This argument on whether speech is necessary from early boot or not has been going on since very shortly after I released the first version of speakup back in 1998. For people that are not techies and are just happy to have access at some point once the system is up such as Windows users it is not necessary and they wonder why the fuss. For those folks that are techies or are dedicated to the idea that speech is important and necessary from the time the computer is turned on, it is imperative. I think by now everybody knows my position on the topic. I also happen to believe that a user space set of screen readers would be very useful and provide users choice of the software they use. I however, am not interested in writing one. If others wish to do that it would be wonderful just as the 'X' packages are wonderful. I will continue to modify and when time permits improve speakup. I will eventually have 2.6.22 and up support. We have been discussing how to best achieve that goal and we would enjoy knowledgeable opinions on how to do it. Currently we are thinking about registering each serial port as we do now and then use the standard tty discipline to access the ports. This will hopefully allow us to eventually get USB access as well. This is a major amount of rewrite though so it won't be soon. I have very limited time to work on speakup because of other obligations so don't hold your collective breath. The folks developing the Icon at Levelstar are talking about developing a user space screen reader but I don't know if it will be open source or not. Considering their lack of open source software to date I wouldn't hold your breath on that either. Kirk -- Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario phone: (519) 661-3061
