a viavoice license consortium?

* a viavoice license consortium?
@  RAYNER Peter
   ` Gilles Casse
   ` Gilles Casse
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: RAYNER Peter @  UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: blinux-list

The recent announcement from IBM of a commercial implementation of
viavoice  raises an interesting opportunity: the ability to use a well
tested and (imho) high-quality TTS that's likely to remain current for
a while.  The cost is near zero  provided we can get enough users
together and someone is prepared to manage the mechanics of the deal.
I *think* the time spent for me to do this would be less than changing
to another TTS so I'm prepared to volunteer for that part.  That
raises the other question, how many people would be interested?
My proposal would be that we form a partnership in the most
lightweight possible way, we then commit to divide the cost of the
200 licenses among ourselves and then try to recover some of the extra
expense by selling the (probably  large) number we don't need.
Realistically I don't think we would recover much of the cost but one
never knows.  So the question should be "what's it worth for me?"
Personally I'd spend $100 if it was the multilingual version and $50
if it was English-only.
If people are interested in this, get back to me privately
(peter.rayner@csiro.au) and I'll count up possible subscribers.   Let
me know the maximum cost you would be willing to bear too so I can
know whether your interest is usable. 
If there's  enough people I'll look at the practicalities of
1) negotiating with the distributor
2) checking out any likely risks 
3) seeing how we can distribute the proceeds of any onselling.
cheers
Peter

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