i.e. just remove "commercial/vendor" and substitute the generic
"developer" in my previous post.
Apologies,
Joe
On Mar 18, 2006, at 3:29 PM, Kafka's Daytime wrote:
Ah, spelling thew me off, I see we're discussing BRLTTY which is
not a commercial product. That being said, I think most of what I
said still applies i.e. I don't see what's stopping a collaboration
if the developers really desire it. Assuming they have a real
interest in porting to Mac.
Joe
On Mar 18, 2006, at 2:54 PM, Kafka's Daytime wrote:
Hi Cheryl,
I'm actually interested in hearing more about this. How much of
the britty program has actually been ported? In an earlier post
you said the developer: "Dave Mielke says that the main missing
piece is access to an API system that inspects what's on the
screen." If it's true the API described is really what's required
to complete the port (and this requirement is not simply
extrapolated from how Windows screen readers work [vs. the way VO
works]) - and the britty developer has not found what he needs in
Apple's comprehensive Device Driver and Accessibility API
documentation - then this is not just a little gotcha. It sounds
more like the whole ball game.
I'm not sure it's at all obvious that "people on this list do not
particulary want the excellent brltty program ported to the Mac
and do not want to discuss their reasons." Commercial developers/
vendors often can't and won't collaborate with outside
developers...so the kind of collaboration you're suggesting may
not be easy or even desirable (for the practical reasons David
Niemeijer (from AssistiveWare) and I described in our recent
posts). We don't really know what communication has taken place
between the developers on the list and vendors. Further, I don't
see how any of the work being done by folks on the list could be
described as anything less than constructive. To me, it looks like
people being admirably proactive and searching for reasonable
solutions to some of the incompatibilities that exist (which the
commercial vendors may or may not be working on themselves). This
kind of development is not at all unheard of (there is a long
tradition of third party device driver development) - it fills in
gaps left by vendors and helps keep vendors honest. Vendors are
perfectly free to join this list and be active in the discussions.
In fact, it seems clear that commercial developers are welcomed
pretty warmly on the list. There's nothing secret happening here.
Greg Kearny's work is completely open source and free under GPL.
So, what's to stop collaboration if a vendor really wants it? I
think it's pretty clear that none of the folks doing the work
we're discussing would refuse an active collaboration with any
commercial developer who wanted it.
Joe
On Mar 18, 2006, at 10:35 AM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
Oh yes, that would be cool, Scott. But that wasn't the point of
this subject line. I asked a very specific question about a very
specific project as the subject line was about developing braille
on the Mac, and instead of specific answers I've gotten general
discussion of development plus a response that seemed to claim I
just wanted braille to give extra information that would be of no
help to deaf-blind. I give up!!! It's obvious that for some
reason people on this list do not particulary want the excellent
brltty program ported to the Mac and do not want to discuss their
reasons. Much of the work for porting brltty has been done but
the comments being made are as if this would be aeons in the
future if we went that route. And how porting brltty would be of
no help to the deaf-blind is way beyond my comprehension. But
people have a right of course to choose their own paths and
there's no use in me pursuing this on this list when people
apparently don't want to discuss it.
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also".
