I agree with you, but when you say schools, you mean the government.
They provide the majority of funding schools use for that sort of thing.
I did not think of a grant writer. That sounds like a good place to
start.
--Kelly Prescott
On Thu, 27 Apr 2017, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
Tony Baechler here.
Your comments again emphasize the need for a nonprofit organization. I
wouldn't worry too much about the money. Funding will happen once the word
gets out. Oh, it takes time and it won't be immediate, but it can and will
happen. What we need is a grant writer. The government issues grants. There
are many private companies who put lots of funding into Linux. Most major
projects have outside funding. If Mozilla had to survive only on donors, they
wouldn't. Debian gets lots of money and servers from HP Enterprise and many
other companies. You're right that the Windows guys get their money mostly
from the government, but not all. Schools are a lot of the market.
As I said before, start young. Get on social media where teens and young
people are and show them that there is another choice besides Windows and the
Mac. Even if they aren't programmers, they are potential users. One of the
reasons why the Apple II became so successful was because it was given to so
many schools. How many of you grew up on the Apple II in the classroom? There
was a company called Raised Dot Computing. They wrote and sold Bex and other
programs. They were a commercial business. When they started, they had no
money. All of their newsletters are online and well worth reading if you care
about the history of technology for the blind. They hired a grant writer.
After getting several grants, they were able to fund development of their
software, like Braille Edit which became Bex, a program to make AppleWorks
accessible and eventually Mega Dots for the PC. The point is it can be done
and it wouldn't be that difficult, especially with a good social media
presence.
On 4/24/2017 4:56 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
Kelly Prescott here.
The reason Windows has better accessibility, is that the government has
largely funded it. FS and all the other players get a large percentage of
there purchases from VR dollars which is the good old tax payer!
So while a private company developes it, Uncle Sam really foots the bill!
I only say that to show how hard it is to get accessible software built
and
maintained.
I am working on a UEFI boot loader that talks from bootup. I am going to
release it as open source.
The thing is: I have to feed me and mine durring this effort.
This means that I work on borring normal projects most of the time, and my
boot loader when I have spare time.
I think there are several developers me among them who would do this full
time, but if there is no money in it, then we must continue to work on our
normal jobs/projects until we either have time to work on it or we find
some
good funding to pay for it.
Unfortunately, I do not know of good ways to obtain lots of money for
part-time developers. There is only so much free time and free work to go
around.
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