CoughDrop: This is Going to be Open

Hello! Welcome to the introductory CoughDrop blog post!

This first post isn't an introduction to the (yet-to-officially-be-released) product. That will come later. This post is an introduction to the organization behind the product -- or rather, how that organization will be operating.

Open, that's how. We believe that the free flow of information and ideas is a breeding ground for stellar solutions. We believe that there has been too much isolation and un-openness by technology players in the AAC space. We're tired of it, and we're betting you are too. Competition can be a good thing, but it can really muck up people's lives when it's done wrong. With something as important as an individual's ability to communicate, unhealthy competition is just plain terrible. Let's stop locking things up, stop closing doors, and do the open thing instead.

In future posts I'm sure we'll brag about all of the exciting pieces of the new way of doing things. We'll walk through how features will be driven by the needs and workflows of the users. We'll show off not-yet-released features and wait for your help in making them awesomer. We'll release source code so that others can build on our progress too. We'll push for actual interoperability and device agnosticism. There's plenty of room for improvement in AAC and we're excited to start checking things off the list.

But for starters I just want to make sure it's clear that this is going to be something different. Something open. It's gonna be a great ride and we welcome everyone on board.

Get ready to help us bust some doors wide open.