Sure, Microsoft even admits it's core accessability features suck. To quote from Microsoft's own mouth:
"The accessibility tools that ship with Windows are intended to provide a minimum level of functionality for users with special needs. Most users with disabilities will need utility programs with more advanced functionality for daily use."
I was primarly refering to 3rd party softwarre avaibility allowing Windows to be very accessable. Linux simply dosnt have the tools/utilities/libraries avaible be it from the community OR from commercial 3rd parties.
Apple and Microsoft are still leaps and bounds above Linux in terms of accessability mainly because of speach-to-text technology, OCR technology and better support for unique human input devices. These are ESSENTIAL for many people with vision imparements and mobility disabilities.
In terms of speach-to-text Windows & Apple have products like IBM via-vioce and/or Dragon naturally speaking for spech-to-text which can also serve as an alternative human input method for many tasks. What dose Linux and the open source world have that comes even remotly close to this?
OCR, frequenly used by persons with mobility disabilities as well vision imparements is also sadly lacking. Why isn't there any software for linux where I can smack a book or a page down on a scanner and have it translate it into editable characters? Or, alternativly put the ATK's text-to-speach functionality to use and READ it to me;)
Then there is the issue of human input devices and drivers for Linux... but driver issues and linux are far from new.
Give me text-to-speach, give me real ocr and give me more drivers for more unique human input devices and then I might begin to think Linux and the open-source world is becomming accessable.
The windows port I was refering to was a (pay) product known as Phindows. The reason for the existance of phindows is simply beacuse the number of windows developers is massive. The number of linux deverlops is a great deal less. If enough QNX developers (with developement seats I'll add) demand a linux port it'll happen, but until then you'll just have to live with QNX as the only free host environment.
You say you werent talking about qnx RtP in the embeded space but as a desktop - yet this entire slashdot post was on QNX RtP on the iPaq, an embeded device.
Frankly, I can use QNX6 as a desktop and have for quite some time. The issues you present are trivial at best in my view.
> I thought that I saw somewhere that QSSL was making parts of QNX open source? Anybody hear anything about that?
Download any DDK and you'll find driver source and more, also check out http://cvs.qnx.com (It needs an update but it's gitting there).
>An Photon Linux port would really rock.
Bah... it's been ported to windows, but it aint gonna be ported to Linux anytime soon.
>Photon has tons of features, is really small and fast, and the fonts and UI graphics look orgasmically good.
Yep...
>QNX's kernel is nice for embedded systems, but on the desktop (which RtP tries to support) it is kinda flaky due to an anemic VM and filesystem.
Anemic VM and filesystem? The VM and filesystem are fine - it'd be good if you gave a real example of how they were bad (the one below dosent count as I nip it in the bud...).
>For example, it doesn't support paging directly, an app has to be coded with it in mind. Great for RT, but for GCC.
There seem to be many things that you cannot fully comprehend... firstly...
QSSL IS NOT MAKING MONEY FROM OPEN-SOURCE/FREE-SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.
They are making money from large corporations that like to keep secrets. Now dont get me wrong - they like the ideas they hold and in a utopia there would be no secrets and everyone would be happy... but this isnt a perfect world.
Next, reverse-engineering is unacceptable for a company like QSSL - QNX when used in the real world depends on being as acurate as possible and alot of the time reverse engineer is unaccurate or impossible on some devices (I'd tell you a little story about the Dallas MCU and Mr Coffe but I've told a bit to many stories today...).
Not only is reverse engineering a bad choice as mention above it's also an ILLEGAL choice in many places where QSSL has brances, and illegal activity is not good umm-k? QSSL dose not like to pay million dollar lawsuits for the free-software community.
You seem to misunderstand that QSSL as an OS developer is always stuck between a rock and a hardplace, between end-users who want the world to be open and developers who feel knowledge corrupts and absolutely knoledge corrupts absolutly.
Frankly QSSL is doing the very best possibly, there making as much source code free to everyone (busness and privite users alike) while keeping powerful friends that might later bless them for their patronage. I hope you can understand where their comming from.
In-house QSSL has QNX running on a G4 (tho not much work is being done on it now, as if you'll pass by your more then likely just going to see the now infamous phmatrix screen saver)...
I've personally submited MANY patches to xmame/xmess (see: http://x.mame.net/download/changes.unix) tho I havent checked it in awhile I assume it should be good.
