The opinions that claim Obsidian does not respect the user’s rights, while data is entirely available, sync is E2EE and personal use is completely free, frankly oscillate between the insulting and the downright ridiculous. The entitlement level is through the roof.
See @icebear ‘s remark. See the answer by the devs: the app is NOT going the be open sourced. Not happy with that? That’s still how it is and you have plenty of other choices. Use Joplin, Foam or any of the alternatives. Godspeed.
Someone mentioned the argument that making Obsidian source-available with only a license to protect it will probably result in code theft, and I agree this will probably happen. But let’s turn the tables around. Our privacy is now protected only by a privacy policy. How can we trust that this won’t be used in a nefarious way? As EleanorKonik said above,
lawyers are expensive and legal battles are lengthy, costly processes, particularly internationally
This applies also for legal battles regarding disrespected and circumvented privacy policies.
KillerWhale said:
sync is E2EE
How can I confirm this? That’s right, I can’t. THAT is the basic idea behind making it open source. Or at least source-available.
Don’t patronise us, we have our reasons and they are not out of this world. If it won’t be open-sourced, fine. Do a security audit at least, then. Also, they can make the network & sync component a core plugin and open source only this plugin instead.
Heck, I’d even put a mechanism in place that would reveal as much code as there are paid members, by a factor. Say Obisidian aims at 5.000 regular paid memberships to survive and make a good enough profit. If they have 4.200 paid memberships at a particular moment, only 84% of the code that is current at that time will be revealed at that moment. If it reverts to 3.800 in six months, the revealed source will be reverted to 76% at that moment, etc. If it surpassed 5.000 and more, the whole code will be made available for review. So, by enough people supporting the creators revealing the code will be rendered inconsequential.
There are million of options here to increase trust in Obsidian’s security & privacy model. As I said above, we are keeping our private notes and stuff here, and we want to be sure there’s absolutely NO backdoors, nefarious and malicious code, or even plain old code that can be improved & ironed out.
Don’t patronise us, we have our reasons and they are not out of this world.
Yes, they’re becoming ludicrous. If you have so little faith in the devs and the app that you will trust it so little, then you really need to use anything else. And maybe wear a tinfoil hat.
But here, let me solve your problem for you. Use Cryptomator with your own files on Obsidian. There, problem solved, you have the best of both worlds, Obsidian and open source encryption software, no need to use their closed source sync solution: and why can you do that? Because the devs are taking great care to use open formats and to make sure you own your data. Which is why the level of entitlement in this thread is just disgusting. It won’t even cost you anything, and you will still have the app’s full power. To say that’s a generous model is an understatement.
Obsidian won’t be open sourced. Deal with it, stop thinking that you have a right to dispose of the creators’ work as you would yourself like, and if it’s such a missed opportunity, then do contribute to existing projects in that space (there’s no shortage of them) and shape them as you like or start your own, and prove them wrong.
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I stand corrected and I apologize to the community for the negative vibes in the way I have phrased things here. I however fully stand behind the message, but I will show myself out of this thread. My apologies again.
I just read most of the thread, and I think there are good arguments from both sides. While I’m a happy user of Obsidian as-is, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to see it become FOSS! I don’t know if I’m in the minority or not, but I would actually gladly pay for this software if it were to become one. Usually I end up donating $50–$100 to FOSS apps that I really like, because that’s just how much I appreciate people putting in the effort for quality software that also keeps that ideology.
Please help me understand the panic over privacy with Obsidian. I’m on Windows 10 (bad enough privacy) but I have a little icon in the task bar that shuts off the Wi-Fi connection if I click it. Does this not answer whatever privacy concerns anyone would have? My Obsidian app, during the time I’m using it, becomes basically air-gapped. When I want to go back to my email, I close Obsidian, “click” and I’m cavorting on the Internet once more. Or am I wildly ignorant of the situation?
