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Emacspeak + Soundcard RPM
Kevin Forge wrote:
After investigating Emacspeak and the tools required for it's use
in a Linux distribution without need for a hardware synthesizer,
it looked like Embrola was the barier to such usage. Emacspeak
and Festival seem free enogh.
I contacted the person responsible for distribution of the "free"
MBROLA and the response is below, followed by my clumsy original
message.
Basically any Linux distribution that's free for download from
popular mirror sites can now legally include the package without
any special permission. This includes the likes of Slackware,
RedHat, Mandrake etc...
Also, If someone can produce a single RPM or a bundle with MBROLA,
FESTIVAL and EMACSPEAK, that can be put up for use. Hopefully LSB
will let a single package work for all the distributions that don't
fall into the mainstream. Eventually :)
I got this setup working some time ago but that went the way of FDISK
when Wendy migrated. I honestly don't recall how I did it, just that
it took many weeks of work. If you can help out, I'll be glad for
the assistance. I don't need to get it working for another 2 years,
7 months and 3 days. ( So I'm counting the minutes till she comes
back. sue me :). By then I will be able to do it myself. In the
meen time this should be out there for everyone.
====
Thierry Dutoit wrote:
>
> Kevin,
>
> (sorry, I sent a previous void email...)
>
> It took me some time to understand your request.
> I first thought you wanted to include the sources of MBROLA into
Linux
> distrributions. I myself have thought of doing this several times,
> but a company related to my universtiy sels mbrola, and has
commercial
> rights on it. So in a way I no longer have the right to do this.
>
> What I can do, however, because of the agreement between them and us,
> is release MBROLA everywhere I can, provided it is not commercial.
>
> So it is my pleasure to let you release the software as you suggested
:
> A blanket
> amnesty for inclusion on any CD distribution that is also
> available for free on major FTP mirror sites ? YES
>
> Or maybe; You can distribute this in anyway without special
> permission if it is bundled with emacspeak ? YES
>
> NB : both 'yes' above are under the condition (imposed to me by
> contract from the company I mentioned) that the software is reeased
> with the accompanyig readme file containing the non-com usage
license.
> Notice this is needed for people to know where to get voice and
language
> databases...
> Another request from me : if MBROLA is being used in a
non-command-line
> way, I'd like the copyright notice (the one that is produced by
mbrola
> when no argument is provided) to appear somewhere, as well as the
info
> at the end of each language file (starting from the name of the voice
> dba, and quoting what it contains and who did it) or at least a
pointer
> to the xxx.txt file (xxx being the name of the voice, like us1, fr2,
etc.)
>
> Do you think they are reasonably feasible?
>
> (By the way, have you thought of the voice issue? You probably speak
> english, but not everyone does...)
>
> Anything that lets me put it in Debian, Mandrake and Slackware
> in one fell swoop. Failing that, I ask for inclusion in Mandrake
> NB: I thought mbrola was already in Debian (thanks to Hans Zoebelein,
> from blinux)...
>
> Keep me posted about this, of course, and good luck.
>
> Thierry
> ========= Thierry.Dutoit@fpms.ac.be ===========================
> Thierry Dutoit NEW Ph: +32 65 374774
> Faculte Polytechnique de Mons NEW Fax: +32 65 374729
> MULTITEL-TCTS Lab, http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/~dutoit
> Avenue Copernic, B-7000 Mons, Belgium
> -- Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present!
>
> > -----Message d'origine-----
> > De: Kevin Forge [SMTP:forge@myrealbox.com]
> > Date: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 12:07 AM
> > À: dutoit@tcts.fpms.ac.be
> > Objet: Can I package and distribute Mbrola.
> >
> > I would like to package MBrola for distribution as a part of
> > various GNU/Linux distributions. Because of the difficulty of
> > getting the combination of MBrola and EmacSpeak to work properly
> > I would like to make it prepackaged and selectable at the time
> > the OS is installed.
> >
> > The way the license is worded, it seams I will need to get
> > specific permission for each distribution ( of which there are
> > dozens ). Some are totally free, yet available for free and
> > others are openly commercial. Inclusion of the GNU tools
> > however forces them to do things in a way that _seams_ to be
> > in accordance with your intent.
> >
> > As such I beg and beseech for permission to do this. A blanket
> > amnesty for inclusion on any CD distribution that is also
> > available for free on major FTP mirror sites ?
> >
> > Or maybe; You can distribute this in anyway without special
> > permission if it is bundled with emacspeak ?
> >
> > Anything that lets me put it in Debian, Mandrake and Slackware
> > in one fell swoop. Failing that, I ask for inclusion in Mandrake
> >
> > PS : On rereading this it sounds a little like I am making
> > demands. I am not. It's just that I had a very hard time
> > setting this up for my girlfriend ( she is blind ) and would
> > like to save someone else a little of that aggravation.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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