
HonKit: A Fork of GitBook - matsuu
https://github.com/honkit/honkit
======
prepend
I’m so happy this project is picking up the fork. Gitbook was a great project,
but they really moved everything to their SaaS with artificial barriers to
just using the software.

It was cool that they left cli around, but as abandonware.

I thought it strange that it was such a non open source behavior to only
support their monthly service even though one of the main benefits I see in
static site generators is the flexibility of hosting and cost.

I feel bad for them as it must be a hard business to compete with Bookdown and
other projects.

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JimDabell
For those who weren’t aware, this is the reason behind the fork:

> As the efforts of the GitBook team are focused on the GitBook.com platform,
> the CLI is no longer under active development.

—
[https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook#%EF%B8%8F-deprecation-w...](https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook#%EF%B8%8F-deprecation-
warning)

~~~
sovietmudkipz
I get sad about this. This project moved from an open source model to a closed
source one. I have nothing but sympathy for the team for doing this but I do
wonder if there is an alternative way of monetizing and keeping the project
open source.

Seriously- what are the monetization strategies for open source projects? I
know red hat, hashicorp and others sell a enterprise support and hosting
solution as enterprise add ons to their open source projects. Wordpress seems
like a great community built around building widgets for non technical folks,
but have the source code available for programmers to extend and modify.

Is it possible for one to sell software and have it open source?

~~~
prepend
I think the market for people who want books hosted and the market for people
with enough dev skills to do it themself is separate. So they should be able
to make their revenue from people who want easy hosting.

That being said, it seems like a doomed SaaS because the value add is pretty
minimal. Maybe a one time charge would make sense, but I can’t find much value
in monthly fees for something I can host on github.io for free.

The software is nice, but there are others.

In general, I don’t like “artificial” SaaS where the the fee is rent-seeking
for something software runs for near zero marginal costs.

------
asicsp
See also mdBook [0] for another alternative to Gitbook

[0] [https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook](https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook)

~~~
blasrodri
At a cost of worse design, I am extremely satisfied with mdbook. For an
example, check The Rust Book.

~~~
terhechte
What do you mean by design? I run a customized version of mdbook to render
[https://docs.hyperdeck.io](https://docs.hyperdeck.io)

I’m fairly happy with mdbook (although it took some time to get the
customizations work correctly)

~~~
httgp
On a side note, HyperDeck looks great! Is this open-source?

~~~
terhechte
Thanks! It is not open source right now. I’ve been thinking about that, but
initially it will probably be commercial, and then I’ll see.

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creato
I just spent a few minutes reading the readme, and I still can't figure out
why this tool (or GitBook) is directly connected to git. OK, a bunch of
markdown and json files in folders form a book. How is this connected to git?

I totally get storing the markdown files/folders in git, but surely any other
version control system would be fine too?

~~~
chillfox
Git has been a trendy word for a while, a bit like sticking "i" in front of
your product name.

~~~
quadrangle
while true, it's also formally trademarked and GitHub and GitLab etc. have
explicit permission to use the term. It's a trademark violation to use "Git"
in reference to software products without the explicit permission of the Git
project unless it's a mere reference in the direction of "Zinq is a tool that
helps with Git etc" (it's not a trademark issue to mention interaction with
Git, only to use it in the name as branding)

------
glofish
I wrote a sizeable book with gitbook and I found it to have substantial design
flaws. Once the book had a few hundred files the rendering became exceedingly
slow.

It became clear to me that, internally some sort of scaling problem is present
in the code that manifests itself abruptly once the book hits a certain size.

Rendering to html would take 2-3 minutes (attempting to reload the latest
version of a single page also triggers a complete re-rendering of all pages,
obviously making the process non-feasible).

I migrated to bookdown that renders the entire book in about 10 seconds (and
reloads single pages quickly).

I wonder if honkit fixed those internal design errors that made gitbook
unusuable for me.

------
axegon_
Never used gitbook so I have the following question: in terms of content
creation, how does it stack up compared to sphinx?

~~~
jankotek
I had many problems with sphinx, mainly site structure, gitbook was easier.
But that was 5 years ago. Now I am switching to github wiki.

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young_unixer
Tangential: How is GitBook/GitBook.com not trademark infringement of git?

~~~
giancarlostoro
Nobody is going to confuse Git with GitBook... GitHub on the other hand... But
Linus Torvalds as savage as he is with crappy vendor code he is a reasonable
guy.

~~~
koolba
The clarification of what’s in and what’s out was in 2017: [https://public-
inbox.org/git/20170202022655.2jwvudhvo4hmueaw...](https://public-
inbox.org/git/20170202022655.2jwvudhvo4hmueaw@sigill.intra.peff.net/)

Gitbook predates that’s so it may have been grandfathered.

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artsyca
Is this semantic markup for writing or is it like headers and paragraphs? I'm
pretty much stuck in the LyX mindset when it comes to treating documents as
code.

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suyash
This is much needed as GitBook moved away from Book publishing and abandoned
open source spirit.

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type0
So nice to see that gitbook-cli abandoned project is finally picked up again.
How would the integration with Calibre work, since it awaits major changes in
upcoming versions?

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phonon
Anyone have a comparison between this and Docusaurus v2?

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jarvuschris
I hope the team is thinking of dusting of GitBook Editor too

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nchudleigh
desperately needed, going to check this out. we tried this gitbook enterprise
product.. definitely headed in the wrong direction for our needs.

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manojlds
What's the name supposed to mean?

~~~
Arnavion
Probably from 本 == book, pronounced hon in Japanese. (The author also appears
to be Japanese.)

~~~
teambayleaf
Right. The original fork name was "GitHon" because hon == book in Japanese.

The author recently renamed "GitHon" to "HonKit" due to Git being protected by
U.S. trademark law.

~~~
toyg
It’s absolutely begging to get an extension called HonKitOnk.

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TLightful
Racist.