I’m betting most people here come from a background of storing your most private data on Apple, Google or Evernote servers (some of it’s probably still there) and use social media knowing that your behavior is being built into a surveillance advertising profile on you…but then gripe that a good faith effort like Obsidian isn’t (fill in the blank). This kind of purity spiraling and letting the perfect be the enemy of the (really) good is common in circles like this. (Meanwhile some of you still got data on Facebook, lol)
ObsidianMD’s business model is pretty clear. They don’t seem to be becoming secretly wealthy by illegally selling our data. The privacy policy is in place. You can monitor your network connection to see if megabytes are escaping to Obsidian servers.
I’d rather a valuable service be protected and financially sustainable than foss.
We know foss usually means it’s someone’s side job or hobby. I know of a couple financially sustainable foss achievements. They’re sustained by large donors. Obsidian doesn’t have that, presumably.
I’m betting most people here come from a background of storing your most private data on Apple, Google or Evernote servers (some of it’s probably still there) and use social media knowing that your behavior is being built into a surveillance advertising profile on you …
Yes… but ‘some’ of us don’t. Instead, ‘some’ of us go to great lengths to limit any exposure without our consent, and we also refuse being backed into a corner by arguments such as ‘yeah but you still use Facebook’, ‘privacy is dead’, ‘what do you have to hide?’ and similar.
I don’t see how is the ‘some of you’ argument relevant to the original one. ‘Some’ of us are future rapists and pedophiles, but ‘some’ of us are also the future geniuses and cancer treatment inventors. You never know. But I don’t think privacy-minded Obsidian users are a minority. Besides this, it’s 2021. Strong privacy-by-default should be a given for all users, including non-technical ones, by now.
But yes, I also prefer Obsidian going forward as strongly as it did till now, no doubt about that. And I recognise that keeping it closed-source (or at least some key parts of it) is a better way to ensure financial fortitude.
A compromise might be discovered, we’ll see. 
I’m ultra privacy and security minded. And my preference is for Obsidian remaining closed source as is.
I’m quite capable of managing my security given it’s design.
I can’t say the same about all the plugins, all of which are effectively open source atm (I believe).
I wasn’t attempting to say any of that. I’m simply comparing it on the scale of private apps. My content on Obsidian is under my control and I don’t see any evidence that they are siphoning my notes or collecting my metadata, so I guess I don’t see how open sourcing the whole code would change that.
Hello.
I identify with the first part of the statement by ‘AND’. I by no means am a person capable of reading and understanding the source code.
I was suggested to use obsidian by an acquaintance of mine who had previously suggested me to use anki which has easily become one of my favourites.
Even though I am no expert when it comes to FOSS, but for me the motto ‘Your Second Brain’ can only be complete if the software is FOSS, at least thats what my sub conscious mind had to say when I first visited the website.
I feel like most users like me would feel the same (except Dor ofc) . You could argue that we are a minority but I would say that FOSS and privacy advocates are generally one of the most vocal groups which should nullify that argument to a great extent.
Thats my take on this.
I would probably look for FOSS alternatives to obsidian and go the extra mile for setting it up to suit my use case just like always but the reason I went out of my way to leave a comment here is because of the suggestion by my acquaintance.
Regardless, I predict that the developers would go out of their way to make obsidian FOSS in the near future since their vision with it and its community is linked with FOSS at its core no matter how you look at it.
So preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, Adios.
The point I think you’re missing is that anyone can say they are doing his or that (eg only sending version info) but to truly address privacy concerns the code has to be open-sourced so it can be inspected by others to verify. No one should fully trust someone’s word of whom they have very little or no personal relationship with (eg developers of an app you’ve never met).
I don’t about that, we trust people we don’t know well in many situations in life; we trust taxi and bus drivers with our lives when they take us somewhere, we trust dentists and surgeons to operate on our bodies, etc. We do that when we don’t have a “personal relationship” with someone because they are professionals so we trust them based on that.
I don’t think it’s any different for developers, and IMO the developers of Obsidian have consistently shown themselves to be professionals so far.
