Hi all, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been around much lately. I actually finished my formal employment with Mycroft about a month ago, however for a number of reasons I wanted to let things settle before saying my farewell.
This is another pretty hard thing to write… It’s been a long, hard road over the last 4 years that I’ve been here. I know there are people who don’t agree with all the decisions that we made, and with the benefit of hindsight I’m sure we could have done some things differently. However whether that would have ended up at a fundamentally different outcome is anyone’s guess. Maybe I’ll write some blog posts about my learnings over time, we’ll see.
I’m still incredibly proud of what Mycroft (as a project and a company) has achieved over the last 5+ years. So many of the technologies that Mycroft developed and facilitated will continue to live on. They are being used every day by projects all over the world, in a diverse array of languages. I also strongly believe in the Mark II hardware as a quality development platform and can see it being used in a range of deployments running any number of software products.
The first question that I get when telling people that I’m leaving Mycroft is - what’s next for me? And the simple answer is - I don’t know yet. To answer the 2nd most common question - I won’t be joining any Mycroft derivitives or any of the other open source voice assistant frameworks at this time.
Please do not use this thread to promote your project.
I do wish all of these projects the best of luck. I hope that one or more succeed at producing a high quality voice product backed by a sustainable business model. One that enables continued development of open source and privacy respecting software. For many in the community voice technologies are fun, but I firmly believe that for humanity more broadly, it’s a necessity. We need open and private voice technologies to not just exist, but to provide consumer grade alternatives to those funded by surveillance capitalism.
I’ve been taking some time off to rest and re-energise, to spend more time with my family and my young kids, and to dream of new things. I will still be around the community from time and time helping out where I can, however this is on a completely voluntary basis so please be patient. For any urgent queries eg Mark II shipping issues, it’s best to contact support@mycroft.ai.
Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone in the community that has helped build Mycroft to what it is today, and at how much you are willing to help others. I have made so many life long friends. Chatted late into the night, created great content and tooling together, even been invited into your homes. I’m incredibly grateful for all of these connections, and for the open source spirit that you continue to show.
If you want to stay connected with me, the best option right now is on @krisgesling@fosstodon.org.
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