@dae I can only support the previous statements of gratitude and appreciation for all you have done for this project! To follow in your footsteps will be a daunting task.
@AnkiHub @dae some questions that come to mind for me:
- Why transition the stewardship to AnkiHub as a company and not to an independent foundation with AnkiHub as a corporate sponsor?
I can’t remember a “privatisation” (in quotes, since it’s obviously not the best word here) of a FOSS project that ended well; the successful transitions that come to my mind were of the latter kind.
A more robust add-on ecosystem. We’d love to build tools that empower non-technical users to customize Anki for their needs, and we’re exploring add-ons that work everywhere, including mobile.
- I would love some technical clarifications on the plans of how you intend to achieve this. For example, Obsidian only has plugins on mobile because it is an Electron app, i.e., in essence a nicely wrapped web browser with only one website.
One very big advantage of Anki’s add-on ecosystem is that it allows effectively arbitrary code execution on the user’s machine, which one the one hand is a huge security risk, but on the other hand also allows for an incredible amount of flexibility.
I worry that a slogan like “add-ons everywhere“ results in a two-tier ecosystem, half as-is, half proprietary, where only a select few add-ons are available on mobile.
Will Anki remain open source?
Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source […].
- What is “Anki’s core code“ in this context? The full ankitects/anki GitHub repo? Any other code (iOS / AnkiWeb) will remain closed source?
Are there any changes planned to Anki’s pricing?
No. We are committed to fair pricing that supports users rather than exploiting them. Both Anki and AnkiHub are already profitable. Any future decisions will be made with community benefit, user value, and long-term project health in mind.
- The cynic in me says that “community benefit, user value, and long-term project health“ could be used to justify a lot of things.
Can you commit to AnkiWeb and the sync services remaining free as they currently are?
Will there be a public governance model, advisory board, or other accountability structure?
We’re exploring what makes sense here, and we don’t want to rush it.
- I am a bit saddened by the fact that this transition comes so out of nowhere. With changes in governance still being in the “exploration“ phase, especially with such a huge rearrangement, I feel like this whole project is a bit rushed without the care and sensitivity required for such a delicate undertaking.
The fact that the question about the timeline is effectively answered with “we have no timeline” does not help either.
Can you give a specific timeline of when we can expect the accountability structure to be in place?
What new resources will Anki gain through this transition?
The biggest change is bandwidth by enabling more people to work on Anki without everything being bottlenecked through a single person. This will take time, but will eventually translate into more engineering, design, and support capacity.
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What design issues do you currently see as most critical?
In my daily usage, I definitely encounter difficulties where I have to help friends and classmates with the stuff they want to do. However, in some ways, I also appreciate the complexity of Anki. It is “professional” level software for people who want to take digital flashcards seriously. Usability is not necessarily the absolute priority, but capabilities are (like for example the ffmpeg cli interface).
I would love some more concrete examples of where you want to spend resources on in this regard. -
Finally, integrating AnkiHub into Anki itself is not a new idea. With AnkiHub now taking Anki development under its wings, what assurances can you give that similar integrations of successful add-ons (e.g. ImageOcclusion) will also be possible for other community-driven projects? If not integrating add-ons, can you assure that the “clear API“ you want to develop remains as powerful as the (admittedly hard to wield) current API?
I hope that the future of Anki will be bright and wish this community the best of luck!