From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net ([207.217.120.123]) by speech.braille.uwo.ca with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 194W6h-0007UY-00 for ; Sat, 12 Apr 2003 21:16:31 -0400 Received: from 0-1pool132-222.nas4.cleveland1.oh.us.da.qwest.net ([65.150.132.222] helo=tward1978) by swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 194W6c-0001Ox-00 for speakup@braille.uwo.ca; Sat, 12 Apr 2003 18:16:27 -0700 Message-ID: <001401c3015a$750126c0$de849641@tward1978> From: "Thomas D. Ward" To: References: <20030412135855.GA13403@potpal> <005801c30127$5f527e60$77859641@tward1978> <20030412192405.GA12816@dalek.ddts.net> Subject: Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 21:17:30 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: speakup-admin@braille.uwo.ca Errors-To: speakup-admin@braille.uwo.ca X-BeenThere: speakup@braille.uwo.ca X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: What I meant was that if you wanted to make a living off the software it's dificult to come up with an open source solution which gives back a cash return. I love Linux, and find it far superior to windows. The problem comes in if you want to use an already working OCR engine that costs big bucks to use, then the software winds up being comercial. If you take the open source, free software route, which would be nice then development time is going to take a long while to get up to the quality of a comercial product. Another issue is many scanner manufacturers refuse to release driver info under open source licenses. Which either puts you in a situation of figuring out how it works, or you wind up not supporting it. Comercial verses open source is a huge conflict, and open source can be great if everyone cooperates. If people don't cooperate development can be frustrating.