Re: [orca-list] OpenSolaris (was Re: An Open Letter to Oracle on the Topic Of Accessibility)

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Just a few quick comments as I feel we could be straying from topic.

Yes I do know that Sun was a big part of the development of opensolaris, 
may be its a bit concerning as again we are at the mercy of one 
organisation. I wonder if others would still try for desktop 
distributions of solaris should oracle concentrate on servers, eg. I am 
thinking of belenix they might want to become the desktop solaris system.

I am tempted to try freebsd, it seems to have many good features, the 
problem is I don't see a really good accessible way to install it (I 
seem to have a memory that serial console is possible, I don't know what 
other options exist).

As for some of the issues with binary only modules, etc, I guess this is 
a matter for the individual, personally I go for functionality first, I 
actually don't mind commercial software if I feel its worth the price 
asked (NOTE: in my opinion many commercial applications aren't 
reasonably priced, particularly in the AT world). With opensource 
software I guess the price is do what you can to help the community 
(whatever form this may take, contributing code, writing docs, answering 
questions on a list/forum, etc).

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Jason White wrote:
> Michael Whapples<mwhapples aim com>  wrote:
>    
> > Thanks for that info, is there a doc explaining it in a little more
> > detail? It just goes to show I rely too much on speakup and speakup
> > only in text consoles. Well I use brltty as well but I don't think
> > it has drivers for solaris virtual consoles).
> >      
> So far as I know, you are right: to use it under Solaris you need to run a
> patched version of GNU Screen.
>
> There was an article published a month or more ago indicating that Oracle were
> planning to promote Solaris primarily on high-end servers, not on the desktop,
> which could amount to a change in direction, to some extent, of Solaris
> development.
>
> Also remember that it isn't fully open-source or free software (there are
> binary-only components that still haven't been replaced, and which can't be
> released in source form for legal reasons). It is also my impression that the
> community associated with it is very small, and that it remains highly
> dependent on Sun (now Oracle) for its development.
>
> Linux has a much larger community of developers and is gaining features
> (Btrfs, tracing etc.) equivalent to those which make Solaris 10 attractive.
> FreeBSD is taking those features directly from Solaris. The situation
> regarding BRLTTY is the same on FreeBSD as on Solaris: no support for virtual
> consoles. Although I may try FreeBSD at some point under virtualization, the
> lack of console access is a sufficient reason not to run it on any of my
> systems.
>
> So far, Linux has been the best at incorporating accessibility-related
> features at the kernel level and in offering virtual consoles conducive to
> braille support. Of course, Orca should run equally well on all of the above
> systems.
>
>
>
>