusing on that. Hope to show that the p2p protocols can
| turned into a product that is fun to use. We are just making
| our baby steps towards this (not there yet)
| [deleted]
| vikmals wrote:
| That website looks horrible.
| hedgehog wrote:
| This looks pretty nice. I use Notion at work and mostly like it
| but not for personal data because I want everything available to
| back up on a physical disk. I've been burned too many times with
| data getting stuck in an inaccessible format when upstream apps
| get orphaned. Today my primary storage is files on disk in common
| formats (Markdown, PDFs, JPEGs, etc).
|
| Questions: Is there a way to get at the underlying documents
| stored in Anytype? Is there any path to a web accessible version
| for clients too small to host the full dataset? Use case is to
| host around 50GB of notes, records, and photos in one place.
| jevogel wrote:
| Currently you can export all files, but there's no way to
| access them otherwise. They plan on having an API. Right now
| you're limited to 1GB of storage that they pin on their IPFS
| node, but they plan to enable self-hosting, i.e., using your
| own IPFS node.
|
| Roadmap on GitHub:
| https://github.com/orgs/anyproto/projects/1/views/1
| ChrisClark wrote:
| I've been using this for about a year. It's very polished and
| been stable for me.
|
| The Apple and Android apps work well too. They've been planning
| to open source it from the beginning, I'm glad it's finally here.
|
| I'm using it as a very basic note system, nothing fancy like
| others are doing though.
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| dang these types of website layouts are bad...how can i trust
| that your app is useful if can't even make a simple easy to read
| website telling me about your app?
| pronkin wrote:
| It's a matter of taste, and ours differs. You can establish
| trust by going to GitHub, checking the code, and compiling it
| yourself. In my humble opinion, trust and taste aren't closely
| connected.
| replwoacause wrote:
| I've been on the waitlist to try this for close to 5 years and
| never once received an email. Now, it is available for everyone
| to try...so I just installed it. Looks nice enough, but it is too
| similar to Notion for my taste and since I don't like using
| Notion I don't think I would like using this. I'll stick with
| Obsidian because I value the flexibility it gives me (running my
| own code, customizing everything, etc.)
| jitl wrote:
| (I work at Notion)
|
| The Anytype model is really cool - in a way, they've rebuilt
| Lotus Notes with 21st century E2E encrypted protocols and
| technology. They've built a really solid personal knowledge app
| with many of Notion's features - and some clear improvements over
| Notion.
|
| However they also demonstrate the complexity and tradeoffs of the
| E2E approach. Anytype has been a work-in-progress since at least
| 2019. Their docs still state:
|
| > Future versions will allow you to share your work and safely
| collaborate with others
|
| > There's no browser version of the app. Anytype is a stand-alone
| software, that works on desktop or mobile devices. There are many
| points of vulnerability in-browser apps that would compromise our
| commitment to data security and encryption.
|
| Without these features Anytype is in a much smaller market (PKM)
| with less distribution than Notion/Coda/Dropbox
| Paper/Quip/Confluence/...
| lewisjoe wrote:
| Google Docs have somehow solved E2E encryption with safe
| sharing and collaboration. They haven't advertised it much,
| just a mention here and there as an enterprise requirement or
| something, it's good how they've implemented it on top of an
| existing web-first collaboration product.
|
| They do have technical challenges implementing add-on services
| on top of content - For example, the grammar checker or any
| content assistance is disabled in E2E encrypted docs, which
| makes sense.
|
| Surprisingly they support spellcheck: I guess they are shipping
| dictionaries to browsers and use a local lookup. (Google Docs
| doesn't rely on browser's dictionary because their editor is
| not based on `contenteditable`)
| amarshall wrote:
| Did they? https://support.google.com/docs/answer/10519035?sji
| d=6574250...
|
| > Multiple collaborators can work on the same file at
| different times, but you can't collaborate in real-time in
| encrypted files
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Operating systems should be providing spellcheck to textboxes
| everywhere anyway.
|
| Makes no sense every app rolling their own and not using my
| operating system dictionary with my own corrections.
