It is a free country, and in the name of good capitalism, people have the right to create anything legal and sell it. It is just a shame that the poorest group of individuals have to be kept down by having to pay 5 to 10 times for a product that the sighted have access to. We are an "easy target" for a developer out there, and they pat themselves on the back telling themselves that they have done such a good thing, by creating a product that allows us access, and indeed, they may not be making any more than if they had created a slightly popular product for the sighted, but they could contribute more to society by contributing in an open-source environment, and not try to see themselves as altruistic, or otherwise great slayers to the so called plight of the Blind. Glenn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shane" <shane-keyword-speakup.aca783@xxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 11:24 PM Subject: Re: Software speech opinions On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:15:58PM -0500, Glenn Ervin wrote: > I don't like to see profit made on the backs of the disabled. > I believe in capitalism, I would have to, as I have a Bachelor's degree in > Business management, but profit should be made on things like lawn mowers, > not on products which allow the disabled to use off-the-shelf products. > Indeed, greed is at play here, and I look forward to the future of > "Open-Source". I really don't have a problem paying for software I use be it to make otherwise usable software accessible or simply to get a job done. As far as I'm concerned, the makers of access tech can charge any amount they'd like. If it's too expensive, people will either not use it or more likely develope their own solutions which doesn't hurt opensource in the slightest. Not trying to justify closed source software at all as the key advantage of open source for me anyway isn't its free of charge nature but rather for the ability to modify it to suit my needs. For those who think prices are inflated by the greedy corporation, if that were the case and so much profit was being made in the area, why haven't other firms entered the market, driving prices down as a result? S _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
