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Empowering the world with open technologies
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Charlie Irish

Bloom - A free and open source Google

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To bring an answer to the universal and unprecedented challenges of our century, we have created a free and open source 'Google': Bloom
Currently a suite of productivity apps, it'll be tomorrow the only ecosystem you will need to meet your daily needs.

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Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
Hi, I did not expect being hunted, but I'm really honored :) Be aware it's a Beta, so please do not store sensitive data ;) You can learn more about how we plan to make open source software sustainable by reading the master plan: https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloo...
Owen Yin

⁣"helps you capture and prioritize ideas, projects and to-do lists, so nothing falls through the cracks" copied from Evernote⠀ "Take note. It's easy to pull up your content from anywhere." copied from OneNote⠀ "Keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos and more." copied from Google Drive⠀ "Your files in Drive can be reached from any smartphone, tablet or computer. So wherever you go, your files follow." copied from Google Drive⠀ "If something happens to your device, you don't have to worry about losing your files or photos" copied from OneDrive⠀ "you don't need to download any program, all you need is a common browser." copied from BitPort

Pros:

Open-source focus

Cons:

Significant portion of their app descriptions are copied from the very apps they're trying to compete against.

Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
Hi, Thank you for the honest feedback. As being myself primarily a tech person, I don't have much marketing skills so here is why I took some shortcuts for the Beta. Some makers call it outsourcing ;)
Chris Backe
@sylvain_kerkour outsourcing and copying are two very different things. Also, copying is not a shortcut. Some companies file lawsuits for copying less than that. Consider this a thing to fix ASAP.
Sylvain Kerkour
@chrisbacke Hi, you are totally right! I doubt any serious lawyer would call it copyright infringement but you are totally right on the substance, and you can be sure it will be fixed ASAP, (But real bugs will be fixed before :)
Owen Yin
@sylvain_kerkour glad you're engaging with feedback from the PH community :) To emphasize, your product should have its own distinct identity—take the classic example of Coke vs Pepsi. Both sell the same soft drink product but have distinct branding. Challenging you to take the harder path of defining your own identity instead of mirroring others!
Kyle
Do you think you're going to run into legal trouble by directly calling yourself an open source 'Google', using Google's colors for your logo, and several other things they could claim is an infringement on their trademark?
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@kraftykyle Hi, Thank you for the feedback. If I committed any kind of legal infringement I will happily fix. Currently the logo is as it because my graphic designer friend didn't had much time (exams) and as not being a graphic designer myself, I just followed the material design spec, which is the only extensive open system design I'm aware of :)
jamesmudgett
Would be great to see the tools before signing up.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@jamesmudgett Thank you for the feedback. Be sure I will add it to the roadmap! 📅
Greg Wehmeyer
Yeah, you need to show people what they're walking into before you ask them to commit. Even if it's just real screen grabs.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@gregw Thank you for the feedbak. It's a recurring comment, so be assured I will add it to the roadmap!
Florian Gaefke
Please don’t make it look like Google. Your logo is nice but looks like a Google product.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@floriangaefke Hi, Thank you for the feedback. Currently the logo is as it because my graphic designer friend didn't had much time (exams) and as not being a graphic designer myself, I just followed the material design spec, which is the only extensive open system design I'm aware of :)
Primer
surprised that this has no comments and so few upvotes.
Chris Villa
I like this idea in principal, since I love open source, but I don’t understand how you are planning on building and maintaining “Google” like services without even a modicum of their resource. The products already listed on your website are already numerous, and Google will have had large teams working on each of these products for several years. I can’t see how you’re realistically going to be able to offer even a fraction of what Google offers unless you have some serious capital. Some questions: 1. How big is your team? 2. Do you have funding? 3. Are you relying on the open source community to come together and build these products? 4. Something else?
