Fwd: [Accessibility] Call to Arms

[Tony Sales]

Hi Guys, again this is a really interesting debate and I am pleased
that it hasn't broken down into a flame war. It shows that GNU/FSF
have slightly different priorities and interests to the disabled,
although there is a lot of overlap in these interests everyone would
like free accessibility software, the difference is how we achieve
this - by focussing all our efforts on free software which might take
a long time and leave disabled people alienated in the short-term (or
longer) but sticking with non-free software can slow down or even
undermine free software development. I think it is the realisation and
acceptance of this conflict of principles and needs etc that has to be
the starting point for understanding and progress. Sticking to a pure
free software route is unacceptable to disabled users who want to work
and get on with their lives. Using non-free software perpetuates it
and undermines the need to develop free software. I don't know what
the solution to this dilemma is, but I am certain this is the problem
we need to wrestle with i.e. what is the best way to meet the needs of
the disabled in the short-term, but the goals of the GNU/FSF in the
mid to longer term???

On 7/26/10, Eric S. Johansson <address@hidden> wrote:
>   On 7/26/2010 3:33 PM, Chris Hofstader wrote:
>>
>>
>> cdh: I've used NaturallySpeaking on Windows and MacSpeech (a DNS based
>> dictation program for Macintosh) on a number of occasions. I admit their
>> recognition quality is pretty good but we can't go in and make them better
>> or
>> add API calls we would like or let some of our scholarly friends try out
>> some
>> new theory that might be a major step forward. With proprietary software,
>> we
>> get what we get.
>
> I agree. But remember, my first goal is to make it better for crips like me.
> See
> the following for a very nice API. Works both with Windows and
> NaturallySpeaking.
>
> http://code.google.com/p/dragonfly/
>
>> cdh: Meanwhile, Nuance is bound by a huge debt burden that came (of
>> course)
>> from acquiring everything from ETI to Dragon to KESI to the Talx guys to
>> SpeechWorks to L&H to some Israeli speech synthesizer to virtually all OCR
>>
>> companies aside from Fine Reader  business  and lots more. While they have
>>
>> incredible market share in most of their business segments, they are
>> laying
>> off high priced hackers and hiring commission based salespeople and are
>> spamming all of we old customers on at least a weekly basis so they can
>> catch
>> up with their interest payments. A lot of their employees are looking hard
>> for
>> other gigs as they can feel the place going bad and I've even heard rumour
>>
>> that ETI might be spun off into the good old Eloquence only company that
>> made
>> the de facto standard speech synthesizer for screen readers.
>
> This raises an interesting opportunity. If it does come to the point of
> collapse/sell off etc., one might be able to successfully argue to the
> bankruptcy court of this product is too valuable to disabled people to lose.
> That the Court should have the rights to it over to some appropriate
> organization for management and development. I'm willing to bet that the
> free
> software foundation could be either such organization or a supporter of
> especially for GPLed everything.
>
> The other thought is that maybe, if somebody has contacted IBM speech
> recognition, maybe they could cut loose the old ViaVoice which is still used
> in
> some circles. It's not up-to-date with technology but it should be usable.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Accessibility mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility
>


-- 
drbongo

Dig that crazy beat on the drums: <http://vinux.org.uk>  The best is
getting better!



-- 
drbongo

Dig that crazy beat on the drums: <http://vinux.org.uk>  The best is
getting better!