Mark McElroyAnother good question to ask about the software or service you choose for your # notes: who owns it, and how is it funded?
Rogue@markmcelroy This is one thing that always throws me off: what is going to keep Obsidian surviving in the long run? Is it only going to be the paid subs for sync and publish? How many people are using those services?
I've considered switching to #Logseq for an open source tool on that front but #Obsidian has such a good plugin infrastructure its hard to switch :(
nhan@roguefoam @markmcelroy I'm sure this conversation will be of interest to you.
https://discuss.logseq.com/t/what-is-logseqs-business-model/389
In short, only Obsidian so far has a sustainable business model. No other competitors have a proven profitable business model yet.
What is Logseq's business model?
[more info as it develops] “We haven’t decided on the business model, both the web app and the desktop app will be mostly free, we’ll charge for some advanced features later, storage and bandwidth.” link Related question: Are there existing businesses based on open-source software that Logseq might want to model itself after? I’m especially interested in ones that have active community contributions via plug-ins, etc.
@nhan @markmcelroy Will take a read through this sometime soon - definitely an interesting conversation. Although the thing to note is that Logseq is fully open source, meaning even if the main developers stopped working on it that doesn't mean a stable version won't exist. I do some coding myself and if I was using the tool might be willing to contribute some security patches and such. Obsidian is nice that it has a profit but not every software tool has to be for-profit to sustain IMO
@roguefoam @nhan #OpenSource strategies paid off well for certain tools! I remember my #NVAlt days, when a #branch of #NotationalVelocity became more interesting than the parent.
I'm more concerned about tools that are fully funded by #VentureCapital. What happens when investors tire of waiting for profits? I know a lot of tools many people take for granted -- #Asana comes to mind -- that are in peril because they still haven't learned to turn a profit (and haven't had to).
"What happens when investors tire of waiting for profits?"
-- The product dies. Look at Athens Research.
@roguefoam @markmcelroy
"even if the main developers stopped working on it that doesn't mean a stable version won't exist"
Interestingly, to me, this is even more true to Obsidian than to Logseq. If Obsidian dies we still have the installer and can just use it. Moreover, Obsidian has way fewer bugs than Logseq.
"not every software tool has to be for-profit to sustain". True that. But profit is essential for the product to keep growing. Athens is open source & similar to Logseq, but just died.