But these charities and agencyes, etc. that you talk about refusing to pay
for jaws would have to be knowledgeable enough to know that they have this
alternative, and interested enough to learn about it, rather than just
easily going with the status quo. Pam.
-----Original Message-----
From: David via Talk
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2017 3:09 AM
To: Window-Eyes Discussion List
Cc: David
Subject: Re: window-eyes open source?
You know, I too am tempted to believe, NVDA will take over some screen
reader users. For one thing, as NVDA becomes yet more powerful, and
widely known, it might happen that paying authorities or cherities, will
refuse to pay hundreds (or in translated version thousands) of dollars
for Jaws. And due to the dominance VFO currently has on the asistive
market, they can raise the price as they desire.
No. NVDA is far from good enough for a professional run, in a work
position where effeciency counts. It does come short when comes to
certain pieces of software, and it takes some modification and
scripting, to have it up running. Jaws is, like it or not, a
full-fledged screen reader, in many cases working somehow right out of
the box. Sure, I did say somehow. Not even WinEyes did always work right
out of the box; or why did we get the app feature of WinEyes, do you think?
But for the general home user, who wants to write and read emails, who
has already invested in a scanner and OCR software, and who needs to
perform general activities on the net (paying bills, checking the weekly
offer of their favorite store, and lookup something on Yahoo or
Google)... For those users, I am ready to say NVDA already will be close
to good enough. I don't really see too much that Jaws performs, or does
better, than NVDA on that front.
VFO bought AISquared, and in effect GWMicro. Since the agreement of the
merge is not publicly known, we do not know how that all came around, or
what was the thought behind. Who initiated and so forth.
< IF
the intension was to grow bigger, they really managed; for the time
being. Was the idea of it all to control the market? Well, somehow maybe
they have currently managed. But there is something about being the
biggest and only one in town. You also will have to deal with ALL the
queries. And, though the world map looks far more International today
than two decades ago, many customers are facing ecconomic issues that
might affect their chances of buying a wildly priced product. Somehow,
we could think this to be some of the consequences of the WEForOffice
program, which did open up for even the less bolstered wallet to provide
the needy one with a full-fledged screen reader. Now that this program
eventually will be obsolete, NVDA might be the choice -even the ONLY
choice - for many a private user. Or, they might - if their activity
does not rely solely on Windows - leave the whole computer world
together, and go mobile.
The somehow dominant position VFO has taken at the moment, might hence
not be the fact we see tomorrow. That will all depend much on what
happens in the electronic world all generally. A decade ago, prior to
the first IPhone, everyone would have claimed that Windows was here to
stay. Then came the first IPhone, then the IPad, and today many a user
does not even own a computer any longer. Recently, I did see a
relatively up-to-date Android device, straight from the store shelf,
with all warrantees intact, advertised well under 100 dollars. Turn it
on, hold two fingers anywhere on the screen, and your device is fully
loaded with a screen reader, in less than five minutes. Just HOW well
will Jaws face that figure? Buy yourself a computer for anything from
300 to 1500 dollars, invest another 1200 dollars of software, add on
1200 for the screen reader; spend an hour or two in installing,
licensing and updating your brand new pet. Guess you see my point. You
do all of this, should you need to. But for the user who doesn't need to?
Further, keep in mind, that many who turns blind today, already are
quite familiar with Android and Phone/Ipad products. Being the kind of
equipment many - even school kids - now aday are acquainted with, they
might not even have the skills needed for starting out with a computer.
Turning blind today, you don't have one or two years to spend in a
special institution for the blind, hoping to learn something
old-fashioned, then imagining yourself getting back into some kind of a
daily living. You simply HAVE TO get going more or less right away. And
since you already own the mobile device, and all you need is to activate
the screen reader pre-installed on it, you soon enough will choose that
avenue. Should you now, in addition want to get your computer going for
certain tasks, why go through all the hazzle of raising the 1200
dollars, when you can be in business simply by downloading and
installing NVDA, and be up running in less than ten minutes? You know,
you don't even need two eyes to download it for you; you've got Narrator
for that part of the job.
Again, Jaws might be well enough for those of us who have more heavy
needs on the Windows-based systems. But as time moves on, we likely will
slide in the background. Tomorrow's user, likely won't need Jaws, and
can enjoy a heavy good load of donuts and coffee, for the 1200 saved. :)
David
On 9/11/2017 12:54 AM, Loy via Talk wrote:
NVDA is not far from being as good as JAWS and I can see it happening
that people will download the free program instead of paying hundreds of
dollars for a very similar program.
----- Original Message -----
From: Josh Kennedy via Talk
To: Window-Eyes Discussion List
Cc: Josh Kennedy
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2017 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: window-eyes open source?
Why couldn't it happen?
On 9/10/2017 3:47 PM, Dennis Long via Talk wrote:
> I don't see that happening.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Talk
[mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Josh Kennedy via Talk
> Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2017 1:08 PM
> To: David; Window-Eyes Discussion List
> Cc: Josh Kennedy
> Subject: Re: window-eyes open source?
