Speakup Web Site

[Steve Holmes]

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Keeping the information up to date is crucial here.  I think I like
the wiki idea once people learn how to use it, it might be a lot
easier to keep stuff current.  I also agree that a snapshot should be
made available frequently.  With so many distros not including a
speakup-patched kernel, this may be the next best alternative and if
somebody has to go to git to pull down an experimental version of
speakup, it could be a real turn-off.  Again, many new-comers probably
haven't a clue about compiling kernels yet and they want a talking
Linux to try out.

I think Bill Acker has done a commendable job at keeping up with the
speakup-modified kernels for the Fedora distributions.  I also commend
Pat and the Slackware folks for keeping speakup in their kernels
also.  Since I'm a Slackware user, I should keep more involved with
them to be sure it stays that way.

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 05:53:44AM -0700, Tony Baechler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> One thing that I think is in desperate need of being addressed is making 
> other developers aware that Speakup exists, greatly increases 
> accessibility, and can easily be installed into a production kernel.  I 
> have two specific reasons for saying this.  First, there are very few 
> distros which include Speakup as part of their official kernel and 
> installer images.  Unless I'm mistaken, Debian doesn't include it 
> officially now and the unofficial install image isn't current.  I would 
> strongly recommend against anyone using the unofficial Etch kernel with 
> Speakup because it hasn't been updated since the release of Etch and has 
> known security flaws that aren't fixed.  Most of the smaller and lesser 
> known distros don't include Speakup either even though there is no good 
> reason not to include it.  I have thought about using various 
> specialized distros designed to replace hardware routers and firewalls 
> but I'm not aware of any that include Speakup.  Obviously the point 
> would be to keep the distro small but it could still be built into the 
> kernel.
> 
> The second reason may be of less interest to people here but I think 
> it's important just the same.  That is to make commercial projects that 
> are based on the Linux kernel also aware of Speakup.  Specifically, I'm 
> working with a company that makes backup imaging software for DOS, 
> Windows, and Linux.  It is possible but difficult to use the DOS version 
> with a screen reader.  I suggested that they could build Speakup into 
> the Linux version and it would be accessible out of the box.  They 
> seemed interested but I think the project is stalled because the site is 
> not current.  I didn't know at the time, but apparently Speakup had 
> already switched to git and there was no mention of that in the old CVS 
> repository.  Apparently they found the new git repo but I don't know how 
> because I wasn't aware of it until Kirk posted the url here.  It makes 
> it difficult to push for better accessibility when the site is very old 
> and the project looks abandoned.  While I'm here, I would also like to 
> suggest putting a link to the most current release (maybe a snapshot 
> made nightly from git?) and the most recent stable release right on the 
> home page.  Many people, especially the developers described above, 
> don't have time to browse through a site just to find a download link.  
> Since most people consider it a favor to include any kind of 
> accessibility in their particular distro's kernel, they really don't 
> understand what Speakup is except that it's supposed to help the blind.  
> Maybe a mp3 demo of someone using Speakup for daily tasks would be good.
> 
> Dawes, Stephen wrote:
> > What do you want to see in a revitalized Web site? 
> >   
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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