gnome-speech and proprietory software synthesizers.

[Luke Yelavich <themuso themuso com>]

Hi all.
I have been thinking about gnome-speech, and compiling the software 
synthesizer drivers for proprietory synths, such as DECtalk and Cepstral. 
It has come to my awareness that there may be an issue to do with 
gnome-speech being distributed as a binary package for various distros, 
without the proprietory synth drivers built. If this doesn't make sense, 
perhaps the scenario outlined below may help to get my point across.

A blind/vision impaired user wants to install Linux on their machine. They 
choose a distro to their liking and want to try out Gnopernicus and GNOME. 
They find out that Festival is free and works with Gnopernicus. After 
installing the relevant Festival packages from their distro, they find that 
they don't like the voices.

After doing some research, they find out that they can buy a software 
synthesizer for Linux, which can work with Gnopernicus. So they buy it, and 
install it. However, they can't get it to work with Gnopernicus.

They do more research and find out that gnome-speech needs to be 
re-compiled in order to work with their software synthesizer. However they 
don't feel comfortable and/or don't want to compile from source, which 
makes them feel like the software synth has been a waste of money.

So with the current architecture, is it possible to package a gnome-speech 
package for a distro as is done now, and also have add-on packages which 
can be used to install drivers for proprietory synths?

Let me know if you either don't understand, or want more clarrification.

Regards
Luke