Perl for the Disabled

joukev writes "Perl.com is running an article on pVoice. pVoice is an Open Source communication system for severely disabled children written in Perl. I started this for my daughter in 2001. She's still using it and hopefully the medical world will see that there are Open Source alternatives for these kinds of applications. More information on pVoice can be found on the pVoice website (general information) or on the pVoice Developers website."

Comments

Free as in "The Only Viable Alternative"

[WildFire42]

Having tried to find Assistive Technology products in the past for people, to meet specific needs, this really gets my hopes up in two seperate ways:

1. Someone saw a specific need and developed an application around it. As he said in the text, the closest application available would not suffice.
2. Too many Assistive Technology products are horrendously expensive. JAWS, the de facto screen reader for Windows, can be $1500 for an individual user for one computer only. There are discounts, grants, and loans available out there for Assistive Technology, but they can be hard to get.

The only other fully featured screen reader that I've been able to find is emacspeak, but there's little out there in full screen navigation screen readers for Windows, Macintosh, etc. (in terms of Free).

Re:The wrong free distinction, it's free as in spe

[kruntiform]

Why this is somewhat amusing is that it's the other kind of "free" (as in speech) as well

The Artistic License may or may not be free (as in RMS). Here's what the FSF says about it:

We cannot say that this is a free software license because it is too vague; some passages are too clever for their own good, and their meaning is not clear. We urge you to avoid using it, except as part of the disjunctive license of Perl.

The problems are matters of wording, not substance. There is a revised version of the Artistic License (dubbed "The Artistic License 2.0") which is a free software license, and even compatible with the GNU GPL. This license is being considered for use in Perl 6. If you are thinking of releasing a program under the Artistic License, please do investigate other GPL-compatible, Free Software licensing options listed here first.
[link]

Re:Kudos To a Father

[Kalak]

Coming from a parent of a child with Apraxia due to prematurity (she canComing from a parent of a child with Apraxia due to prematurity (she can't control her mouth and tongue muscles well enough to speak), I'd like to ask any developers with a desire to work on a feel good project to get into this. If you want to feel like you're making a real difference, this beats programming the latest video game (and I'm a gamer).

This is probably the motivation that will get me to learn Perl finally. This could give my child (who also has trouble signing ASL) a voice, and it's not costing an arm and a leg (ok, so she'd need a notebook to take with her, but that's minor compared to the potential).

For the first time since I've been reading it, I'm proud of /. for posting something that proves the power of people, not just the power of open source. I'll thank the programmers with my help and praise, but I'd like to thank joukev for catching it, and michael for posting it (and all the little people in the world for making me tall). /. has done it's good deed for the day.