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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

PartsBox founder here. I get asked about this sometimes, so I'll answer here: I'm quite happy with open-source solutions appearing in the same problem space. I bought ECDB, but left the open-source software available on GitHub for anyone who wishes to take it further. My software will not be open-source for a number of reasons, most importantly I cannot afford to take on the chores of a project leader/maintainer. That said, I'm all for diversity, and happy to see others stepping in.

PartsBox (https://partsbox.com/) is and will remain free for hobbyists and makers. It takes quite a bit of effort to keep it that way (data sources aren't free!), but I am a hobbyist myself, and keeping a free version around was always one of my strategic goals. I don't have VCs breathing down my neck and clamoring for "hockey-puck growth", so I can keep it that way.

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> My software will not be open-source for a number of reasons,

Just to clarify which exact software is not open source? PartsBox looks to be AGPL.

> In-browser camera scanning is available in commercial plans only (due to licensing costs).

I wonder if you checked out https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Det...

I think you are confusing the original Link (Parts-DB) which is AGPL, with the grand parent, PartsBox a different project in the same space, and is not AGPL

Ah, right. Indeed, the naming is super similar. Thanks for mentioning that PartsBox is not open source.

Nitpick: your site has some annoyances in a mobile browser. Clicking links seems to drop me at the bottom of the new page instead of scrolling to the top. Some elements render off screen, and in particular the text formatting inside the live demo is very bad. On the projects page, I get a column of text about 6 characters wide, and some button labels seem to be missing.

Otherwise, this looks like something I desperately need at work. I'm particularly excited about the barcode scanning. Inputting stock is the hardest part about using a system like this, and this is an elegant solution.

The user count is a lot lower than I'd have thought. I work for a startup, and we have two engineers, two assembly techs, two purchasing managers, and several other people who would need read access. That's already more than your largest package. I don't understand why the limits are so low unless you're expecting people to have shared accounts like 'engineering', 'production', and 'purchasing'.

I'll have to give this a try sometime! It sounds super promising

Your guest appearance on The Amp Hour podcast was the first time I heard about PartsBox and I've been using it ever since.

https://theamphour.com/542-component-management-with-jan-ryc...

"Hockey-stick" though, right?

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