Hi Shaun, I suppose. However, I think it is more to do with commercial verses open source development procedures. commercial software companies generally are very private and tight lipped about their products and hate to give any information away that could be potentially used by their competition. For them money is the bottom line and everything tends to be put on a need to know basis. Open source developers are not as worried about financial concerns, not too concerned about their competition, and can afford to be more open and freely helpful when it comes to how their software works. Simply put, open source developers are more concerned about the needs of those who they are writing the software for rather than how much money is going into their individual pockets.
For example, the developer of NVDA says he started the project because he was tired of paying hundreds of dollars on screen readers and other adaptive technology. He believes that access to a computer should cost us no more than the average sighted user. I agree, and am glad NVDA exists for those who can't afford Jaws, Window-Eyes, SuperNova, etc. In any case the developer realizes that there are people who can not afford a high priced screen reader, and that equal access to a computer shouldn't cost us hundreds perhaps thousands we don't necessarily have to give. His bottomline is universl accessibility for everyone not thousands of dollars a year on income from the project. Therefore in the long run NVDA has a lot going for it, and may become the screen reader of choice for the majority of blind users who don't get Jaws from their state agency or employer. Plus NVDA is based on an off the shelf language like Python. Adding Python modules to extend specific application support isn't that hard given all the Python 2.7 manuals are online and freely available. Jaws on the other hand uses a proprietary scripting language, and unless you can figure it out by reading the existing source Freedom Scientific expects Jaws scripters to fly to Florida, pay the big bucks, and take their scripting classes. They can go jump in a lake as far as I'm concerned. Nobody should have to take special classes to learn to get the most out of their screen reader. However, it is and always has been just another way to make money off the product as you know. Cheers! On 11/2/11, shaun everiss <[email protected]> wrote: > hmmm all the older companies are more warried about their backsides > than actually moving foreward. > nvda is a opensource modern script based system. > It is not owned as such in fact its prity open what you can do, I > think its gpl based, so you can hack and slash at it all you want > with in reason. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
