FreeLists / ossrp-control / [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go?

["Richard Thomas" <rthomas@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ryan;
Not sure if you're responding to my post but here goes.  First, my old 98 
machine died a few weeks ago so I just picked up XP as well and couldn't 
really afford it either.  The reason I encourage doing the Longhorn thing is 
I think that the XML based system might, indeed, offer many more 
opportunities for accessibility as everything will be defined in a text 
based language if I understand the XML language correctly.  Also, it should 
be ready in about a year or two and it will take that long to develop a 
serious screen reader to access the new technology.  I'm all in favor of a 
group for building a screen reader for XP type systems but the architecture 
is radically diferent and my guess there would be very little overlap 
between the two projects for code swapping etc.  For the first baby steps in 
defining a goal putting a couple of folks on two projects will slow down 
development of a working prototype and might require so much time of each 
that they fall off the project due to other considerations.  I've seen that 
happen on projects of long duration and small financial reward.  Also, there 
is nothing, and is likely to be nothing, for 64 bit processors and Longhorn 
for a couple of years at best from the big guys and currently folks  have 
options for accessing things under Windoweyes, JAWS and HAL, not to mention 
others.  Think of what will need to be done.  Settting up a charitable 
company with a lawyer in some form.  Setting up officers with legal 
responsibilities, setting up folks to manage parts of the project, set up a 
website with enough bells and whistles for others to participate in coding 
and having other folks responsible for administrating each project and it's 
changes and guidelines etc...
All that and raising money to pay for it all.
If you can see how complex reality will be, you might hope for a true 
professional project in a couple of years and if they get something working 
in the next year they will have done better than I eexpect, and I think they 
can do it.
Rick of Farmington Mich. USA




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ryan Mann" <rmann@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 2:58 PM
Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go?


> Hello.  I have a suggestion about the screen reader you plan to develope
> for Longhorn.  That is, that it is also made to be compatible with Windows
> XP.  I make this suggestion because you say that you want to make access
> technology affordable to everyone.  One way to do this is to make it work
> with operating systems that people already have on their computer.  On the
> otherhand, if you only make it compatible with the latest Windows
> operating system, people will have to spend money to purchase that
> operating system in order to use your screen reader.  I've recently gotten
> a laptop computer with Windows XP and I don't think I could justify buying
> a new operating system in order to try out a particular screen reader.
> Out of curiosity, is there going to be some special feature in Windows
> Longhorn that makes it easier to develope screen readers for it?  I'm just
> wondering why you want to develope the screen reader just for Longhorn and
> not operating systems that people already have installed on their
> computers.
> just my opinion.
> Ryan
>
>
> On Sat, 23 Apr 2005, Will Pearson wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> As the OSAT Project is a community project, it's vital that you, the 
>> community, get involved in determining the direction the project goes in. 
>> So, we're throwing the floor open to discussion on what you would like to 
>> see happen in the world of access technology research and development. 
>> The only thing that we ask, is that all suggestions are in-line with the 
>> goals of the project: 1) To advance the state of the art in access 
>> technology research and the abilities it provides it's users, and 2) to 
>> provide those who cannot currently afford access technology with the 
>> abilities that it brings to people.
>>
>> Some of the ideas that we've had so far are:
>> 1. A screen reader for Windows Longhorn, which I'll explain more about in 
>> a separate message.
>> 2. An OCR system for dealing with hand writing and other text.
>> 3. An auditory synthetic vision system.
>>
>> We'll likely not have the resources to work on everything everyone wants 
>> at once, but make suggestions.  If you can, try to explain how they would 
>> fit in with the project's goals, and we'll take the discussion from 
>> there.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Will
>>
>>
>
>