Stract: Independent and Open Search
Stract: Independent and Open Search
stract.com
Stract
I just found this search engine while searching for something like Kagi.
It seems like it is not a meta search engine, but one with its own index. Awesome.
It has kagi's manual website ranking. It even has so called optics (like Kagi's lenses), for example an optic for the Fediverse lets you search only the fediverse.
What do you think?
Just as a warning, this is licensed under the AGPL, with a CLA that requires copyright assignment. So, they could pull the rug at any time:
Quickest peak and then utter vanishing of any interest in a project I've had in a while.
Wouldn't mind something a little more open than SearXNG in that it owns it's own database, but requiring that they be the sole owner of anything anyone contributes AND having the ability to yank the rug at any time they feel like it pretty much puts it in the meh-who-cares category.
Had enough stupid shit yanked over the past few years that I really just don't care or have time to deal with any that is already prepping for their eventual enshittification.
I'm not sure if you people are paying attention to the right thing. It's fairly common to do this. And it doesn't mean they can take away anything. Everything will still be AGPL and still available. Someone is then going to fork it and maintain it as it happened with lots of other projects. This just means they're also able to also sell it under different conditions, including your patches and contributions.
I think what you should pay attention to is, whether the search index is open or closed. That's something with significant impact. Not if they're able to monetize your small bugfix without paying you. I mean that'd be nice, too. But not a super big thing unless you contribute a substancial amount of code. I mean you get a whole open source search engine in return for signing away your copyright. And it doesn't change anything for the people using the software. For them it's still AGPL. And the maintainer could stop developing the software at any point, anyways. Could (and does) also happen to projects without a CLA.
This how people end up on the foss purist path... Been hurt too many times for be trusting any bros again.