IMO Gotta have a little bit of trust and faith here and there 
Completely agree, an open source version -even if capped of some features, preferably not!- would be ideal. For one: once you start writing your mind out, you cast the shadow too. The kind of material one puts in such places is even scary stuff for those closer to the person, left alone if it falls into prying hands. Sensitive material. And many of us are starting to use the software for intel gathering and working on research topics that involve other people, a security breach there would be catastrophic. Being able to add required feautres and contribute code to the community would be perfect too, of course, that alone is reason enough to consider a move to open sourcing the project. We love it, and those who are taking it forward will always have my support to the extent I can.
Hi, I read a lot of posts about how open-source would kill the project’s financial prospects. This is not true. Open-source + Enterprise sold on top is a multi-billion dollar business.
Companies like Docker ($1 billion), MongoDB ($30 billion), and Kong ($1 billion) are all open-source businesses with enterprise package sold on top. I personally worked for Kong so I KNOW that it would have been impossible for them to grow without OSS model.
It’s a well-proven business model and great way to raise venture capital to grow your team. Some other examples: Gitlabs, Supabase, etc.
My notes are open cleartext on my own hardware.
My sync backend is my own setup.
So the only thing here that’s closed source is the interpreter, Obsidian, which makes my cleartext notes and makes them prettier and easier to navigate, and operates entirely on my own devices.
Is that an accurate assessment? I’m just trying to place this in context.
For example, the concern with Evernote is that my notes were housed in a proprietary format on someone else’s proprietary server. I guess I didn’t care so much about the status of the actual Evernote editor, or at least, that’s a tertiary concern.
The alternative is cloud-based model like Notion or Roam. But your principles of native-first markdown does not allow that (which I love because it’s more private). If the devs want to financially benefit plus be the dominant player in graph-based notes, you guys should go open-source! Let me know what you think, I know someone who can advise you on this topic.
P.S. I love Obsidian and I want you to win.
I just wanted to say that I’m yet another person who would pay for Obsidian if it were FOSS.
@owlyph and @AND have done an admiral job of explaining why it would be great, so I don’t have much to add. I would like to emphasize their point that FOSS doesn’t exclude commercial success in any way. Gitlab is an excellent example of many. Not only are they hugely successful and FOSS, but they are open about many aspects as a company, not just their source code.
In any case, making Obsidian open source doesn’t mean you have to make it an open-source project. You can just make the code available for download under GPL or CC BY-NC-ND (or SA). You can offer the open source license only to paying customers. Most of the so-called arguments against open-sourcing are invalid. The claim that “someone can just steal it” undermines the effort required to do packaging, distribution, marketing and all the other non-code aspects – and if the source code was that valuable, de-minifying the ASAR would be worthwhile.
The argument that “I don’t want Obsidian to fail, therefore I want it to remain closed” is also unreasonable. You’re paying for a product because it gives you the value you pay, not because you can’t get it any other way. We are all intelligent enough to realize that Obsidian would wither without revenue. The source code isn’t the true product here, the true product (apart from sync etc.) is that the project is maintained by dedicated and skilled developers.
Regarding the point someone made about not much being left in Obsidian if you take out all the open source components… Obsidian relies on:
All of which are MIT or Apache licensed.
Obsidian looks great to me, but unfortunately I won’t run code I can’t control. Because of this, I truly hope the developers will change their minds in the future.
I think that this is a case where we have to agree disagree. And you have the right to go where you think it’s best.
I think essentially we do no share the belief that open source is an appealing option for small/medium scale consumer-facing products.
Gitlab is large-scale infrastructure/developer tool. Gitlab hasn’t turned $1 of profit in its 10 years of existence. It has been kept alive (and expanded) through VC money and recently IPO money in the hope that one day it’ll turn a profit.
Gitlab was open-source but has been open-core for quite a long time now and the open-core version is, in my opinion, useless.
There is another point that I would like to stress, just because you can slap a license to a project doesn’t mean that you have the legal/monetary means to engage in an international legal battle to enforce the term of said license (especially if you are a small startup).