>
> I wonder what VFO would do if NVDA starting eating into their
business profits? If free open source NVDA would become way more popular
than jaws and would still be open source?
>
>
>
>
> On 9/10/2017 2:54 AM, David wrote:
>> Matter of fact, this question was raised a couple of days after the
>> anouncement of the discontinued development of WinEyes. I will get
>> back to what Doug said back then. First of all, let's take a quick
look at facts.
>>
>> Had it been as easy as WinEyes would have been a stand-alone
software,
>> with all its coding done 'in-house', things would have been pretty
easy.
>> And had it been that Doug and Dan had been the only ones to develop
>> the software, they could have decided whatever they wanted.
>>
>> Things are not that easy!
>> First of all, what doug pointed out, was that to get the better
>> functionality of WinEyes, they had to reach certain agreements
with -
>> for instance Adobe - to get access to third-party software, kind of
>> behind the scene. If they open-sourced the code, now these
techniques
>> might be disclosed to the public, threatening the products of the
>> third-party manufacturer. In turn, this of course would lead to
>> people, not working on assistive technology at all, to get hold of
the
>> key for the backdoor of - say Adobe's reader - and use it for
unwanted
>> activity, or even malware development.
>>
>> Secondly, WinEyes had a feature of offering you loads of apps. Many
of
>> them are open-sourced, but WinEyes holds a chance for the app
>> developer to cryptize his code, for protecting against peekers. This
>> was a benefit, for instance when the app has to access a server, and
>> maybe even use some login credencials, to perform the activity.
>> Without me knowing for sure, we could think of an app like
>> WeatherOrNot, which has to access a server, retrieve weather
details, and process them for you.
>> Now if the developer has reached a given agreement with the
>> weather-server provider, that his app will gain free access, under
the
>> condition of not disclosing the login credencials, we are in trouble
>> in open-sourcing WinEyes. By doing so, we would disclose the
>> cryptizing code, opening up for people to break the cryptized code
of
>> the app, get to the credencials, and then misuse it.
>>
>> Part of the agreement GW made with their app developers, by
providing
>> the cryptizing feature, was to keep the app code an enclosed
program.
>> They might get into legal issues, should they disclose the
cryptizer,
>> thereby lay bare the very code of the app developer, who in turn
might
>> sue GW for breaking the agreement. This is kind of backed up, by a
>> message Doug posted several years back, when someone claimed they
had
>> broken the cryptizer.
>>
>> Furthermore, it has been confirmed from Aaron, that some of the apps
>> directly from GW, like AppGet, do hold credencials for accessing the
>> servers of GW. It is unlikely that they want to have these
credencials
>> open-sourced. In particular so, if you remember the attack someone
>> gave them a few years back, when the code of the GWToolkit was
hacked,
>> and gave many a WinEyes user quite a shock the morning they turned
on
>> their computer, and got a threatening message on their screen.
>>
>> Mind you, GW got into a cooperation with Microsoft, when they
>> introduced the WEForOffice program. Even here, they told that this
>> agreement would put them in specially close relationship with the
>> ingeneers of Microsoft. Who knows what closures might be involved
>> there, and which would be broken, had WE got open-sourced.
>>
>> Now let's move back to the answer Doug gave back in the spring this
>> year. The above is a bit of an elaboration of what he said. You will
>> find his answer in the archives, but in very short terms:
>> NOPE! WinEyes code CANNNOT go open-source; If for no other
>> reasons, due to the infringement of third-party agreements involved.
>>
>> All of this, actually leads me to once again raising the very
question:
>> Does VFO even have access to the WinEyes code?
>> VFO might have bought AISquared, thereby also the former GWMicro.
But
>> they might not have bought the copyright of the source-code. And
>> perhaps that was never intended either. Seems all they wanted, was
to
>> rid the market of any competition, period. Who knows, maybe Doug
>> simply hit the Delete-key, the last thing before he handed in the
key
>> for the Office front-door?
>>
>> And to assume that VFO's tech personel would bother to plow the
>> thousands of lines of coding for WinEyes, in hope of hitting the
>> technique used to perform a simple task, is out of range. It would
>> take hours, days or even weeks, to figure why things have been done
>> the way they were. Or, to find the part of a signed contract, that
>> possibly could be renewed in VFO's favor. Far more cost-effective,
and
>> resource sufficient, to simply look at the behavior of the WinEyes
>> product, and sit down developing the same bahavior from scratch.
Even
>> calling Adobe, Microsoft, AVG, Avast and so forth, asking for a
brand
>> new contract. A contract VFO already has in place. So my big guess
is,
>> VFO DO NOT NEED the code of the WinEyes screen reader, and never
did.
>> They needed the market, and that is what they've currently got.
>>
>>
>> On 9/10/2017 3:01 AM, Josh Kennedy via Talk wrote:
>> > hi
>> >
>> > Is there any possibility since window eyes is no longer
supported
>> to get the window-eyes source code make it open source and put it up
>> on the github website? then other developers could keep developing
window eyes.
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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