I'm also mantaining the official port of MAME for QNX; PhMAME. Download it here or see an old screenshot here.
Actually they prolly will release it to the public eventually (there are other things like the version of QNX6 inhouse running on the Mac G4 that they wont).
QSSL did not do this to get attention, as they would have released a press-relase if they did, someone (I actually know who now... their a student at IIT) who hangs around QSSL employees and other users found out and thought it would be good to post.
I have two different replies for you; one to why QPE is not better, and one about your GPL zinger....
Firstly reasons to chose QNX over QPE for your iPaq...
(1) QPE has alot of legacy attached to it.
(2) Qt applications can already run fine in QNX so all they really need is a recompile to work.
(3) It's cheeper to develop on QNX then QPE.
(4) It's bulky, really bulky - QNX can run quite comfortably in 5 megs of RAM - QPE requires much more.
(5) It's prettier... sorry, it just is.
Now the GPL issue..
Sorry to tell you but the GPL is not a good thing (TM).
Software on the QNX version of the iPaq can use the GPL if the author desires, however many real embeded developers have a great dislike for it (for many reasons). In fact, I'd like to tell you a little story.
Back before QNX 6.0 was released to the public QNX uses ALSA for sound... for it seemed like a good idea at the time - "simply tweek the drivers and recompile for QNX" said the QSSL engineers "It'll make our jobs alot easier!" they said.
But it diddent! See, many of the big audio corporations had what is known as "propritary hardware", and in order to have a real, fully-accelerated driver they'd have to relase all their secrets to the public and their competition.
QSSL soon figured out the problems with this; Is it better to have an OS that has rocking sound with a few-closed source drivers or an OS with okay sound and a couple of problematic drivers beacuse big busness dosent wana share technical specs?
So, the poor old QSSL engineers rewrote the sound system from the ground up so it wouldnt be tainted (yes, thats the right word - tainted) by the GPL. Now big busness likes them! As they can make driver or submit secret information to QSSL under a NDA for them to make excellent drivers, plus most of the sound system is open-source (download the Audio DDK and see for yourself). It's really a win-win situation.
And remember - Many pats of QNX -ARE- open-source (not just the sound system!), and the open-source parts (for the greater part) can be used for both comercial and non comercial purpose, but are not GPL'ed.
One must NOT confuse the GPL and the open-source philosphy, as they are two different things.
First of all you must remember all the iPaq is a computer, the big difference between it and your dekstop is the CPU - an ARM (little endian).
Now with that in mind...
MAKE YOUR OWN!
Download QNX 6.1 ISO at http://get.qnx.com/ and burn it to a CD.
Install all the needed developement tools including those for different archectures. QNX can build binaries for other arahectures (arm, sh2, ppc, etc) nativly on your x86, so really all you have to do is fire up PhAB after everything is installed and do it yourself. Applications like PhAB make it extreamly simple and rather quick.
Want a Calendar? PhAB has a pre-built Calendar widget called PtCalendar, simply drop it on a window and VIOLA! Your very own Calendar (See http://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/photon_2.0_en/widg et_ref/ptcalendar.html for more information on it).
Contacts & E-mail would be pretty simple as all QSSL would need to do is recompile Phemail (tho alternations would be best).
As for a todo list it's much the same as the first example I gave except it's the PtText widget (see: http://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/photon_2.0_en/widg et_ref/pttext.html).
None of the apps you named are really 'killer apps', there simple apps anyone could make with next to no programmer knowledge - which is why QSSL diddent put such a high priority on them - they not only wanted people to play with the QNX version of the iPaq but to try to learn how to develop for Photon/Neutrino too, and once someone tried to make an app like you mentioned they'd instantly realize how truly easy it is.
As far as I know QSSL (QNX Software Systems Limited) will release a supplement to QNX 6.1 (Or 6.1.1) that will contain what is needed, however I doubt it'll be out any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, Microsoft even admits it's core accessability features suck. To quote from Microsoft's own mouth:
"The accessibility tools that ship with Windows are intended to provide a minimum level of functionality for users with special needs. Most users with disabilities will need utility programs with more advanced functionality for daily use."
I was primarly refering to 3rd party softwarre avaibility allowing Windows to be very accessable. Linux simply dosnt have the tools/utilities/libraries avaible be it from the community OR from commercial 3rd parties.
