Re: ibm tts run-time engine purchasing alternatives

[John Heim <jheim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:49 AM 2/12/2006, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
> >>>>> "J" == John G Heim <jheim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>     J> ... when you think about it, the vast majority of people are
>     J> going to expect to get a package that they can just install
>     J> with a single command or two.
>
>When you actually think about it, this is not true.

Of course it is. *YOU* are willing to work to install a package. Most of 
the people on this list are willing to work to install a package. But the 
membership of this list is not representative of computer users as a whole 
or even linux users.


>   As Bucky Fuller
>once said "Design a system that even a fool can use, and only fools
>will use it" :)

That's absurd. Bucky Fuller was a smart guy in a lot of ways but the 
bizarre things he thought, said, and did would fill a volume. In fact, they 
have. How many people do you know who live in geodesic domes?

Saying that making a system easy to use means only fools will use it is 
just stupid.




>The first demonstrable factual truth is there are many people today
>using emacspeak and speakup, and _neither_ system is installed with a
>single command or two.

Speakup can be installed with just 2 commands. "apt-get" and then "vi 
/boot/grub/menu.lst".


>   Millions of people use Windows, and it is a
>nightmare to install.


Huh? What's so hard about installing Windows? Besides the vast majority of 
people have never installed Windows.

BTW, you're confusing "many" with "majority".  I don't know if it's fair to 
say that many people would be willing to jump through hoops to install 
IBMTTS. But even if it is, by no means does that mean that the vast 
majority of people would be willing.



>The second demonstrable factual truth is there are many people today
>willing to put real money on the table for the ViaVoice runtime for
>Linux, not a plug and play system, just the shared libraries compiled
>against a glib from /this/ millenium.  No push-buttons, no hand-holding
>1-800 numbers, no everything to everybody software that no one will
>ever use.  Just the runtime.  That's it.  Anything more and we'd be
>spending the next month of midnight oil desperately trying to /extract/
>the ViaVoice runtime libs from the otherwise useless package so we
>can graft it into the software we actually want to use.

Have you used DECtalk? I would imagine they're trying to put together 
something like what you get if you order DECtalk from phonix.


AAlso, it is not demonstrable that there are "many" people who just want 
the libs. The definition 'f "many" is in this case a *business* term.  You 
think a company can make money selling just the libs? Maybe. Maybe not. But 
it's not "demonstrable".




>I'm with Robert on this: the first company that will actually /sell/ me
>the useful ViaVoice runtime kit will get my money.



Well, that's fine. But you shouldn't be slamming Capitol Accessibility for 
wanting to put out a quality product.


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