ObsidianMD

Honesty I think Obsidian as a product. They have done a pretty good job of keeping my data open and available in the Obsidian Vault.

I pay them for Sync, so I consider it a service for them to maintain and upgrade the software. I would prefer the client be open source but it would hurt their ability to stay afloat and profitable to pay their employees.

If they go under or start an "enshittification" I can just take my JSON and markdown and make my own client or use one of the hundreds of other markdown clients to get my information.

Honestly, the whole thing felt like a textbook example of a modern FOSS program (based on the website, the premise etc) that I was quite surprised when I found out it wasn't open source. I think it's unfortunate.

For me, knowing that it's basically a text editor that has neat features, I'm not super concerned. If they ever shut down Obsidian, I'll switch to LogSeq or one of the Emacs modes that does the same thing, maybe I'll have to run a converter over the files, but that's not a huge deal for me

I would prefer it to be open-source, but at least the data format (markdown) is ubiquitous and stored wherever I want it to be stored.

I use it because it stores my files in a versatile exportable format (markdown) and the app is well made. I have blocked all network access from Obsidian so I'm not worried about data harvesting. I sync my notes with syncthing, so the folder that contains my markdown files is synced across all my devices.

However, I have a strange feeling about it not being open source. The recent events with Reddit have only increased this discomfort.

Well, Obsidian is not a live service. If the developers disappear tomorrow or decide to aggressively monetize it, you still have access to the app in its current state, and the whole plugins ecosystem.

I feel like the data is the important thing. If obsidian destroys their product I'll just edit the markdown files in something else.

Of course i wish that Obsidian was open source - i wish all software was open source. But at the same time, it's not a dealbreaker for me.

There is a loooog thread on the official forum on open source for Obsidian app: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515

IMO the best approach would be for them to make the promise, that they'll open source the code if they become unprofitable or uninterested in further developing ObsidianMD and then leave. In that case, the community has a fully open source stack.

I am aware, that Obsidian is closed source, I try to keep the number of non-compliant uses of markdown minimal. While I use quite many plugins, I am aware, that the plugins being open source removes the risk a bit.

I honestly couldn’t care less. Open source is not and never has been a differentiator for me when it comes to software, much less a requirement.

Doesn't bother me. I'm not a FOSS-only person, although I like using FOSS stuff when I can. As others have said, in a worst-case scenario, you still have your text files. Even if you really went nuts with plugins and have all sorts of custom stuff that won't easily transfer to another service, it's still all yours and you can probably recreate most of it somewhere else.

I hate it. Even consider it somewhat as a security concern. Are my notes being harvested?

Your data, being in Markdown format, is portable to anything that can handle the format so should Obsidian change its policies or make the app itself paid you're not SOL. But you will lose the functionality that Obsidian and its plugins provide, which could make that data less valuable to you in the short term. Nothing's perfect.

Hi! I used Obsidian for several years, but the open source topic is also a concern for me, so 6 months ago, I decided to move to LogSeq.

To be honest, the migration was not that easy, but not due to the different Markdown format, but for the change of methodology of writing notes. In Obsidian I was used to work with folders, but in LogSeq, I added all my notes in the same folder and started working with links. I created a note as a list of constents to link all the other notes, and now I have a nice personal knowledge database. So I don't agree when you say that LogSeq is focus on journaling, because in my personal notetaking process I almost don't use it. But it is true that I use it a lot in my job workflow, it's really useful to start taking notes directly on the current day on the journal section and if you need to expand some topic, you just create a link to a new note using [[double brackets]] as in Obsidian.

I really like obsidian and use it even though I usually prefer FOSS tools. It just suits my needs perfectly at the moment.
Having the markdown files on my drive is the primary reason I don't stress over it too much.
I'll probably start using Zettlr if it improves significantly or if I feel betrayed by Obsidian.

Given the open format of Obsidian I'm not really that concerned about the fact that it's not open source. It's just markdown files I can do whatever I want with in the future.

I always thought it was open source since they have a repo in Github. I also really love Obsidian. It's a really great app for any kind of notetaking, not to mention it uses markdown which can be read by any text editor. It also works really well with Syncthing, so my data is completely local. Well, if enshittification also happens to Obsidian, I'll try to find other apps instead.

I am pretty sure that not being open source is not a problem. Again, many people said here, Markdown is pretty much future-proof and mostly independent of any app that you use. The only problems you might encounter are some formatting issues (like Wikilinks, which are not default in Markdown standart) and, if you rely heavily on plugins, JavaScript and TypeScript development, in my opinion, can be a bigger problem, because, you know, these things belong to Oracle

A pretty big issue. I can't really trust it to survive for long or that it won't be ruined by bad decisions. Because of that I use org mode, but if Obsidian was FOSS I would switch.

A bit off topic considering your post is mainly about open sourcedness, but I use Logseq, migrated from org-roam on emacs...I love it. I have no reference to obsidian, although it's often discussed as an alternative. I don't know if obsidian has this feature, but in logseq you can issue queries to your database...it's amazing. It is journal based, though I haven't found that to be a barrier.

Obsidian is a great piece of software, as a very nice community, but the answer to your question, to me it's Logseq.

My personal opinion is that I am ok with it not being open source, as long as it's worked on/ still a product they take care about.

I feel like what the product is, is simply a Shiny Text editor that is kind of self aware and can connect with plugins.

They work on it and we have quite constant updates, and it feels like at least to me, a bit more than a personal project, but a real work, where people can pay to get premium support, can pay for their syncing service, and can pay for a website version, which would be at least more complicated if it was open source

Now if they where to have the company dying for some reason, I'd love from them to give the app to the community and make it open source Or if they where to sell to like Microsoft, I'd love that they give us a copy of the last version before selling to the company

I like and support FOSS applications but when taking notes or studying, I prefer the productivity. Do not feel bad about it OP

I feel like a lot of the people that enjoy open source software tend to be able to read code in some capacity. Downloading visual studio code and the dendron extension is probably pretty easy for those folks. It's open source, checks most of the same boxes, and doesn't charge extra if you want to use it for work. I think I even saw some documentation detailing how to migrate from obsidian to dendron.

That being said, it really does feel like Obsidian is one of the more user friendly and intuitive options I've found. Maybe their business model is part of the reason why it is so feature rich and stable?

My thoughts: not FOSS, I'll avoid it if I can.

Right now, I only need to de-google to be really free.