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Re: [orca-list] The new Hypra website


Yes, I really did not want to write about this again, but as you must not have seen the discussion in the 
past...
The free engines work fine for many people, and fine for some or many jobs for others, but for another groups 
of us who do things that require near perfect 
results, i.e. to fill out paperwork that has life impacting importance, read mail that may be in much less 
clear fonts than those you have recognized on 
your computer screen with ocrdesktop, etc, yes, there is for sure a reason to use something that gives better 
results.
I can't compare abbyy to teseract as I've not used the former, but I can compare the results using lios or 
something else using teseract to the results I 
got using kurzweil, and the difference on more than one occasion, was between around 70% accuracy and 92% 
accuracy. That is major, and not only that, but 
70% accuracy is not good enough to do more than see what something is more or less, e.g., would you get 
anything out of a bank statement that was only 70% 
read correctly?
I do not get bank documents, or anything else in paper if I can get it on line as a pdf, but the whole point 
of the program, as far as I know lios is what 
is being worked on,
is to give folks something good enough to do as much as is possible with, i.e. not a something that won't 
work for many people in its target user base.
I do not use other opperating systems other than Linux on my PC(s) unless there is a document I can not OCR. 
I honestly can think of nothing else other 
than occasional curiosity that has gotten me to use my one installed copy of windows in years, but I must 
keep a working windows to run kurzweil, and I can 
imagine myself traveling, and traveling I'd not have my windows box with me ever, where I'd need to read a 
paper of some kind. 
I can not say to someone who has always gotten very good results using  cuniform or teseract that that is not 
there experience, but I've seen the 
difference in results between  the better proprietary options and the options from the FOS world. 
Also, as long as I am writing this, the one major difference between the "eloquence case" as another poster 
called it and this is that the old ibm-tts has 
not been developed in years. Abbyy is a maintained piece of software, and there are other proprietary engines 
that are maintained and or under development 
that might become available, or be made available for us on Linux. 
Would I prefer seeing tesseract improve to at least with in striking range of the accuracy acheived by the 
best solutions available for personal computers, 
hell yes! If that isnot possible would I like to see some one write a new rockin FOS OCR solution, again for 
sure and of course.
I do not know of such work, but as I said before, then when it becomes available we can use the free 
engine(s), but until then let's not try and tell 
people they can't work, and or must get a lot of extra sighted help. 
If you do not need the proprietary engine, then of course you are more than free not to use it, but do not 
try and hold those who do need it back.
I'm done, said this stuff before, tried to be clear and maybe even persuasive, but hey, the fsf has not even 
put a priority on accessiblity that I've ever 
seen. 
What, one of their darling distros is nicely accessibler for blind folks, another completely unusable from 
what I hear, and...can't remember about the 
other for sure.
My point being, we are not necesarily going to get any help from the hard core free software movement, nor 
have I seen any new free OCR projects mentioned 
in any context, so it's posibly not just a case of holding out for a few months. 
I get the propaganda because I strongly support FOS, even started a google group to promote the discussion of 
accessible free software, but because some 
proprietary projects exist in the world, and maybe some of us need to use a few of them, that does not make 
free software less valid, not as good or 
anything else other than what it is and can be.
Actually there's a case to be made that a good proprietary project can put pressure on the good free project 
to become better, not just a "poorman's 
solution".
I apologize for the verbose conclusion, bjut really want to move on to other things and wanted to make the 
major points and be done with it.
Regards,  
 
    
   

-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  Devin Prater wrote:
Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 10:17:00AM -0500


You know, I was using OcrDesktop for a few things, like video game screens,
youtube videos, and I'm not sure what OCR engine it uses,but gosh it works
amazingly! Is there any reason to use non-free engines anyways?


On 08/26/2016 09:37 PM, kendell clark wrote:

hi

I agree with burt. I'm a lot more inclined to use and promote free and
open source software, and the idea of a "blindness" company turns my
stomach. Not that I'm saying hypra is one, just that I've had such bad
experiences with companies like humanware, freedom scientific, etc that
publically say they're trying to make the lives of their customers
better when all they're actually doing is trying to turn a profit at our
expense. If that weren't true, they'd open source this stuff. Make it
royalty free, so that anyone, not just windows and apple and the popular
options, can benefit. They'd make their products hardware specs and
schematics open, and they'd release open hardware designs for things
like braille displays, braille keyboards, and the like. Before I get
jumped on for not being supportive of proprietary options, I'm not
against them exactly, but I am against the expectation that you should
use them. If a person has to use windows to do their job or because
there is no good linux or open source alternative for some thing they
want to do, that's one thing, and can't be helped. But to actively
discourage use of the open source alternatives just because you don't
use them, that's not ok with me and will very quickly enrage me. I'm
going into rant mode so I'll shut up. Support this non free ocr engine
if you must, but try your best to either get that engine open sourced or
improve the open source ones so that they're as good as or better than
this nonfree engine. This goes for synthesizers such as espeak as well.
If we cling to the nonfree options because they're easier and never put
the work into improving the open source stuff, it's not going to improve
itself.

Thanks

Kendell Clark



On 08/26/2016 09:24 PM, B. Henry wrote:

The problem is for now.
I agree that as much as is practical we should always base work on
FOS products and services, software, and systems, but some people
must have something
that works well enough for them today, not in a month, much less in
6 months or a couple of years, or when it happens, and someone must
make the effort to
help them as well.
Some people can choose to not take on a project or job if it forces
them to use non-free stuph, but others can not reasonably make that
choice, or must use
something non-free for now so that they become economically and or
professionally stable enough to make other decisions in the future.
I am not trying to get in to a debate, nor say that there is a right
or better way to live and or compute that fits all users and
situations, just saying
that I aplaud the project for making a nonfree OCR engine available
for those who need it.
I think the people involved will choose FOS whenever possible from
what little I know of them and their values and wishes, and for the
record that is what
I would most like to see, and I will support and promote the project
more if that is the case.
Anyway, I say thank you for your work  with the Hypra  Project, and
for organizing your team to make Linux computing more accessible for
blind and low
vision folks.



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