FreeSoft Project Update

Thu Feb 19 16:33:22 MST 2004

Hello all.

Sabahattin, thank you very much for your post, which I feel is a good
and needed summary of the loosely scattered posts to this list.

As for the reflector, below is a snipit of message 68 from the
archives.

Going to
http://lwl.romuald.net.eu.org/notelinux.html
, will show who is currently on the reflector (if anyone).

If you go to
lwl.romuald.net.eu.org:2074
(the default speak freely port), you will reach the echo server. The
echo server will send any speech you send to it back to you, so that
you may test your sound setup.

If you go to
lwl.romuald.net.eu.org:4074
, you will be able to get in on the fun.

Also, the following info comes from message 71.

I have added info about how to get onto our speak freely reflector to
the info available about our list.

To access this information, send a blank message with no subject to:
notelinux-info at romuald.net.eu.org
. I have also posted the windows program for speak freely, as well as
a tar ball with the speak freely source made by me from the
linux-speakup.org cvs on my ftp site:
ftp://ftp.romuald.net.eu.org/pub/speakfreely
.

The original speakfreely code and pages are moved now to sourceforge
from what I understand, but I don't know the URL off the top of my
head.

Also, if you have time to chat, but see nobody on the reflector,
please connect anyway if you'll be staying on your pc for a
while. That way, anyone else willing to chat during this time will
have someone to chat to. 

I haven't been spending much time at my pc lately, so I haven't gotten
on the reflector, but it appears as if nobody else had
either. However, when I'm at the keyboard, I do connect to the
reflector, even if there is nobody else there at the time.

Regards,
Greg

On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:07:49AM -0000, Sabahattin Gucukoglu wrote:
> Hi people,
> 
> The Linux on BrailleNote project has reached an apparently quite 
> significant impass.  As such, I feel obliged to narrate it to all of you 
> on behalf of your project developers.
> 
> The situation, basically, is that PulseData has not given us the good 
> stuff we want - hardware specifications, interface information, all 
> necessary to begin legitimate development of the project.  Since knowing 
> this information from PulseData will benefit us significantly in both 
> progress and knowledge of a development schedule, we have obviously been 
> anxious to allow as much opportunity, providing for as much inexcusable 
> delay as possible, for PulseData to "Get back to us".  Needless to say, 
> they have not.  We may be getting the same treatment as the previous 
> effort got in this position.
> 
> We have yet to consult over when, and how, we will be proceeding.  We 
> already agree that we take one of two choices - wait some more, or go bad. 
>  It would have to be very soon, however - we will update you when this 
> happens.  To be absolutely frank, proceeding in an outlawed fashion, 
> without PDI's help, basically means using rogue techniques to rip out the 
> information we need from these units, somehow or another, which will 
> involve plenty of experimentation and likely also a small amount of 
> reverse engineering or string farming.  Tampering with hardware will 
> obviously be a last resort and probably won't happen without a spare unit 
> to hand.  The legal implications of doing so are not as yet due for 
> consideration, though the statutes pertaining to the reverse-engineering 
> of software for the purpose of developing competitive and interoperable 
> software are clearly in our favour both in the UK and US, where the four-
> man development team are situated.  Those interested in clarification 
> should consult legal council.  This will be a last resort and we will 
> naturally undertake it with due disappointment of PulseData.  The 
> undesirable consequence will be an unplanned timespan for the project, as 
> the resulting work will be quite substantial.
> 
> We have already determined that the likelihood of bringing you a clone of 
> the KeySoft suite, inclusive of the Lernout TTS engine, is likely to be 
> very slim - this is because the components of the system under proprietary 
> licenses such as the speech engine will need to be replaced with free 
> software with a free license that would allow us to redistribute it to you 
> in this way.  We will, of course, do our very best to keep to PulseData's 
> ease-of-use tradition and add power as we go, and we hope not to make you 
> unlearn much of what you already know.  We may be able to give you certain 
> choices about how you run the unit, which may involve commercial or 
> proprietary software paid for and installed by yourself, and we will of 
> course notify you.  This is a clear port, a transition from Windows CE to 
> the free, open source Linux, to the max extent possible.  We're determined 
> to do this, so we hope you find it enjoyable!
> 
> In related news, we have named the software which runs on your BrailleNote 
> under the Linux kernel by the name FreeSoft.  This is a reflection of the 
> license and classification of software you will be running.  Free Software 
> refers to freedom of rights, not necessarily price.  Please note that we 
> will not be charging you for this software!  Think "Free speech, not free 
> beer."  This means you can do what you feel like with the software, 
> including copy it, distribute it, modify it, recompile it and study the 
> source code of it, just to name a few, and are granted the right to do so 
> under Copyright.  The license naturally prevents commercial exploitation 
> of the code, proprietarship of the code, or inclusion of the code in other 
> projects not under the same license.  Free Software is one particular type 
> of open source software.  Another organisation, called the Open Source 
> Initiative, would like to see the pragmatics of open source benefit it - 
> these namely being the cost, the benefits of development and inovation, 
> the security of software, and so on.  The OSI maintains a list of 
> licenses, including the GNU General Public License, which it considers 
> pertinent to open source development.  For more information about the Free 
> Software Foundation and to read the GNU General Public License - the 
> license under which the software will be given to you - please visit 
> http://www.fsf.org/ .  To read about the Open Source Initiative, please 
> visit http://www.opensource.org/ .  You will find that although these 
> organisations disagree on why software should be open source, 
> fundamentally, they both agree on the final result.  We think you'll 
> agree, too.
> 
> Unrelated news - Speakup now has a Keynote PC driver.  If you have a 
> Keynote PC card installed on your ISA bus (an old-fashioned card slot) 
> inside your PC, Speakup will now drive it.  This driver only works 
> Speakup, and there's a desire in the wild to have a generic Keynote PC 
> card driver, similar to that available in the kernel for the Accent PC and 
> Echo.  I am also going to resume work on finding the range values for the 
> Keynote synthesiser family, and give this information to whoever needs it -
>  this means that the BrailleNote could be your external synthesiser for 
> Speakup, BRLTTY and other Linux console screen readers, and the 
> information will help those with drivers for the Keynote PC and VC for the 
> same.  Speaking of the VC, a PCMCIA card, I will look into a card services 
> client driver to drive it so that it too can be made to behave like a 
> Keynote SA.
> 
> Finally, there's been an interest in dispelling some of the clouds around 
> us, and breaking the ice a little, by inviting all of you to join and chat 
> with us using SpeakFreely on the reflector.  SpeakFreely is a voice-over-
> IP client, or voice chat program that uses your internet connection, your 
> speakers or headset and a microphone.  The reflector is set up, and I'll 
> leave it to Greg to explain the details to you.  We would like to hear 
> from you, please, if you are interested and so that we can arrange times 
> that would work for people to do some serious talking.
> 
> Well, that's all for now.  Get in touch with us if you have questions.
> 
> Cheers,
> Sabahattin
> -- 
> Thought for the day:
>     A penny saved is ridiculous.
> 
> Latest PGP Public key blocks?  Send any mail to:
> <PGPPublicKey at sabahattin-gucukoglu.com>
> 
> Sabahattin Gucukoglu
> Phone: +44 (0)20 7,502-1615
> Mobile: +44 (0)7986 053399
> http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
> Email/MSN: <mail at Sabahattin-Gucukoglu.com>
> 

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