Obsidian for Writing Manuals
Obsidian for Writing Manuals
Is Obsidian a good tool to use for writing technical manuals? I would like to write an Operation Manual for municipality's water system. There will be embedded screenshots and some links to other sections of the document.
Ideally we could "publish" to offline html. The customer would also like a printed manual.
If Obsidian is no good, I would love suggestions on software you have used to write short manuals with pictures, preferably not Word.
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Man, now I have to go from championing Obsidian to warning people away from it. That sucks.
What are you talking about?! How is commercial licensing of an indie product something to warn people about? Maybe start by warning people of Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, SAP, because their licensing models are horrendously exploitive.
You are just frustrated that your entitlement for a free product was not satisfied. Your reaction to vent against Obsidian and by that its Dev Team is bizarre.
You're telling me people prefer paying 55$/month for Adobe that doesn't care about you and will with time get worst and not pay 50$/year for a indie company that has constant growth adding more and more features and giving you a better product!
Because my work notes are personal as far as I'm concerned. If my employer was telling everyone to use Obsidian that would be a different story. Their scope is too wide, and yes, it's frustrating. Not to mention, the core obsidian application is lackluster at best; it's the plugins that really make it stand out. How much of the money goes to plugin creators?
Just scummy all around.
I would like to write an Operation Manual for municipality’s water system. There will be embedded screenshots and some links to other sections of the document.
Ideally we could “publish” to offline html. The customer would also like a printed manual.
This is not personal use. This is commercial use.
If my employer was telling everyone to use Obsidian that would be a different story
In that case your employer would need to provide you with a license.
Not to mention, the core obsidian application is lackluster at best; it’s the plugins that really make it stand out.
If Obsidian is lackluster, then why even complain about its licensing model. Just move on to another programm.
How much of the money goes to plugin creators?
I don't know and I don't think it matters. Plugin creators frequently provide donation methods on their sites. I also don't believe that Obsidian is as profitable as you might think. I don't think the income generated through licensing covers what the Dev team actually puts in in terms of work, although I don't have any figures on that.
This is also a poor attempt at moving the goal post. You just realized that you are not behaving ethically... and instead of sucking up to it and either paying 50$/year for a commercial license or moving on to another product (which most definitely has a licensing model as well) you are hating on an indie software dev team. Go and play with OneNote.
I am not the person writing a manual. Reading comprehension is key to having an intelligent discussion about any topic via text. Please pay attention.
Obsidian says that if I take my own personal meeting notes in Obsidian, that magically makes it commercial use. That is what I'm complaining about.
I explained why I chose Obsidian. I promise you very few people would use it without plugins. It's not terrible or anything, but just lackluster. Without plugins it becomes far less useful. If tomorrow they said they were removing the ability to use plugins, would you continue to use Obsidian without them? I doubt it.
It does matter because you made it about devs "needing" compensation. If you believe that, then it should translate to the people actually making Obsidian stand out: the plugin creators. No?
You have no idea what moving the goalposts means. I am just extrapolating from your own stance. I already said I'm abandoning Obsidian. You seemed to think that was crazy, but also don't seem to understand why Obsidian is hurt more by this decision than I am.
my own personal meeting notes
... are work-related and thus fall under commercial use.
You seemed to think that was crazy, but also don’t seem to understand why Obsidian is hurt more by this decision than I am.
How is Obsidian hurt by you not using it? The only way I see is through the threats you made to "warn other people", this would be vindictive damage done by you against an indie developer team, who made a private pet project of theirs available to the public.
Finally you catch up. My own personal work notes; I don't share them with anyone or anything like that. They are just to help me remember what was said in the meeting. That is not usually how "commercial use" is defined.
I imagine Obsidian gets a lot of user via word of mouth. It's definitely how I found it. And yeah, I'm going to point out anytime it comes up that the licensing is very broad and that if the intent is to be a second brain, to keep looking or pay. Does that sound vindictive? It seems pretty helpful to me. None of it is inaccurate. I certainly won't be recommending it.
My own personal work notes; I don’t share them with anyone or anything like that. They are just to help me remember what was said in the meeting. That is not usually how “commercial use” is defined.
This definitely falls under commercial use. You are using it as a tool in your work.
the licensing is very broad
It is not. The licensing also offers free use for many applications where other software might charge you a full license anyway.
that if the intent is to be a second brain, to keep looking or pay
Again... personal use is free.
I certainly won’t be recommending it.
You do you, but don't frame your entitlement for free use of products within commercial use as a righteous crusade against an evil indie developers team. It is not. Neither is the Obsidian dev team malicious or in any way exploitive in their licensing model nor is there any ambiguity for what constitutes commercial use. If you were to argue your case against Microsoft, or any other BigTech Giant, I would be on board with you, but in Obsidian's case your criticism is not applicable.
