[oats-sig] LSR 0.3.2 - BSD Licensed + Comspec/ComLink + D-Bus

LSR looks quite interesting indeed! The awareness and interest in making use

Thanks for that Mats. I'm getting a real sense of a build up of
momentum for OSK. Aaron was aware of LSR's extended design goals and
capabilities and I think encouraged Peter to make sure we didn't miss
it's possibilities (it provides good script based mechanisms). We also
have much experience from projects including GOK, SAW, Dasher, WWAAC
and Compsec. When we factor in the support of Mozilla and interest
from Gnome and Ubuntu that gives us representation from most of the
big players supporting FOSS. We seem poised for good things when we
pull it all together.

Bill Haneman (lead of AT-SPI and much more) mentioned D-Bus I think in
the context of AT-SPI  AT-SPI runs on CORBA (as MSAA runs on COM) but
I think Bill said D-Bus looked interesting now. D-Bus is used for the
Gnome Power Manager and could very well be another useful piece of the
OSK puzzle

Does anyone know the status of the Windows port of D-Bus?.

Steve.

On 12/3/06, mats.lundalv at vgregion.se <mats.lundalv at vgregion.se> wrote:
> LSR looks quite interesting indeed! The awareness and interest in making use
> of the basic functionality of the screenreading system also for
> accessibility needs of a wider range, including those of people with motor,
> cognitive and learning disabilities, is very promising.
>
> Again it reminds me of our ambitions in the Comspec/ComLink project to
> provide that kind of multi-purpose basic functionality. For example we
> supported the concept of keeping track of multiple foci or cursors in the
> system, inspired by such features in screen readers (input cursor, reading
> cursor, "surveillance" cursor etc). By doing that, we ended up with switch
> scanning systems that allowed for parallel input from two (and possibly even
> more) switch users, opening up for socially interactive and collaborative
> activities.
> I have at last managed to get some documentation on-line at:
> http://www.javakomp.nu/infosidor/comlink-en.html
> (e.g. checkout the User manual or Sample apps PDFs for a start)
>
> By the way: Is there anyone who is familiar with the D-Bus project at
> freedesktop.org?
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus
> Looks like an interesting attempt to develop a standard API
> (Unix-Linux-cross-platform) for interapplication communication and
> messaging. Might be of interest for OSKs and other accessibility purposes?
> Any relations (existing or potential) to the LSR API development?
>
> Mats
>
> -----oats-sig-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk skrev: -----
>
> Till: "OATs Project Special Interest Group" <oats-sig at lists.becta.org.uk>
> Från: "Steve Lee" <steve at fullmeasure.co.uk>
> Sänt av: oats-sig-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
> Datum: 2006-11-29 18:54
> Ärende: [oats-sig] Fwd: LSR 0.3.2 - BSD Licensed!
>
> LSR, the Linux Screen Reader is now licenced under BSD, one of the
> most permissive Open Source Licences. LSR is not just a screen reader
> but also provides a development platform for abstracting from the
> platform and handling input and output devices. In other words a
> useful platform for developing AT solutions (in Python).
>
> Currently LSR is Gnome specific but a windows or Mac port would make a
> very attractive AT platform. I'll be looking at LSR for the OSK-ng
> work.
>
> --
> Steve Lee
> www.oatsoft.org
> www.schoolforge.org.uk
> www.fullmeasure.co.uk
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Peter Parente <parente at gmail.com>
> Date: Nov 29, 2006 1:54 PM
> Subject: LSR 0.3.2 - BSD Licensed!
> To: gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org,
> gnome-announce-list at gnome.org,
> ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com, lsr-list at gnome.org
>
>
> ==============
> * What is it ?
> ==============
>
> Linux Screen Reader (LSR) is an extensible assistive technology for people
> with
> disabilities. The design philosophy behind LSR is to provide a core platform
> that enables the development of LSR extensions for improving desktop
> application accessibility and usability and shields extension developers
> from
> the intricacies of the desktop accessibility architecture.
>
> The primary use of the LSR platform is to give people with visual
> impairments
> access to the GNOME desktop and its business applications (e.g. Firefox,
> OpenOffice, Eclipse) using speech, Braille, and screen magnification. The
> extensions packaged with the LSR core are intended to meet this end.
> However,
> LSR's rich support for extensions can be used for a variety of other
> purposes
> such as supporting novel input and output devices, improving accessibility
> for
> users with other disabilities, enabling multi-modal access to the GNOME
> desktop, and so forth.
>
> ==================
> * What's changed ?
> ==================
>
> The purpose of this release is to publicly announce the change of license on
> the LSR code base from the Common Public License to the New Berkeley
> Software
> Distribution License (BSD) official and public. The BSD license is
> GPL-compatible but has no copyleft restriction. This change helps LSR better
> fit into the GNOME ecosystem and allows other projects to build on it with
> few restrictions.
>
> Some of the features planned for 0.4.0 are present in this release. A full
> record of those features will appear in the announcement for that version
> and
> are available in the ChangeLog in the meantime.
>
> Translations
>
> * ar (Djihed Afifi)
>
> ======================
> * Where can I get it ?
> ======================
>
> Source code release:
> http://live.gnome.org/LSR#downloads
>
> For more information, visit the LSR home page:
> http://live.gnome.org/LSR