Good remarks, Tom. I think the only way one could "pick up the package for a fee and drop it in and play" would be to buy from a corperate giant like Microsoft. Sounds an awful lot like windows don't it. I find the free modle to be much more refreshing. Yes, it takes more work to get up and running, there may be more delays as the developers are often not compensated but once it is "out there," more people will jump in and then the maintenance pace picks up and far exceeds the commercial model. Look at DOS screen readers. Look how long they were around and their respective growth pattern; then look at Speakup. How long has that been around? I think it has come a long ways in a short time. Yes, it has a ways to go but look where it is now. I would be really curious to see how long it takes Gnopernicus to progress to the level of the popular windows screen readers today. I'll bet it will only take a couple years and the windows products have been around in some form or another since 1994. On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 05:00:38PM -0400, Thomas Ward wrote: > Hi, Charley. I'd like to make some drastic corrections on some comments you > made. > > > Charley said: > "Why should we have to do all that installing and compiling to > simply get x-windows to talk right?" > > My reply: > Cause, Gnome 2.0, and gnopernicus is under development, and is not to be > used by the general public at this time. > It is not ready for people like you to use, and it is assumed the developers > will be working with it. > That is the reason it is not built, and out there for just anyone to install > and use. > > Charley said: > "but it just drives me up a wall to think that we could have funded good > work and gotten it done much more quickly." > > my reply: > Like how? I mean many people are putting time and money into the Gnome 2.0 > project which goes beyond Linux and will give access to Unix platforms as > well as Linux. > Without the speech hooks no screen reader could ever hope to read Gnome > applications or the desktop. > Do you think the people on the speakup list are rushing forward to do all > that work for Gnome? > > Charley said: > "If we just bought > the package and had the access in the box, then how much money would we > not have to spend on another conference on how come we are not working?" > > My reply: > Well, once Gnome 2.0 and gnopernicus is complete and ready for general usage > every Linux operating system has the choice to include it in there box > distribution. Some like Red Hat, Mandrake, and Suse have already made plans > to do just that as soon as gnopernicus is released to them to be included in > their distributions. > It also is not tied to a hardware ssynth which brings down cost for the end > user, cross platform portibility, and works in a gui environment similar to > MS Windows which in many respects is easier to train former Windows users > in. > > Sumerry: > I think you should get all your facts strait before getting on the list, and > ranting and raving about things you don't know what your talking about. > Find out the goals of a group, their plans, and do some research before > crucifying a group for doing pore work when you haven't done zilch to > research it. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
