Hacker News Reader

Thanks for this. Not sure I understand what the concern is. It's proprietary in the sense that it is unlike what you would have seen elsewhere. But it uses plain natural language (ie. no particular syntax or markdown - unlike Obsidian). It is also not opinionated and fully exportable to other tools.

View on HN

That's not what "proprietary" actually means? It means the opposite of "free/open" in the sense of software. The implication (true or not) is that however you're doing the behind the scenes magic, you intend to keep that part a secret and/or behind intellectual property rights, such that I am not allowed to hack at it if I wish.

It is a possible way to "value-add" -- aka be the thing that people can't have unless they pay for it, that strategy is your choice and it's not a crazy or awful one per se. But I will not only always stay away from it, I'll always tell other people to as well.

So far as I have seen, it ALWAYS ends one of two ways: It ends up being open anyway or the company screws people over, eventually. I'm fine waiting for the former and not risking the latter.

Thanks for the lecture on semantics.

If you chose to stay away from value-adding tools solely because services are charged, you are free to do just that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com