This isnt as big an accomplishment as it seems.
Apple and Microsoft are still leaps and bounds above Linux in terms of accessability mainly because of speach-to-text technology, OCR technology and better support for unique human input devices. These are ESSENTIAL for many people with vision imparements and mobility disabilities.
In terms of speach-to-text Windows & Apple have products like IBM via-vioce and/or Dragon naturally speaking for spech-to-text which can also serve as an alternative human input method for many tasks. What dose Linux and the open source world have that comes even remotly close to this?
OCR, frequenly used by persons with mobility disabilities as well vision imparements is also sadly lacking. Why isn't there any software for linux where I can smack a book or a page down on a scanner and have it translate it into editable characters? Or, alternativly put the ATK's text-to-speach functionality to use and READ it to me
Then there is the issue of human input devices and drivers for Linux... but driver issues and linux are far from new.
Give me text-to-speach, give me real ocr and give me more drivers for more unique human input devices and then I might begin to think Linux and the open-source world is becomming accessable.
The windows port I was refering to was a (pay) product known as Phindows. The reason for the existance of phindows is simply beacuse the number of windows developers is massive. The number of linux deverlops is a great deal less. If enough QNX developers (with developement seats I'll add) demand a linux port it'll happen, but until then you'll just have to live with QNX as the only free host environment.
Ick...
;o
I think you've missed the point
You say you werent talking about qnx RtP in the embeded space but as a desktop - yet this entire slashdot post was on QNX RtP on the iPaq, an embeded device.
Frankly, I can use QNX6 as a desktop and have for quite some time. The issues you present are trivial at best in my view.
Ahem...
> I thought that I saw somewhere that QSSL was making parts of QNX open source? Anybody hear anything about that?
Download any DDK and you'll find driver source and more, also check out http://cvs.qnx.com (It needs an update but it's gitting there).
>An Photon Linux port would really rock.
Bah... it's been ported to windows, but it aint gonna be ported to Linux anytime soon.
>Photon has tons of features, is really small and fast, and the fonts and UI graphics look orgasmically good.
Yep...
>QNX's kernel is nice for embedded systems, but on the desktop (which RtP tries to support) it is kinda flaky due to an anemic VM and filesystem.
Anemic VM and filesystem? The VM and filesystem are fine - it'd be good if you gave a real example of how they were bad (the one below dosent count as I nip it in the bud...).
>For example, it doesn't support paging directly, an app has to be coded with it in mind. Great for RT, but for GCC.
munlockall() - is that so hard? Watch...
int main()
{
printf("info: enabling swapfile...");
munlockall();
printf("info: swapfile enabled!");
return 0;
}
The ability to enable or disable paging in an application is an asset in any device including desktops, not a fault.
What chu talk'in bout Whillis? It's free...
There seem to be many things that you cannot fully comprehend... firstly...
QSSL IS NOT MAKING MONEY FROM OPEN-SOURCE/FREE-SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.
They are making money from large corporations that like to keep secrets. Now dont get me wrong - they like the ideas they hold and in a utopia there would be no secrets and everyone would be happy... but this isnt a perfect world.
Next, reverse-engineering is unacceptable for a company like QSSL - QNX when used in the real world depends on being as acurate as possible and alot of the time reverse engineer is unaccurate or impossible on some devices (I'd tell you a little story about the Dallas MCU and Mr Coffe but I've told a bit to many stories today...).
Not only is reverse engineering a bad choice as mention above it's also an ILLEGAL choice in many places where QSSL has brances, and illegal activity is not good umm-k? QSSL dose not like to pay million dollar lawsuits for the free-software community.
You seem to misunderstand that QSSL as an OS developer is always stuck between a rock and a hardplace, between end-users who want the world to be open and developers who feel knowledge corrupts and absolutely knoledge corrupts absolutly.
Frankly QSSL is doing the very best possibly, there making as much source code free to everyone (busness and privite users alike) while keeping powerful friends that might later bless them for their patronage. I hope you can understand where their comming from.
What makes you think they havent ;)
In-house QSSL has QNX running on a G4 (tho not much work is being done on it now, as if you'll pass by your more then likely just going to see the now infamous phmatrix screen saver)...
HA!
