Your archive outlives us.
Tellings is built as a 30-year vessel between you and the child you're raising. That promise can't depend on whether our company is still around when they're old enough to read it.
So we wrote a contract that makes it survive us. Here's what it says, in plain English.
What we promise
- 01Your recordings are yours — always.Audio, transcripts, photos, books. We're the custodian, not the author.
- 02If we shut down, the code goes open source.You can run Tellings yourself on Supabase + Vercel for the cost of a coffee a month.
- 03You get six months' notice and your full archive before anything stops.Delivered at 90 days, 30 days, and on the day — FLAC + AAC audio, Markdown transcripts, JPEG photos, book PDFs.
- 04Printed books on your shelf don't need us at all.Hardcover, QR codes to the originals. Works whether we exist or not.
That's the pact. If you want the mechanics, they’re below.
How this works in detail
The trigger
The kill switch fires if any of these are true:
- Grindstone Labs ceases operations — bankruptcy, dissolution, or formal wind-down.
- We're acquired by someone who announces or implements paywalls on recording, transcription, storage, or export.
- We change the constitution to paywall the core archive, without 6 months' notice and a successful amendment.
- Don, as sole founder, declares it triggered.
What happens within 30 days
The code goes public.
Tellings' core archive code is released under Apache 2.0 to a designated GitHub repository. Access keys are held in escrow with Don's spouse, reviewed annually.
What's released:
- The mobile app (React Native + Expo)
- The backend API (Next.js)
- Database schema and migrations
- Audio storage pipeline
- Transcription pipeline
- Export and self-host migration tools
What's not (because it isn't core to the archive): AI chapter prompts, Lulu print integration, payment processors.
A one-click self-host tool is published.
You spin up your own Tellings on Supabase + Vercel, import your archive from the export bundle, and keep going. You pay only direct vendor costs.
You get six months and three exports.
Active users receive at least 6 months notice before any service termination, with a full export delivered automatically at 90 days out, 30 days out, and on the final day.
What survives a shutdown
- Every parent's archive: audio (FLAC + AAC), transcripts, photos, accepted chapters, printed books,
manifest.jsonwith checksums - The open-source code, to run a private instance
- Printed books in your possession — independent of any digital service
- QR codes in printed books, as long as you self-host or migrate
What doesn't
- AI chapter generation as a managed service (you can run your own model if you want)
- Reorders of past books through Lulu (you can take the PDF to any printer)
- Email support and onboarding
- The marketing site at tellings.app
What makes this binding
The kill switch is written into the Grindstone Labs LLC operating agreement:
- The escrow holder has the legal authority to release the GitHub repository if any trigger condition is met.
- The 6-month wind-down notice is a contractual obligation to active users — not just a constitutional one.
- Any acquirer must inherit the kill switch as a non-removable provision. Refusing it is itself a trigger.
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Parents need to know — before they record their child's first words — that those recordings will exist for their child to read at 25, regardless of what happens to us.
Article IV § 1.1 · Changes require 6 months notice