FreeSoft Project Update

Thu Feb 19 00:09:35 MST 2004

Hi people,

The Linux on BrailleNote project has reached an apparently quite 
significant impass.  As such, I feel obliged to narrate it to all of you 
on behalf of your project developers.

The situation, basically, is that PulseData has not given us the good 
stuff we want - hardware specifications, interface information, all 
necessary to begin legitimate development of the project.  Since knowing 
this information from PulseData will benefit us significantly in both 
progress and knowledge of a development schedule, we have obviously been 
anxious to allow as much opportunity, providing for as much inexcusable 
delay as possible, for PulseData to "Get back to us".  Needless to say, 
they have not.  We may be getting the same treatment as the previous 
effort got in this position.

We have yet to consult over when, and how, we will be proceeding.  We 
already agree that we take one of two choices - wait some more, or go bad. 
 It would have to be very soon, however - we will update you when this 
happens.  To be absolutely frank, proceeding in an outlawed fashion, 
without PDI's help, basically means using rogue techniques to rip out the 
information we need from these units, somehow or another, which will 
involve plenty of experimentation and likely also a small amount of 
reverse engineering or string farming.  Tampering with hardware will 
obviously be a last resort and probably won't happen without a spare unit 
to hand.  The legal implications of doing so are not as yet due for 
consideration, though the statutes pertaining to the reverse-engineering 
of software for the purpose of developing competitive and interoperable 
software are clearly in our favour both in the UK and US, where the four-
man development team are situated.  Those interested in clarification 
should consult legal council.  This will be a last resort and we will 
naturally undertake it with due disappointment of PulseData.  The 
undesirable consequence will be an unplanned timespan for the project, as 
the resulting work will be quite substantial.

We have already determined that the likelihood of bringing you a clone of 
the KeySoft suite, inclusive of the Lernout TTS engine, is likely to be 
very slim - this is because the components of the system under proprietary 
licenses such as the speech engine will need to be replaced with free 
software with a free license that would allow us to redistribute it to you 
in this way.  We will, of course, do our very best to keep to PulseData's 
ease-of-use tradition and add power as we go, and we hope not to make you 
unlearn much of what you already know.  We may be able to give you certain 
choices about how you run the unit, which may involve commercial or 
proprietary software paid for and installed by yourself, and we will of 
course notify you.  This is a clear port, a transition from Windows CE to 
the free, open source Linux, to the max extent possible.  We're determined 
to do this, so we hope you find it enjoyable!

In related news, we have named the software which runs on your BrailleNote 
under the Linux kernel by the name FreeSoft.  This is a reflection of the 
license and classification of software you will be running.  Free Software 
refers to freedom of rights, not necessarily price.  Please note that we 
will not be charging you for this software!  Think "Free speech, not free 
beer."  This means you can do what you feel like with the software, 
including copy it, distribute it, modify it, recompile it and study the 
source code of it, just to name a few, and are granted the right to do so 
under Copyright.  The license naturally prevents commercial exploitation 
of the code, proprietarship of the code, or inclusion of the code in other 
projects not under the same license.  Free Software is one particular type 
of open source software.  Another organisation, called the Open Source 
Initiative, would like to see the pragmatics of open source benefit it - 
these namely being the cost, the benefits of development and inovation, 
the security of software, and so on.  The OSI maintains a list of 
licenses, including the GNU General Public License, which it considers 
pertinent to open source development.  For more information about the Free 
Software Foundation and to read the GNU General Public License - the 
license under which the software will be given to you - please visit 
http://www.fsf.org/ .  To read about the Open Source Initiative, please 
visit http://www.opensource.org/ .  You will find that although these 
organisations disagree on why software should be open source, 
fundamentally, they both agree on the final result.  We think you'll 
agree, too.

Unrelated news - Speakup now has a Keynote PC driver.  If you have a 
Keynote PC card installed on your ISA bus (an old-fashioned card slot) 
inside your PC, Speakup will now drive it.  This driver only works 
Speakup, and there's a desire in the wild to have a generic Keynote PC 
card driver, similar to that available in the kernel for the Accent PC and 
Echo.  I am also going to resume work on finding the range values for the 
Keynote synthesiser family, and give this information to whoever needs it -
 this means that the BrailleNote could be your external synthesiser for 
Speakup, BRLTTY and other Linux console screen readers, and the 
information will help those with drivers for the Keynote PC and VC for the 
same.  Speaking of the VC, a PCMCIA card, I will look into a card services 
client driver to drive it so that it too can be made to behave like a 
Keynote SA.

Finally, there's been an interest in dispelling some of the clouds around 
us, and breaking the ice a little, by inviting all of you to join and chat 
with us using SpeakFreely on the reflector.  SpeakFreely is a voice-over-
IP client, or voice chat program that uses your internet connection, your 
speakers or headset and a microphone.  The reflector is set up, and I'll 
leave it to Greg to explain the details to you.  We would like to hear 
from you, please, if you are interested and so that we can arrange times 
that would work for people to do some serious talking.

Well, that's all for now.  Get in touch with us if you have questions.

Cheers,
Sabahattin
-- 
Thought for the day:
    A penny saved is ridiculous.

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