[orca-list] Speech Dispatch vs OpenTTS

[Steve Holmes <steve holmes88 gmail com>]

Now that OpenTTS support has been merged into git master, it is now
available to all those who wish to try OpenTTS with orca without
having to apply patches and the loke.  This brings up an opinion I
wish to express.  

At this point in time, Orca supports access to two similar speech
engines - Speech Dispatcher and its forked clone, OpenTTS.  The
reasons for forking and creating a clone belong to a separate thread.
the supporting modules for these speech systems are presently mere
copies of the other except for names.  However, this could change in
the future if / when OpenTTS moves out and possibly adopt new
features, standards or whatever.  For that reason, I have strong
reservations about combining or merging the Speech Dispatcher and
OpenTTS speech factory python modules.  They could be merged possibly
now but the common modules, if any, might pin OpenTTS down to
limitations of Speech Dispatcher or even visaversa.  So for the time
being, it means having to support two speech modules if a change
should occur requiring updates to the factory modules.  Let me go on
record now, saying that I will be willing to watch over the Speech
Dispatcher and OpenTTS factory modules and try to keep them current
with one another until one of them has unique features not supported
by the other.  Obviously at that time, each module would need to be
more on its own, enjoying separate support.

I hope noone minds too badly having two speech systems nearly
parallels of each other but this gives people a choice and flexibility
for future changes.  Just an aside, the OpenTTS develpers have managed
to correct numerous memory leakes and other critical stability fixes.
That alone makes me want to use OpenTTS instead.  But for each his or
her own.