Re: [Audio-video] http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ghm2013/Samuel_Thibault_Jean-Philippe_Mengual-Freedom_0_for_everybody_really_.text

[Tobias Platen]

Hello,

I use Trisquel GNU/Linux because it provides both freedom and
accessibility.
In the past I used Debian which includes some non-free programs. Much
worse I was using Mac OS X for some time.
I try to avoid non-free software, and I sometimes find it hard to
resist in some cases. I only install a non-free program when I want to
write a free software replacement.
An I never install a program that includes DRM, because that is the
worst abuse of power that a proprietery software developer has.

  "To be very
   honest, in my daily life I use a proprietary speech synthesizer
   because the free speech synthesizer is not of a big quality."

This is a clear example where the free software community has failed
to write a high quality speech synthesizer. I can understand that some
people switch to non-free software if there is no free program that
offers certain features. But it is important to resist here. For a
developer it is a high priority to write a free software replacement
that privedes the requested features.

As a fan of Hatsune Miku I concluded that I needed a free software
replacement for VOCALOID. I started using the Festival Speech
Synthesis System which is free software. I found out that I can
synthesize Japanese singing using a Czech diphone voice. However the
sound quality of Festival is not as good as VOCALOID. So I decided to
write a free speech synthesizer that is good enough to act as a
replacement for VOCALOID. Technically VOCALOID is similar the MBROLA
diphone synthesizer, but it is designed for singing synthesis and it
includes a graphical editor. After reading Aiyumi's blog about
VOCALOID [1], I decided that I have to write a free replacement. I
don't want to be restricted by DRM. As there is good documentation
about the internals of those programs, it should be possible to write
a free replacement.

[1]
http://aiyumi.warpstar.net/en/blog/accessibility-and-how-i-began-using-vocaloid

Tobias Platen

On 21.07.2014 09:52, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Richard Stallman, le Sun 20 Jul 2014 23:28:36 -0400, a écrit :
>> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider
>> ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all
>> enemies,     ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow
>> Snowden's example. ]]]
>> 
>>> But your blindness does not make you ethically entitled to
>>> order a specific person do specific work to help you out.
>> 
>> Well, I wouldn't say "order", but quite close.
>> 
>> How close?  What power do you believe you are entitled to?
> 
> I don't believe anything like that of course, that's why I wouldn't
> say "order".  But being left behind brings quite some important
> rights to request about it.
> 
>> Can we instead say for instance that freedom 0 is useless
>> without accessibility?
>> 
>> No.  We can say that the program in its current form is useless
>> for the handicapped absent the accessibility they need.
> 
> Which thus means everybody, since anybody may become blind after
> an accident for instance.
> 
>> However, that doesn't mean the program is useless overall.  It
>> may be a tremendous step forward for the community.
> 
> If it is a tremendous step forward which leaves part of the
> population behind, it's really questionable.  Precisely when it's a
> tremendous step. How can you feel when you see the whole population
> get a tremendous step and not be able to enjoy it?
> 
>>> Accessibility is not just a matter of patching over the
>>> software.  Doing it that way is unproductive at best: one would
>>> have to continuously send patches to free software as they are
>>> created and developped, and accessibility will thus always lag
>>> behind.
>> 
>> Better late than never.
> 
> And so handicapped people will always only come after...
> 
> [...]
>> Even if the best way to give that program the missing
>> accessibility is to rewrite it from scratch, every job is a lot
>> easier the second time than the first time.
> 
> Not really, no, because the people who will rewrite it from
> scratch won't be the same, since the upstream developers will
> probably not take the pain to do the rewriting since they don't
> need the "feature". The existing software will thus probably remain
> inacessible.  We'll thus end up with an accessible fork, putting a
> burden on the people maintaing it.  We have seen that happening
> over the past decade with webbrowsers for instance.  If upstream is
> not dealing with it itself, you end up having to maintain a patched
> version, which is never really integrated upstream, and thus not
> integrated in standard distributions. Handicapped people can then
> only use specialized distributions, and not the mainstream ones.
> That reduces their choice consideraly, and it's not sustainable.
> 
> That is actually a ghetto.
> 
> I really weigh that word with all its heavy meaning.  This is
> something that we have observed in the past decade: there have been
> various specialized distributions, and people have enjoyed them,
> saying that it was great to see handicapped people using GNU/Linux,
> which is great indeed.  But that's a golden cage.  Handicapped
> people can then only use the computers on which those were
> installed, they can only use the software included in thoses
> distributions, etc.  "Better than nothing"? Well, a problem is that
> quite a few people would then think "job done". And indeed those
> distributions are a pain to maintain, and the people maintaining
> them don't really plan on taking the time to do more (and state
> won't spend the money on doing so since "job is done").  And thus 
> we never get beyond the ghetto.
> 
>> So the first time is not wasted, not even close to wasted.
>> Meanwhile, it may be useful for lots of non-handicaped users.
> 
> And handicaped users will just see their peer enjoying it without
> being able to use it.  Isn't that ethically questionable?
> 
> (I was about to write "allowed" instead of "able"...  Of course 
> that wouldn't have been correct, but believe it or not, that's
> what the feeling of handicapped people tends to be, ask anybody
> about inaccessible buildings for instance)
> 
>> Thus, I stand by the position that the state has an obligation
>> to aid the handicapped by funding accessible free software,
> 
> They already do it through various research & development
> programs, producing free software.  We haven't yet seen them
> integrated mainstream.
> 
> I'm sorry, but saying "the state will take care of it" really is
> not an answer.  What do you think state did for buildings?  They
> haven't only made buildings accessible, they have made it mandatory
> to build accessible buildings.
> 
> So yes, it's up to upstream authors to do the basic work for 
> accessibility.
> 
> (of course, what "basic work" is has to be reasonable, and it
> happens that it is).
> 
> Samuel
> 
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