this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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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.
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.
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.