Like sending your child to kindergarten

We open sourced Chalktalk this week. The link is here.

It’s a big step for our research group, one we didn’t take lightly. When you open source a project, you become responsible for a lot of people being able to use it.

After nearly four years of development, Chalktalk is still really not ready for prime time, but then it probably never will be. By open sourcing it, we can more easily invite other people in to help improve it.

The feeling is both exciting and scary at the same time. I imagine it’s a bit like that first day you send your child off to kindergarten.

You know that sooner or later you need to let go, to stop being overprotective. Yet you also know that your kid might run into bullies at school, and come back home with a bloody nose.

Eventually you realize that every child is better off learning how to deal with the world, bloody noses and all — children eventually need to find their own way in the world. And that’s true even when your child is a software project.

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