"The Making of OpenVoiceOS: A Journey Through the Open-Source AI Community"
OpenVoiceOS, a new open-source voice-enabled operating system, has emerged as a promising player in the field of artificial intelligence. But its origins are rooted in the journey of another open-source AI project, MycroftAI.
MycroftAI kickstarted its journey in August 2015 with a Kickstarter campaign, with the goal of creating an open-source AI system. Over the next few years, the project saw several important milestones, including the release of the MycroftAI Mimic TTS (Text-to-Speech) engine in February 2016, and the public release of the mycroft-core repositories under GPL license in May of the same year.
However, by October 2017, the mycroft-core repositories were relicensed under Apache 2.0, a move that would set the stage for the formation of new projects.
In January 2018, a new project called personal-backend was released, which was a reverse-engineered MycroftAI backend. It was created by @JarbasAI and was licensed under Apache 2.0, making it simple and permissively licensed. This move enabled new projects to run independently of MycroftAI servers.
By April 2018, another project named neon-core was created, which was a fork of the mycroft-core repositories. @JarbasAI also became a maintainer of the lingua-franca project, which aimed to create a common language model for AI systems.
In Oct 2019, MycroftAI open-sourced its official backend under AGPL license, which was a major move in the open-source AI community. However, due to its complexity, the AGPL license limited its adoption, leading to the formation of new projects.
In Mar 2020, Michael Lewis became the CEO of MycroftAI, and the company started neglecting community contributions. This led to the creation of the OpenVoiceOS community project by @JarbasAI, @AIX, and @j1nx, which was centered around the mycroft-core repositories.
In Oct 2020, MycroftOS was renamed to OpenVoiceOS - Mycroft Edition, due to trademark issues. This project adopted the HolmesIV library, which was a fork of the mycroft-core repositories, and aimed to create a new voice-enabled operating system.
By January 2023, MycroftAI went bankrupt and partnered with NeonAI to maintain the mycroft-core repositories. The OpenVoiceOS project, on the other hand, continued to thrive and evolve, building upon its roots in the open-source AI community and striving to create a new, accessible, and community-driven voice-enabled operating system.
In conclusion, the journey of OpenVoiceOS is a testament to the power and potential of the open-source AI community. Despite its roots in the MycroftAI project, OpenVoiceOS has evolved into a new, vibrant project that is shaping the future of voice-enabled operating systems.