Needs educateingRE: Message from Linux (fwd)

[Georgina]

Hi

Well I'm going to stick my head above the parapit.  So knock it off cleanly 
won't you.  <Smile>.

I disagree, Linux will be for the masses as far as the Blinux community is 
concerned, in the future.  Now before you raise your axe:

A friend beta testing for GW Micro proudly informed me that they had a couple 
of developers working on speech with flash.  I pondered, how many people will 
we have when we have the foundations to build upon?  I guess that it will be 
more that any capitalist system can offer.  I fear that many of you are 
forgetting the ethos of the Linux operating system and that the provailing 
economic situations of blind people around the world.  We don't need to knock 
MS because they're introducing new technologies and then attempting to build a 
fix for those of us who need a screen reader.

The whole structure of screen readers has been to engage between the OS and the 
graphic adapter but in XP they've changed that way of working.  As well as 
they're push to secure the copying of the operating system too, is going to 
raise questions within the minds of blind people when they consider upgrading.  We as blind people know only too well, what it is like to be bound with copy protection methods.

I do fear that our community will be become divided by those who have their 
equipment paid for by an employer or Government and those who have to find it 
themselves.

I think that blind people will give Linux a chance when they can use the GUI 
and more development will be undertaken by the Open Source community then 

these small sponges that we know as the adaptive industry.  Yes, they rule the 
day currently.  But just sit back and see where loyalty lies.

Linux as a whole, is at a very interesting point in its development.  My local 
Linux Users Group were discussing this issue a few months ago and someone 
offered this anedote:

At a meeting, someone took a box with one of the rpm packages freshly 
installed.  The new user wanted to set up his dial up service.  A long time 
experienced user went to work looking at scripts editing this way and that way 
but after some time he wasn't getting anywhere.  Anyway another newbie user was 
at the meeting and plucked up the courage and said, "I had the same problem and 
I can show you how I fixed it".  So they invited him to attempt it and within 
a few clicks of the mouse within the X environment, the box was dialing out on 
demand nicely.

So ther's a lot of potential for Linux and it is up to us how we progress.
Gena



>I agree with Kirk.  Linux is simply not for everyone.  Although I use
>Linux for 90% of my computer tasks I still use Windows for that 10%.
>That 10% mainly consists of online banking/billing because of the java.
>I do find the access that I get with Window-Eyes and Internet Explorer
>to be very nice.  As to the comments on sound editing and cd ripping I
>know it can be done in Linux but I personally am not into it so don't
>know how easy it would be.  I'm sure anything within reason can be done
>in Linux and in time everything will be easy for blind users.
>
>I personally don't mind the editing of config files, command line, etc
>but I agree that some people who have never been exposed to it will be
>hard-pressed to try it.  Also others  who may have used command line
>utilities such as dos may look at how "easy" their world has been and
>not want to go back to more typing.  Still, others may just be lazy and
>want an OS to control their computer without their say-so.  *lol*
>
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