Hello everyone.

Today I just would like to make an announcement for people who are following any of the projects I am involved in. Throughout this year, which is about to end, many things have come up. There have been new opportunities, as well as other projects to which I have not been able to dedicate as much time as I would like. Not to mention new occupations, responsibilities and tasks that I have been taking on in my current job. The overall summary of this year is that it has been one where everything has been very strange. When the year started, I had no idea that I would end up delving into Skills Development for Alexa, or that this development would end up appearing somewhere beyond my Twitter account. But in the end everything has run its course, and that’s why starting next year, all the software projects I was developing so far, will become part of a new project. This project, which I have already talked about on Twitter, is my own software company, called MCV Software.

What is going to change?

If you have followed any of my projects so far and you are wondering what is going to change now that everything will be developed, formally, by “MCV Software” instead of Manuel cortez, the answer is nothing. The MCV Software initiative, which in Mexico will be constituted as a Limited Liability Company, has been formed with the idea of participating in local initiatives to develop software solutions that can benefit from some support offered by several companies in the sector. Especially, this initiative has been formed after the collaboration and advice I received from some people from the Alexa Skills team in Mexico, because in this way we will be able to take advantage of more things and deepen the collaboration in this and other fields. But for long-time users of some of the projects in which I participate, this change will mean nothing more than a name change.

What will change, however, is the distribution of the software projects on this website. From January next year, on my personal page, which is the one you are reading right now, I will not host any software project that I am currently developing. Instead, in the main menu, you will be able to find a link to visit MCV Software, where you will be able to see the software with its newest versions, as well as announcements when releasing new versions, documentation and tutorials on how to use the applications and general development news. In the future, I would like to offer not only software through MCV Software, but also courses and training on topics that are considered of general interest, although this content would be firstly ofered in Spanish.

Software licensing

An important aspect that we also defined during the creation of MCV Software was the general license under which the software would be governed. Both the current projects and the projects that will be released in the immediate future. My position on this point has not changed much. From the very first application I developed, I was determined to release it under a license that allowed free distribution of all content, both the executables that can be distributed to users and the source code files necessary for the program to be built and modified. At the time, I felt it was the right thing to do and I wanted to give back some of what the software development community had contributed to me, since much of what I was able to learn in application development had been thanks to finding and reading available source code from other projects. So I felt that one way to say thank you was to make my own source code available to anyone who wanted to study it. With that same ideas, I released TWBlue, Socializer and later I published the source code of MusicDL, although I admit that initially I had not planned to do so.

Now, when MCV Software is legally incorporated, the development model will be identical. Although, logically, there will be software that will not be released as open source. But what is certain, is that I still believe that the right thing to do is to make quality software available for free, as long as the software helps people to interact in a better way with technology, which is the main passion behind these years of development.

Lastly, I want to thank you all and say that a big part of the reason I can afford to publish software without receiving compensation for it has been thanks to the donations that people often make to any of my projects. It may seem insistent to see a dialog asking to donate if possible, but thanks to people who can contribute a dollar, two dollars a month, it makes a big difference. Any form of contribution is also important, of course. Sharing or using the projects that have been published on this website, and that will now become part of MCV Software, is already enough support. Thank you for that. And thanks for the constructive communication. Nothing will change at MCV Software, if not for the better.