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(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


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


(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)


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 ....


You can use anytype for free if you use your own resources (storage, backup). There is an option to selfhost, or just use locally with local sync. You can also become a member of our association and it’s membership based, it will give you backup (if you don’t want to handle it yourself) and some things on top for those who want their spaces to be discoverable in our network. If you use privately for your team/org you may not be interested in paying. That’s ok with us :) joining the association and paying is voluntary. We have a principal of universal accessibility


Then, I guess, the problem is, that it sounds too good to be true


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 :)


(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)


(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.


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?


For non-commercial use, you're prohibited from selling it, but using it within your organization is permitted


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?


The idea if you want to sell clients, you need to get a permission form our association.


Why not use the GPL?


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


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.


> 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?


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)


> 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.


Is there a way to make sure I am using the code you published and not a different version?


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


(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


Thank you for such a detailed and positive review! Hope to exceed your expectations one day :)


I'm glad you liked the video.

Yes, it's from January and it was based on our prototype.

Now we re-built it from scratch and invited first 100+ users who are currently using Anytype and giving us a lot of feedback.

We are inviting alpha testers regularly from our community channel on telegram.

As a lot of things change (we re-wrote Anytype from scratch just recently), we want to open source with open beta.

Yes, I think it was a mistake to have Show in the submission


yes, exactly. You can store as much as you want for free if you use your own resources. If you would need our network, it's a premium feature


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