|
| Extremely frustrating every Electron app just rolls their own
| rubbish spellcheck, or doesn't have it at all.
| smokel wrote:
| That's an interesting take on things. Would you want your
| operating system to provide a web browser, pdf viewer, and
| spreadsheet as well?
|
| To me it makes no sense that software does not interoperate
| very well. I think most of this is due to the historical
| evolution of computers and software. A spell checker used
| to take up an insane amount of memory, a browser is a
| competitive product, and interfaces for proper interaction
| have to be standardized worldwide, for which we still lack
| some kind of governmental body.
| medstrom wrote:
| It's kinda-sorta possible on Linux distros, you know,
| with cliphist and all these little programs, but you have
| to do a lot of custom stitching, adding Firefox
| extensions to interoperate in such-and-such ways, and
| most programs don't have extensions. Until mainstream
| OSes make it a priority, I'll stay in my Emacs corner.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >Would you want your operating system to provide a web
| browser, pdf viewer, and spreadsheet
|
| I mean I have little use for an OS without a web browser
| so yes. PDF viewer, Preview.app is infinitely better than
| Acrobat Reader so yes again. Spreadsheet I can give or
| take.
|
| The idea of multiple teams all rolling spellcheckers to
| build upon the same input boxes is absurd to me. Should
| be as integrated into the machine as the cursor and caret
| imho.
| jitl wrote:
| Well, neither Google's cursor or caret are drawn by the
| system. They want ultimate control, not ultimate
| integration with the host browser/OS.
|
| Most electron and web editors that use ContentEditable
| should be able to use the OS spellcheck. Notion uses OS
| spell checking on web & Mac electron. I think on Windows
| there's some weird issue we had to work around but I
| think we resumed using the OS dictionary, I'm not up to
| date on that.
| numbsafari wrote:
| > web browser, pdf viewer, and spreadsheet as well?
|
| Yes, yes, and no.
| picometer wrote:
| Yeah, I suspect the grandparent comment meant that
| spellcheck (and perhaps other tools, like you listed)
| should be standardized. And thanks to the big cos (Apple
| and Microsoft) doing full vertical integration of their
| stack and calling it their "operating system", that term
| is increasingly getting used for something more than just
| "the thing that operates your computational resources and
| safely exposes their APIs for developer use".
|
| That said, it would be interesting to see more actual OS
| development that innovated on supporting/encouraging more
| standards, without getting too proprietary or
| centralized.
| chaxor wrote:
| It's amazing how insanely slow OSes can be too install,
| even without providing some of these things. I feel like
| getting a new Debian docker image to apt update takes
| forever now compared to 1995.
| dancemethis wrote:
| So, yeah, unless Notion becomes Free Software and actually
| secure soon, there's the Notion killer.
| Hiko0 wrote:
| > Without these features Anytype is in a much smaller market
| (PKM) with less distribution than Notion/Coda/Dropbox
| Paper/Quip/Confluence/...
|
| I can tell you that e.g. the whole education market in the EU
| is waiting for something like AnyType, as soon as they have
| implemented collaboration, which is very high on their roadmap.
| As a teacher I just can't use Notion or any other US-service
| based on US cloud services. All claims concerning GDPR are
| nonsense due to Privacy Shield. I am not allowed to use such
| services.
|
| Therefore I hope AnyType copies as many good Notion features so
| that I can leave Notion and its abysmal performance and lack of
| offline mode for private stuff as well.
| kwanbix wrote:
| It is so interesting that you are mentioning Lotus Notes
| because that is exactly what I was thinking when I was setting
| up our Confluence pages: it is exactly like Lotus Notes'
| Knowledge Base template, with some additional funtionality.
| Crazy how we keep reinventing things.
|
| By the way, and this is just my point of view: we moved from
| Notion to Confluence because Notion has no free tier for small
| teams (4 people). We were working on a project for a not-for
| profit org and their money is always tight.
|
| Since you already give Notion free, have you ever evaluating
| doing like Atlassian that up to 10 (or 5) people the thing is
| free?
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