I've personally submited MANY patches to xmame/xmess (see: http://x.mame.net/download/changes.unix) tho I havent checked it in awhile I assume it should be good.
I'm also mantaining the official port of MAME for QNX; PhMAME. Download it here or see an old screenshot here.
Actually they prolly will release it to the public eventually (there are other things like the version of QNX6 inhouse running on the Mac G4 that they wont).
QSSL did not do this to get attention, as they would have released a press-relase if they did, someone (I actually know who now... their a student at IIT) who hangs around QSSL employees and other users found out and thought it would be good to post.
Ahh well, the cats outa the bag now.
I have two different replies for you; one to why QPE is not better, and one about your GPL zinger....
Firstly reasons to chose QNX over QPE for your iPaq...
(1) QPE has alot of legacy attached to it.
(2) Qt applications can already run fine in QNX so all they really need is a recompile to work.
(3) It's cheeper to develop on QNX then QPE.
(4) It's bulky, really bulky - QNX can run quite comfortably in 5 megs of RAM - QPE requires much more.
(5) It's prettier... sorry, it just is.
Now the GPL issue..
Sorry to tell you but the GPL is not a good thing (TM).
Software on the QNX version of the iPaq can use the GPL if the author desires, however many real embeded developers have a great dislike for it (for many reasons). In fact, I'd like to tell you a little story.
Back before QNX 6.0 was released to the public QNX uses ALSA for sound... for it seemed like a good idea at the time - "simply tweek the drivers and recompile for QNX" said the QSSL engineers "It'll make our jobs alot easier!" they said.
But it diddent! See, many of the big audio corporations had what is known as "propritary hardware", and in order to have a real, fully-accelerated driver they'd have to relase all their secrets to the public and their competition.
QSSL soon figured out the problems with this; Is it better to have an OS that has rocking sound with a few-closed source drivers or an OS with okay sound and a couple of problematic drivers beacuse big busness dosent wana share technical specs?
So, the poor old QSSL engineers rewrote the sound system from the ground up so it wouldnt be tainted (yes, thats the right word - tainted) by the GPL. Now big busness likes them! As they can make driver or submit secret information to QSSL under a NDA for them to make excellent drivers, plus most of the sound system is open-source (download the Audio DDK and see for yourself). It's really a win-win situation.
And remember - Many pats of QNX -ARE- open-source (not just the sound system!), and the open-source parts (for the greater part) can be used for both comercial and non comercial purpose, but are not GPL'ed.
One must NOT confuse the GPL and the open-source philosphy, as they are two different things.
Mozilla 0.9.2 runs on it (see: http://developers.qnx.com/Ports/)...
Opera also runs on it (see: http://www.opera.com/qnx/)....
But I'd personally recomend Voyager for most things are both Opera and Mozilla need alot of refining before their truly ready for QNX.
First of all you must remember all the iPaq is a computer, the big difference between it and your dekstop is the CPU - an ARM (little endian). Now with that in mind... MAKE YOUR OWN! Download QNX 6.1 ISO at http://get.qnx.com/ and burn it to a CD. Install all the needed developement tools including those for different archectures. QNX can build binaries for other arahectures (arm, sh2, ppc, etc) nativly on your x86, so really all you have to do is fire up PhAB after everything is installed and do it yourself. Applications like PhAB make it extreamly simple and rather quick. Want a Calendar? PhAB has a pre-built Calendar widget called PtCalendar, simply drop it on a window and VIOLA! Your very own Calendar (See http://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/photon_2.0_en/widg et_ref/ptcalendar.html for more information on it).
Contacts & E-mail would be pretty simple as all QSSL would need to do is recompile Phemail (tho alternations would be best).
As for a todo list it's much the same as the first example I gave except it's the PtText widget (see: http://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/photon_2.0_en/widg et_ref/pttext.html).
None of the apps you named are really 'killer apps', there simple apps anyone could make with next to no programmer knowledge - which is why QSSL diddent put such a high priority on them - they not only wanted people to play with the QNX version of the iPaq but to try to learn how to develop for Photon/Neutrino too, and once someone tried to make an app like you mentioned they'd instantly realize how truly easy it is.
As far as I know QSSL (QNX Software Systems Limited) will release a supplement to QNX 6.1 (Or 6.1.1) that will contain what is needed, however I doubt it'll be out any time soon.