Luke is project lead, though I believe a couple of others may also have authority to commit changes. However, Luke has to date worked to form consensus on the opentts-dev mailing list before making significant changes. Progress in the last several weeks has been truly outstanding, and I for one am happy that opentts is in good hands, and that I probably wont have to go digging into this code anymore :-)
Bill On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 1:09 AM, A <[email protected]> wrote: > Who's project lead or is there a committee? Sorry but it is not > obvious from the announcement who's having the final word on > decisions. > > Thanks. > > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:07 AM, Luke Yelavich <[email protected]> wrote: >> I am writing to announce a fork of speech-dispatcher, the open source >> text-to-speech framework, initially developed by Brailcom as a part of the >> freebsoft project, http://www.freebsoft.org. The fork also includes other >> important components of the speech stack, including speechd-up, the >> connector between speakup and speech-dispatcher, and the speech-dispatcher >> java bindings. As you may have guessed from the subject, the fork is now >> called OpenTTS. OpenTTS refers to both the speech server, API and >> documentation, as well as the umbrella project as a whole. The other >> projects mentioned above have also been given new names, speechd-up is now >> known as OSpeakup, and speechd-java is now known as OpenTTS-java. >> >> Why Fork Speech Dispatcher and Related Projects? >> >> One of the fundamental freedoms granted by the GPL is the freedom to publish >> one's modifications to the source code of a software product. Sometimes, >> such publication takes the form of a fork, in which the modified product is >> developed separately from the original. In this case, we've chosen to make >> forks of software initially produced by the Brailcom group. We'll describe >> our reasons for doing that below. >> >> The Brailcom group had a great idea. They wanted to provide a system or >> user-level service to control synthetic speech. That was Speech Dispatcher. >> They created libraries to ease the task of communicating with that service, >> so that it would be possible for programmers to speech-enable their >> applications , simply by calling output functions provided by one of these >> libraries. For several years, Brailcom actively maintained and promoted >> Speech Dispatcher and the software associated with it. They innovated, and >> the community at large was slow to adopt. >> >> Over time, projects within the accessibility community began to embrace >> Speech Dispatcher. It is now the preferred speech synthesis backend of the >> Orca screenreader. The Speakup screenreader can control many software-based >> text-to-speech engines with the help of Speech Dispatcher and a small >> connector program. One advantage of that strategy is that Orca and Speakup >> can cooperatively use the same text-to-speech engine. The key point is that >> many projects have adopted Speech Dispatcher, to a greater or lesser extent. >> >> As time passed, the tables turned. The most recent official release of >> Speech Dispatcher was made in the summer of 2008. The developers began >> taking less and less of a role in the project. The source code moved from a >> CVS repository to git in 2009. During much of that year, active development >> took place in a repository hosted by Luke Yelavich. Mr. Yelavich even >> produced several unofficial "release candidate" versions of Speech >> Dispatcher. Unfortunately, the official release process is stalled. In an >> effort to clarify the current status of the software, members of the >> community contacted Brailcom. Replies to these requests for information were >> somewhat non-committal. In effect, Brailcom stated that they were >> interested in developing Speech Dispatcher, but they had no current plans. >> >> That, in short, is why we forked. Members of the open-source accessibility >> community need and want an actively-developed speech framework. The OpenTTS >> project hopes to fulfill that need by carrying forward the vision set forth >> by Brailcom. >> >> The OpenTTS.org website is now live, although there is not much there at the >> moment. The site will be expanded in the near future to add areas for >> documentation, and feature specification tracking, to help developers better >> outline and indicate what the next release of OpenTTS will contain. You will >> also find a link to our mailing lists, where you can discuss OpenTTS >> development. >> >> We welcome all contributors from the community who wish to help us further >> develope the OpenTTS framework, and encourage any interested contributors to >> join the opentts-dev mailing list. To get more information on this list, or >> other lists relating to OpenTTS, please go to http://lists.opentts.org. We >> also especially welcome any Brailcom staff who wish to contribute to the >> project. >> >> I plan to announce the focus for OpenTTS development over the next 6 months >> very soon, and will do so on the opentts-dev mailing list (see above), and >> the website, so please stay tuned for more information. Should you have any >> questions, please feel free to subscribe to the opentts-users mailing list, >> and ask away. Commonly asked questions will be put up on the website for all >> to read. >> >> Finally, I'd like to thank Chris Brannon and William Hubbs for their hard >> work so far in helping get things off the ground, particularly with code >> cleanup and re-organisation. I would also like to thank all of those in the >> community who supported going ahead with the fork, you know who you are. >> >> I sincerely hope that from here on out, we can create a text to speech >> framework that can rival those available for proprietary operating systems, >> as well as creating a framework that all application developers feel >> comfortable working with. Text to speech is important for more than just >> those with a disability, it is very useful for many other people for many >> different tasks. Lets give them a reason to want to use it. >> >> >> Luke Yelavich >> OpenTTS project lead. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Speechd mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.freebsoft.org/mailman/listinfo/speechd >> > _______________________________________________ > orca-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list > Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. > The manual is at > http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html > The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions > Netiquette Guidelines are at > http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/NetiquetteGuidelines > Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org > Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