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@chrisvxd Hi, Thank you for the kind words. As explained in the master plan https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloo... ( yeah I admit it's very long), we do not seek to imitate Google. I've dared the comparison to set the reference at which kind of impact we plan to have on the world. 1. Currently 2 full time 2. Currently self funded (and enough to keep the work going for years), but as said in the master plan, we conciliate the best of the startuplaland religion and open source, So if funding is needed there we do not have problems with that (we are relatively well connected in France: 42, EDHEC...). As explained in the masterplan, we have plan for short term enterprise products to sustain our growth :) 3. Yes, We truly believe that's the power of open source : Sharing and global scale collaboration 4. I really did not expected such traction for the beta launch, please keep in mind that the products currently online are just irrelevant in the long run, our mission is to empower the world with open technologies, whatever product we will build, nothing less.
Vijay Selvaraju
Hey @charlieirish could you add the maker's profile it's https://twitter.com/z0mbie42, he's on product hunt too as @sylvain_kerkour
Amrith
@charlieirish @sylvain_kerkour @vijay_selvaraju he was already added but since the Product Hunt username is not the same as the Twitter one, it didn't show up. Has been fixed now, thanks 🤗
Joe Batutis
It doesn't appear to have search, so the description should probably include what google service replacements it does include.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@jbatutis Hi, Thank you for the feedback! Done! (I didn't created the post so didn't read the description)
Ina Yosun Chang
got a notice that this was a google competitor, but not seeing it just yet? nice open source platforms of some google services - but missing more interesting things like your own tensorflow, gmail, collaborative docs platform, adsense (okay you don't believe in ads) etc
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@yosun Hi, It's not really a Google competitor, I've dared the 'Google' comparison because in my opinion Google is THE company which change the world, and that's what we aim. Currently released apps are just an implementation detail. Today oriented productivity, we plan to be tomorrow an entire ecosystem. You can imagine having your Bloom open source tractor in a few years :)
Sydney Cohen
Great project excited about it !!
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@chnsydney Thank you very much for the kind words! 🚀
Joel Rothstein
The thing I'm looking for is an opensource google docs that I could embed in my own product(s)
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@joel_rothstein1 Hi Joel, Thank you for the feedback. A Google docs replacement but that can be embed in your own products is another story. I will think about it because your are raising a very good point.
Denis Shershnev
Congrats @sylvain_kerkour You've done great work!
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@eulerr Thank you very much!
Tom Z
This has got to be a joke...
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@tom_z1 hi, Thank you for the concern, Please keep in mind that the product scurrently online are just irrelevant in the long run, our mission is to empower the world with open technologies, whatever product we will build, nothing less.
Ismail Ismaili
thank you for
Göran Svensson
Cool initiative! :-) If you have built it with FaaS you might have a chance to compete with Google. I suppose that adding email and analytics is a bit of a challenge.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@appernetic Hi, Thank you for the kind words! Currently not built using serverless because we have great objections regarding the sustainability of this paradigm, and the Rust language allow us to have very good performance in the Backend. Analytics is not planned (there is already a lot of existing solution, and we are not comfortable with all the privacy implications of such product). Regarding emails, it has been a extremely well requested feature, so there great chances that it will be added to the roadmap, even if it's hard to do it well and securely (IMAP, POP...)
Dailen
Add email and search, maybe duckduckgo integration, and I will gladly make monthly "donations" ala protonmail style
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@dailen Hi, Thank your for the encouragements! Search is not planned, a DDG integration would be nice, but I'm not sure if they have an API to allow that, I will take a look. Regarding emails, it has been a extremely well requested feature, so there great chances that it will be added to the roadmap, even if it's hard to do it well and securely (IMAP, POP...).
Phillip
You are seriously onto something here! If you can iron out some of the details, this will be a very compelling alternative to what's out there currently! I am keeping my eye on this.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@phillipprado Thank you very much for the kind words! You can stay informed by following us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/42bloom :)
Phillip
@sylvain_kerkour Already following! ;)
Chris Hernandez
This would be a fantastic product to see come to fruition. As a tech educator it would be nice to see another service such as Google that could possibly be more trustworthy within an education environment.
Sylvain Kerkour
Maker
@rantulaofficial Thank you very much! As I (almost) graduated from School 42 (https://www.42.fr/) empowering education is one of my mains drivers. I sincerely believe that education (at least in Europe) took the wrong turn by being very expensive and I want to change that!