This sucks!

This sucks!

[Adam Myrow]

Well, after carefully reading the Vividata web site, it states that
personal licenses are no longer offered.  That pretty much eliminates me
ever gettin any OCR software under Linux.  BTW, I can tell that I'll
probably never get OCR shop working anyway since trying to run the
installer leads to a segmentation fault and the manual, which is in PDF,
is copy-protected.  Guess I'm stuck in Windows until Gocr becomse usable.

Re: This sucks!

[Thomas D. Ward]

You might try clara ocr. However, it works under x-windows, and you have to
use emacspeak or something within x to get clara to work.
I didn't know Vivadata dropped the personal license, but that truly does
suck.

----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Myrow <amyrow@midsouth.rr.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 8:46 PM
Subject: This sucks!


> Well, after carefully reading the Vividata web site, it states that
> personal licenses are no longer offered.  That pretty much eliminates me
> ever gettin any OCR software under Linux.  BTW, I can tell that I'll
> probably never get OCR shop working anyway since trying to run the
> installer leads to a segmentation fault and the manual, which is in PDF,
> is copy-protected.  Guess I'm stuck in Windows until Gocr becomse usable.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: This sucks!

[Igor Gueths]

Someone mentioned ocrxtr was free?

May you code in the power of the source,
may the kernel, libraries, and utilities be with you,
throughout all distributions until the end of the epoch.

On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Adam Myrow wrote:

> Well, after carefully reading the Vividata web site, it states that
> personal licenses are no longer offered.  That pretty much eliminates me
> ever gettin any OCR software under Linux.  BTW, I can tell that I'll
> probably never get OCR shop working anyway since trying to run the
> installer leads to a segmentation fault and the manual, which is in PDF,
> is copy-protected.  Guess I'm stuck in Windows until Gocr becomse usable.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: This sucks!

[Lorenzo Prince]

Well, IMHO, I believe that having proprietary closed-license software
kinda defeats the purpose of using Linux as an open-source sollution.
Somebody just needs to step up and make a usable open-source sollution for
OCR and a few other things we still need.

Lorenzo

E Pluribus Unix

Adam Myrow staggered into view and mumbled:

> Well, after carefully reading the Vividata web site, it states that
> personal licenses are no longer offered.  That pretty much eliminates me
> ever gettin any OCR software under Linux.  BTW, I can tell that I'll
> probably never get OCR shop working anyway since trying to run the
> installer leads to a segmentation fault and the manual, which is in PDF,
> is copy-protected.  Guess I'm stuck in Windows until Gocr becomse usable.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  Are you offering to do it?  One of the important differences
between Windows and Linux is that something only gets into Linux when someone
decides to write it.  Several people have said they want OCR in Linux
but none of us have wanted it enough to write something or improve on
an existing program.

Please don't misunderstand, I've been using Linux for over 2 years and I
haven't tried to solve the problem either.  In my case, I wouldn't use
OCR often enough to make it a priority.  Of course if someone creates a
good OCR program in Linux, I'll use it.

          Kenny

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 06:51:44AM -0400, Lorenzo Prince wrote:
> Well, IMHO, I believe that having proprietary closed-license software
> kinda defeats the purpose of using Linux as an open-source sollution.
> Somebody just needs to step up and make a usable open-source sollution for
> OCR and a few other things we still need.
> 
> Lorenzo
> 
> E Pluribus Unix

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Thomas D. Ward]

I personally don't mind paying for a product if it is a quality product.
After all not every programmer can be expected to work free.
As for OCR there are many good engines floating around such as Fine Reader,
Care MTX, etc, but they are not free. Either you can purchase them, sign a
NDA, and release a closed source OCR app, or you can start from scratch and
take the 4 or 5 years it would take to hopefully get the quality of the pro
grade OCR applications.
Once you recognize time and costs of developing an OCR app a good open
source OCR project would be a huge undertaking without a single return.

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Buddy Brannan]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 03:11:49PM -0400, Thomas D. Ward wrote:
> Once you recognize time and costs of developing an OCR app a good open
> source OCR project would be a huge undertaking without a single return.

I, personally, reject this argument completely. It can be applied to
any software project you like, and, I should say, has been by those
advocating proprietary non-free software. "...without a single
return"? How do you mean, exactly? Would you say that a free OS
(GNU/Linux) was developed without a single return? Sure, it took
several years to develop all the pieces of GNU into mature
applications, but the fact that you and I are using just such a system
proves that there is, in fact, value to it. Apparently *someone* is
getting *some* return on the thing, aren't they? Sure, an OCR engine
is a different sort of challenge. Still, if it's an interesting enough
project to people, it will get done. It is getting done now. Sure, it
won't happen tomorrow, but if everyone took the view you seem to be
taking here, we'd have no free software. There would be no
GNU/Linux. We'd all still be paying hundreds if not thousands of
dollars to use a Un*x-like operating system. And what of GNOME
accessibility and its accompanying projects (gok, gnopernicus, etc.)?
No return on those either, huh? Seems to me that Baum, at least, is
waking up to think in a new direction to make their money on
gnopernicus. I'd suggest that this needs to happen on a more
widespread basis. The days of closed source, proprietary, non-free
software for most things that we do every day are numbered. 
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  I wouldn't mind paying either, but I use Debian.  As far as I know
there isn't a commercial product available for me.

          Kenny

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 03:11:49PM -0400, Thomas D. Ward wrote:
> I personally don't mind paying for a product if it is a quality product.
> After all not every programmer can be expected to work free.
> As for OCR there are many good engines floating around such as Fine Reader,
> Care MTX, etc, but they are not free. Either you can purchase them, sign a
> NDA, and release a closed source OCR app, or you can start from scratch and
> take the 4 or 5 years it would take to hopefully get the quality of the pro
> grade OCR applications.
> Once you recognize time and costs of developing an OCR app a good open
> source OCR project would be a huge undertaking without a single return.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Lorenzo Prince]

Well, I wish I could do it, but I am just really starting to learn about
programming, and I know absolutely nothing about how OCR even works.
However, I may be the one to do something about it once I get through
school and learn a lot more about programming, although I fear that won't
be soon enough.

Lorenzo

E Pluribus Unix

Kenny Hitt staggered into view and mumbled:

> Hi.  Are you offering to do it?  One of the important differences
> between Windows and Linux is that something only gets into Linux when someone
> decides to write it.  Several people have said they want OCR in Linux
> but none of us have wanted it enough to write something or improve on
> an existing program.
>
> Please don't misunderstand, I've been using Linux for over 2 years and I
> haven't tried to solve the problem either.  In my case, I wouldn't use
> OCR often enough to make it a priority.  Of course if someone creates a
> good OCR program in Linux, I'll use it.
>
>           Kenny
>
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 06:51:44AM -0400, Lorenzo Prince wrote:
> > Well, IMHO, I believe that having proprietary closed-license software
> > kinda defeats the purpose of using Linux as an open-source sollution.
> > Somebody just needs to step up and make a usable open-source sollution for
> > OCR and a few other things we still need.
> >
> > Lorenzo
> >
> > E Pluribus Unix
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Thomas D. Ward]

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.

Re: This sucks! OCR in Linux

[Adam Myrow]

Well, to my mind, we have half the problem of free/open source OCR solved.
Sane can communicate with an impressive number of scanners, so any OCR
solution would greatly benefit from using Sane to do the scanning.