It definitely falls under their definition of commercial use, yeah. But usually commercial use means "if a company is mandating it be used". I can tell the licensing is insane because they don't require this if it's freelance work. What is the difference between me, one dude at my company, taking personal notes via obsidian, and some freelance developer using it in their business? Why does the number of people working at my employer make my use commercial?
The licensing is very broad for the reasons I stated above.
Second brain inevitably includes work-related stuff. So, no, not free for that use, right?
I never called anyone evil or malicious. This is a strawman. Their licensing is unexpectedly broad, and it's frustrating because I thought I'd found a second-brain solution, but it turns out I have not. I assumed (incorrectly!) that Obsidian didn't care how their notetaking app was used, and leveraged the sync feature and the publish feature to make income. I set up my own sync solution (using a plugin!).
The funny thing is that I have gladly paid for this kind of thing before; it's not even really the money-- it's how ridiculous the licensing is. It only makes sense if they meant it like I said above. Like, if I were to mandate that my team all use Obsidian, then I'd need to pay for commercial use, and buy a license for each team member-- that makes sense to me.
But usually commercial use means “if a company is mandating it be used”
That is wrong. Commercial use is a very clearly defined legal term.
Source: I work in software asset management and you wouldn't believe the insane and sometimes malicious licensing models that actually exist, while you complain about and blow up this very benign issue.
What is the difference between me, one dude at my company, taking personal notes via obsidian, and some freelance developer using it in their business? Why does the number of people working at my employer make my use commercial?
If you are a freelancer, then you have to pay for all of your expenses yourself. The devs are in a similar situation and they know how hard it is, to keep yourself afloat, when software licenses are sometimes incredibly expensive.
If you are working in a company with two or more employees, then your employer has to provide and pay for any commercially used licenses that you require for your work.
If you are using Obsidian for work and consider getting a license, request it from your employer, explain how it would improve your workflow, save you time, etc. If your employer rejects your application, then you must stick to using the software that your employer provides you with. If that is MS Word, then your employer mandates you to use MS Word (or pen and paper) for note-taking.
Second brain inevitably includes work-related stuff. So, no, not free for that use, right?
Are work and private life not separate areas of life? Which would belong in separate vaults? And does your employer not provide you with a separate computer for work? Are you using your personal computer for work or are you using your work computer for personal stuff? If it's the former you almost sound like a freelancer, if it's the latter, then you shouldn't do that.
If you just write about work in your diary notes or hold onto an idea for work that you got while grocery shopping, then this is not work use and you are fine, but if you attend a work meeting and take notes using Obsidian, then this is clearly commercial use.
There really is no magic to it. It's not complicated or broad (quite the opposite actually). In the end, you can do what you want, but don't frame indie developers as 'scummy' for trying to make a living, while you profit off of their work. With this I will now end this conversation.
You don't get to end the conversation except by not responding, haha.
You keep using whataboutism as if that matters even a little. It does not. I am aware that there are worse licensing, but what does that matter? I am not using those products, either.
I don't see how this addresses why I should pay for commercial use but a freelancer does not need to. We're both just one person. Why does the size of my company matter if I'm the only one using it? My company would definitely not pay for the license, because they aren't directing me to use Obsidian. This is my point. They notes I take are only for my personal use; I do not share them with anyone at work. Because they're personal.
I do keep separate vaults, but that's just for organization; the tagging situation got out of hand mixing them both in my previous notetaking app. Both vaults are on my phone; only the work-brain is on my work computer. And I do jot down notes during meetings to remember to ask certain questions. Never fear: I'll use some other markdown app for that, haha. I will miss the plugins, though. In fact, you can recreate much of Obsidian in vscode server (self hosted); I used to use that before Obsidian but preferred something that didn't need an internet connection. The plugin is called Foam.
They are scummy because they "need" to get paid but don't pay the plugin developers a cut, and the plugins arguably are the ones bringing value to their application; I confess that this is part of why I never even considered looking to see if there were licensing restrictions. How could they justify accepting payment when they rely so much on free labor from plugin developers to add value to their application? Which is why I made the incorrect assumption that they leveraged their services to make money.
I am not profiting off their work at all. Or, no more than if I were to use a pen and paper to take the same notes. It was just simpler to have everything under the same familiar UI. Oh well.
I am not the person writing a manual. Reading comprehension is key to having an intelligent discussion about any topic via text. Please pay attention.
I would like to write an Operation Manual for municipality’s water system.
Writing comprehension is key to having an intelligent discussion about any topic via text. Please pay attention.
Edit: Apparently I have no reading comprehension. I am sorry. I got confused at some point.
That isn't me! Holy shit. I am not the same person as the OP. How else can I say this? Look at the usernames.
Apparently I have no reading comprehension. I am sorry. I got confused at some point.