Re: gnome-speech and proprietory software synthesizers.

["Tom and Esther Ward" <tward1978 earthlink net>]

Well, perhaps Gnome.org would be willing to have a gnome-speech bin section
where say I could make Mandrake gnome-speech rpms with all the synths,
someone else could submit Debian packages, etc and have people who want a
bin of all the drivers download it from gnome.org.
that's really the only way I can see getting around having to make all the
distributions purchase licensed copies of the synths, or do with out.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Mulcahy" <Marc Mulcahy Sun COM>
To: "Tom and Esther Ward" <tward1978 earthlink net>
Cc: "Luke Yelavich" <themuso themuso com>;
<gnome-accessibility-list gnome org>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:51 AM
Subject: Re: gnome-speech and proprietory software synthesizers.


> Hi Luke,
>
> The difficulties in gnome-speech are a bit complex - if you make a spec
> file that builds various gnome-speech packages, such as:
>
> gnome-speech
> gnome-speech-devel
> gnome-speech-java
> gnome-speech-festival
>
> etc...
>
> Using this sort of spec file, the source RPM will only build on a system
> where all the supported TTS engines are installed.  And since some of them
> are proprietary, the free distributions won't touch such a spec file or
> source rpm.  So if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  I'm a
> bit stumped on this issue.
>
> Marc
>
>
> On Tue, 11 May 2004, Tom and Esther Ward wrote:
>
> > Hi, Luke.
> > That is a very good point, and one I have thought about many times
myself.
> > Iam fortunate that I am able to compile gnome-speech from source, and
can
> > make Mandrake rpm packages with the extra drivers included.
> > However, Mandrake and I suspect other Linux distributions would not want
the
> > extra drivers included as the supported other synths are not Open source
and
> > don't want the legal entanglements.
> > I am facing this very problem with some blind users out my way that want
to
> > get involved with gnopernicus and the gnome desktop, but they refuse to
use
> > festival because they hate the sound of the speech. Personally, I kind
of
> > like festival, but the users out this way want Dectalk.
> > So I end up remotely compiling gnome-speech over again with the proper
> > drivers.
> > I guess the big issue is that blind users that come from Windows expect
> > gnopernicus to have all sorts of braille drivers, speech drivers, all
> > bundled together with the screen reader like Jaws, Window Eyes, etc, but
> > that isn't how it is do to being under the GPL.
> > I don't mind doing the compiles myself for myself, but I see gnopernicus
> > will be a hard sell to most blind users that freak out when the words
source
> > and compile come up.
> > I really don't know what the answer will be for those users who want
> > everything bundled nice for a specific distribution, but I imagine those
of
> > us users could build our own Linux packages and put them out somewhere
for
> > public download.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Luke Yelavich" <themuso themuso com>
> > To: <gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>;
> > <gnome-accessibility-list gnome org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:51 AM
> > Subject: gnome-speech and proprietory software synthesizers.
> >
> >
> > > 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
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
> > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
> > >
> >
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> >
>