The open source DOCX editor submitted to HN a few weeks ago has been deleted

46 points | by gcanyon 3 hours ago

13 comments

  • tekacs 1 hour ago
    The original source (matching the latest published NPM version) is still at https://github.com/mhurhangee/patrick/tree/main/packages and Apache-2.0, so I imagine that someone who'd like a copy can pick it up from there.
  • anenefan 2 hours ago
    This link should be enough to work out the relevant links. [1]

    I would guess that they have lost access to a resource lately ... I've read there's a lot of that going around atm.

    [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thisisjedr

  • nathanstitt 1 hour ago
    Also not affiliated but my open-source tinycld uses docx as the backend storage for its text package. Supports _most_ of the features (including comments and suggestions) but is still very young. It has a golang backend that reads/writes docx and translates to YJS that the editor reads for multi-user access. Has web/iOS/Android support.

    I found docx to be a very well documented format and a surprisingly good fit for this.

    https://tinycld.org has a live demo

  • bratao 1 hour ago
    Not affiliated but I been using https://github.com/superdoc-dev/superdoc and it is very good and compatible with many docx features.
  • gcanyon 3 hours ago
    I can't include the links because HN filters dead links.
  • fsckboy 2 hours ago
    what was that item from just a day or so ago where an opensource project had said they developed using AI, and a developer said "take it down, you copied it from us"

    I thought of it because this project said they used AI

    ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085993 )

  • darkteflon 2 hours ago
    Oh man, that’s disappointing. We implemented this in a test environment and have been hammering on it. Would love to know what’s going on as it solves a real pain point for us.
    • d3Xt3r 2 hours ago
      There's plenty of open-source docx editors though? What makes eigenpal's editor so special?
      • darkteflon 2 hours ago
        Could you recommend your picks in the space?

        Edit (since I can’t seem to reply directly) - to the commenter suggesting LibreOffice below: quite different things. This was a library for implementing reasonably high fidelity docx viewing / editing in the browser.

        • rjsw 2 hours ago
          What is wrong with LibreOffice?
          • nosioptar 1 hour ago
            The classic UI text is too damned small. You cannot easily increase it last time I checked.
          • jubilanti 2 hours ago
            Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha

            How long do you have?

    • gcanyon 45 minutes ago
      I’m in exactly the same boat. I’ll have to look at some of the suggestions here
  • ResiDev 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • archietect 2 hours ago
    [dead]
    • msm_ 2 hours ago
      Github can just instantly take down all forks with a single click of a button.
      • mindcrime 2 hours ago
        This is why you clone a copy to a machine you have full control of!
      • archietect 1 hour ago
        Good to know. Downloaded.
  • hypercain 2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • mindcrime 2 hours ago
      Nothing weird about it. The HN guidelines[1] make it clear, IMO, that while some self-promotion is fine, the intent here is NOT to use the site primarily (or exclusively) for self-promotion. The account that submitted the userplane.io link had only ever submitted two links, and both were to userplane.io. What do you expect to happen?

      Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

      > After a few more experiences like that, I've mostly stopped posting because it doesn't feel like the effort is worth it

      Ironically this is exactly the wrong response. You should post more, but more stuff that's simply intellectually interesting, and not just to promote your own stuff. But if your only reason for being here is self-promotion, then you're right... not worth it. shrug

      [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

      • hypercain 2 hours ago
        > had only ever submitted two links, and both were to userplane.io

        That doesn't appear to be correct. The account's public submission history shows multiple submissions beyond userplane.io. Here's the submission history for reference:

        https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=wizenheimer

        Edit: Looks like my original comment was flagged too, woah

        • mindcrime 2 hours ago
          You're right, I was looking at submissions for userplane.io[1] and over-fixated on it only being submitted twice. My mistake. Nonetheless, the basic principle is the same. Looking at their submission history it appears to be almost all self-promotional and correspondingly many of the submissions are [dead]. As far as I can tell, that's what happens here. (aside: I'm just commenting based on observation of the years, I'm not anybody "official" here or anything).

          [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=userplane.io

    • altairprime 2 hours ago
      Your account was created 5 hours ago, and you’ve already had two Show HNs flagged? That’s ‘email the site mods and ask for participation guidance’ territory. Perhaps you posted them under an account that wasn’t participating otherwise on the site and/or was named after a business rather than a person? In any case, bad form to re-promote your projects in an unrelated new post rather than reaching out to the mods. Adapt your behavior to be 95% contributions of posts and comments that are unrelated to your own projects/investments or else you’ll continue seeing hostility and flags to your work.
  • rolph 2 hours ago
    it is forseeable that MS would be very interested in taking a security stance vs a very possible vector.
    • conartist6 2 hours ago
      I was going to guess that they accused the author of copying code from Office. Was AI used in the project? Perhaps a model regurgitated copyrighted code leading to a sternly worded notice from legal...?
      • conartist6 2 hours ago
        Ooooh yeah. Looking through the author's past posts: "got a lot of skepticism because we're developing heavily with AI"

        So AI was in use. Then the author says that following the spec alone wasn't enough to get it working, they got "active community feedback" and fed that feedback into the AI until it worked just like Word. I have to think that if there were ANY conditions under which a model might output code that Microsoft legal would threaten to sue you for, these would be them

      • sulam 56 minutes ago
        How do you copy code from Office? Is the source code public?
        • slashdave 35 minutes ago
          Today's LLMs are perfectly capable of disassembling.
      • ForOldHack 1 hour ago
        Clearly, it was the fault of the AI, and it should be thrown in jail.
        • conartist6 1 hour ago
          I think this (if it is what happened) is a perfect demonstration of the dynamics. If you use AI to do things you couldn't have done on your own, you're copying off someone else's homework and the real risk is that you don't know who you're copying from, but they probably do.
    • snowwrestler 2 hours ago
      A vector against a standardized XML+ZIP document format?