Re: FreedomBox

[Kenny Hitt <kenny@hittsjunk.net>]

Hi.

On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 07:42:11PM -0500, Matt Campbell wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I'd like to respond to some of the recent comments about FreedomBox and 
> the company behind it.
> 
> In response to Kenny:  Where on Earth did you get the idea that we sell 
> personal information or track web browsing activity?  We have never done 
> anything of that sort, and I find it insulting to suggest that we would. 
>  As consumers, I and the other people at Serotek hate spyware, just 
> like everyone else, so why would we spend time developign something that 
> we knew our users would hate?  We prefer to use our limited resources to 
> develop innovative products and services that users will enjoy. (Hint: 
> I'm currently Serotek's only programmer.) So I'd seriously like to know 
> what made you think that we sell personal information or track your 
> online activities, because there isn't an ounce of truth there.
> 

I got that idea from mail sent to me by your boss, Mike Calvo.  Hope I
got his last name spelled right.  He regularly posts messages telling
Freedombox members that he needs more customers to sign up for his service
so he can get better deals with businesses.  Even though I haven't had
anything to do with Freedombox since my browser stopped working, I
still get mail.

> We did change our minds about making the browser available free of 
> charge, but for good reason.  Would you actually use the FreedomBox 
> browser at no charge, with Festival or Flite, if it was available?  As a 
> consumer, I wouldn't consider it worthwhile to save a mere twenty-five 
> dollars to put up with one of those awful text-to-speech engines, for 
> all or even some of my web browsing.  Considering, as Cheryl pointed 
> out, that FreedomBox gives you access to sites that aren't otherwise 
> accessible under Linux, I'd say it's worth the twenty-five bucks.  It's 
> certainly the most inexpensive adaptive technology product of its kind 
> that I would consider usable by the average user.  If you want to 
> continue using Lynx with Speakup, that's fine.  Don't get me wrong; 
> Speakup is a good product, but we're in the twenty-first century now, 
> and Lynx is way behind the times by any measure.  Anyway, as a business, 
> we just didn't think it made sense to spend thousands of dollars worth 
> of programming time to support one of these undebatably inferior 
> text-to-speech engines.
> 
Yes.  I understood that that was exactly the plan.  Freedombox was going
to use Festival as a replacement for DECtalk in the free Linux version.
Just because you don't like Festival or Flite is no excuse to go back on
your promise.
Freedombox could talk to speech-dispatcher.  It has a simple interface
and will give access to more than one TTS engine.

I agree about Lynx.  I personally no longer use it for any browsing.

> As for Lorenzo's suggestion that we're no better than Freedom 
> Scientific, I find the comparison ludicrous.  As I said before, for 
> 

I agree with lorenzo.  It isn't the price, it is the lack of keeping
your promises that makes you no different from Freedom Scientific.
True, thay make a good screen reader, but (in my experience) they have a
bad attitude toward their customers and fail to keep their promises.

> the company, Mike Calvo has personally fought for the development of the 
> Linux port of FreedomBox.  He has also permitted and even encouraged me 
> to contribute back to open-source software.  Have we done some things 

What open source software have you contributed to?
I know Freedombox isn't open source and I'm not suggesting that 
should change.  I'm also not suggesting you aren't a good 
programmer, or that you haven't written very useful Linux programs in the past.

          Kenny