We believe that any software should support fundamental digital freedoms. With the rise of cryptography and computer systems, it is now possible to guarantee these freedoms in the world of bits: privacy of thoughts, freedom of speech, right to authorship, and autonomy from software providers. These rights can be encoded into the code, which when open, can be freely verified by anyone. This way, trust among users and developers can be established.
This is our way. By opening our source code, we ensure that our users have complete autonomy and independence from the Any Association. They retain the ability to analyze, compile, and run each software component on their personal machines without relying on external parties. This guarantees uninterrupted access to the tools and data they generate and store, shielding them from any potential restrictions.
We see our products as an open ecosystem where the community can contribute in various ways, not only by committing to the core source code. Contributors can develop integrations, design themes, create use cases for the in-app library, or provide documentation and translations.
FOSS software is developed in such a way that you can build it yourself freely (In other words, you can download the source code and compile the actual application yourself, free of charge). Obsidian doesn’t really work that way. Even if most of the code is available, the full app is only available as prepackaged binaries which might introduce god knows what (and make forking the application impossible).