- From: Paul Davis <paul@ten-20.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 16:40:15 +0100
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Hi, I hate to keep praising the virtues of Brookes University in Oxford, (well, I don't really) but why pay when you can have one free? and not for a tiny limited time either, it is about 10 weeks off becoming the final version, in the mean time download the beta version @ http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/cms/research/speech/dload1.htm Interestingly enough I was asked this week if I would support a movement/campaign to the effect that text readers and speech browsers should be provided free anyway for disabled people, is this living in a dream world to expect this as standard? My initial reaction was the only people with that sort of money or incentive is Microsoft or Netscape. I wonder if that would have been a better compromise for the NFB/AOL debacle last year, than the non agreement to do anything constructive that they actually settled for? Could someone enlighten me, has anything actually happened apart from sound bytes on that front or are the legal profession currently sharpening claws? I would have thought AOL could afford to make one page accessible and offer a free text reader download, it could no doubt have been achievable for less than the legal profession made out of the deal. After all if I can afford to do it on ten-20 with a budget of 3 rice cakes and a snickers, surely the likes of AOL could stump up the cash for the software? Or is this too logical? There is of course the argument corporate America (and everywhere else corporate I hasten to add) does not wish to embrace the dodgy concept of FREE anything!!??!! You can of course call it free providing it is priced into another product. But free for free is not a welcome idea. I like it however. smiles Paul Davis http://www.ten-20.com The portal website for disabled people and associated professionals.
Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2001 11:37:28 UTC