@feld it's about strategy, not purity. It's worth planting tomatoes for next month even when you can buy them from a corporate big box store today.
You'd think #FOSDEM would be the sort of place where a #GSoC student would learn about the relevant #FreeCode projects I found a bunch of article about with a quick web search.
#VoiceRecognition:
* https://fosspost.org/alternative-software/developers/open-source-speech-recognition-speech-to-text
* https://www.goodfirms.co/blog/best-free-open-source-speech-recognition-software
* https://www.ubuntupit.com/best-open-source-speech-recognition-tools-for-linux/