Hi Cheryl,
Hope you are well
I'm sorry this is not as well put as your post
These comments are not in any way meant as a personal attack on
Jonathan or on Freedom, as i lgreatly like and have a lot of respect
for Jonathan.
I have also known Jonathan for some time, and have finally had the
chance to meet him in person at this years Sight Village as i think i
may have mentioned in my post.
I absolutely agree, Freedom's attitude along with others is somewhat
concerning. Jonathan jokingly asked me why i ws using a Mac, and I
don't think he was convinced when I gave him my reasons, i.e. that
the mac is in my experience far more stable than Windows.
As you say, it is about time that Freedom and others did include
other users who may use different platforms. Infact, from what i
understood, some or at least one of Freedom's Braille products work
in some fashion with Linux, which is as far as I know, also a
reasonably small user group, at least in comparisson with Windows.
I can appreciate Jonathan's concerns, but has anyone at Freedom etc
actually sat down and used a Mac since the release of 10.4 or even
when Out Spoken was being distributed? From the company's attitude I
seriously doubt it.
Also, I am not entirely convinced that Jonathan's comments are his,
rather I think they are the general feelings of the industry. i have
always found Jonathan to be very open-minded. But it seems clear,
and it is very sad if this is the case, that the industry as a whole
does not sem conerned with those people who do not use Windows. I am
sincerely questioning their motives as ideally for FS and others to
support Apple and Linux etc, would be to bring accessible technology
to the blind and print disabled, which is what they are in business
to do.
But you are right, something needs to be done, but as i said in my
post, there has apparently been some sort of discussion between FS
and Apple, so I guess we will have to wait and see. But one thing
seems evident - the Apple user base is growing, and it will likely
increase again with the release of Leopard in October.
I wonder what we can do.
Take care
James
On 21 Jul 2007, at 04:44, Cheryl Edwards wrote:
Hi Greg and all,
I must say that I am rather perplexed about the comments made
concerning Freedom's willingness to work with Apple, and,
especially the comments concerning Jonathan MOSEN.. Why? Well,
Mr. Mosen has been a friend of mine for several years now and both
while working for Humanware and now for Freedom has made it very
clear to me, as a Mac user, there was no interest by either company
to do anything with Apple because the "user-base is so small". At
the convention of the American Council of the Blind, held the first
week of this month, I had lunch with Mr. MOSEN. where we
discussed Freedom's future involvement with Apple. He said that
Freedom did a "once-a-year check" to assess if they had any cause
to become involved with Apple and according to their evaluation
they saw none.
We had a rather heated discussion about, what I see, as nothing
less than an arrogant attitude taken by Freedomcccct of the big boy
on the block who has nothing to worry about, safe and snug in the
bed of its reputation and "user-base". He did not share my
opinion, but instead saw Apple as a company who forsook the
blindness community in regards to accessibility and called them the
"enemy" of the blind. He was worried that Freedom would have
anything to do with Apple and saw that relationship as a negative,
not a positive.
My apologies if my remarks cause any offence, but I have been a Mac
user since 1987 and for as long as I have been acquainted with
Freedom, asking them to look at issues of compatibility I have
experienced only attitudes of snobbery. Even so far as a vendor
laughing, asking me, "Why in the world would you every want to use
a Mac"?
Please, let it be stated here, very clearly, that my remarks are
NOT meant as an personal attack on Jonathan, not at all! My
intentions here are simply to communicate to a somewhat private
list my concern for mixed messages we are getting from vendors whom
I am not exactly certain have a real intention of doing anything
other than pacifying those of us who are making some much needed
noise. I do not think this is appropriate behavior; it is akin to
being strung along in an uncertain relationship. I think it
behooves us to hold their feet to the fire, to not settle in to a
position of contentment by their answer and sitting and waiting. I
think we need to make it clear we are just as viable a "user-base"
as those who choose to use a different platform.
The reasoning of third party companies seems to be that of a
ferris-wheel that does not stop to let anyone else on. "The user-
base is too small". Well, how can it get larger if you will do
nothing to include the needs of that small user-base, enabling more
people to join it? It's a difficult circle to get a secure vendor
to open and let others in.
With sincere and concerned regards,
Cheryl
