freedom of accessibility on gnome

till very recently, visually handicap people had no choice but to be unfortunate victims of proprietory softwares including screen readers. the evils of proprietory software are wellknown and also wellknown is the fact that proprietory software firms have not spared even the visually challenged people in their dirty game of restricting the technology user and his freedom.
proprietory screen readers for example not just costed high (higher than the cost of a laptop), but restricted the blind computer users to such an extent that they still remained handicap in terms of many things they could have done on computers, but were not allowed to do.
Infact cost although being one of the major problems was just a very small drop of the ocean of problems and restrictions which proprietory screen readers had put on the blind computer user.
the issue was not really technical. I am aware that proprietory screen readers have many superior features but the social and economic restrictions on the blind computer users due to proprietory screen readers has been prominently seen. How can a blind person work in the field of technology when his techno eyes, his very own screen reader does not "exactly do " what he or she wants? there are so many softwares developed every day and a screen reader can't be expected to be compatible with all these new softwares. We can understand this technical problem but if the blind computer user in question has to use it for his job requirement or study or research, who should take the responsibility of making the screen reader read out the screens of information and widgets which the customised software has to offer?
The companies making such softwares have no aim to provide such comprehensive solutions. they never did and never would care about the problems which blind people face. all that they want is heavy money, either from the pockets of the needee blind person, the government grants which handicap people get or some donator who helps a blind person in need.
no, scripting is not the answer. I know softwares like jaws for windows have a scripting model where a certain degree of customisation can be done but technically it is highly restrictive and depends on another proprietory piece of software and inturn depends on windows.
proprietory softwares like jaws and window-eyes has been an absolute failure not so much in terms of their technical features but in terms of addressing the needs of blind people. ofcourse since the softwares are proprietory in nature, we can't expect any thing more than shini new features every now and then and "the bug will be fixt in the upcoming version " dialog.
furthermore there is no way that a blind person can have a say in the development of such proprietory softwares and if at all there is an unfortunate community around softwaers like jaws involving some scripting, it has been seen that it does not help much.

Obviously jobs are difficult to get, afterall why will some one employ a blind person for a fixt salary worth few bugs when he finds that he will have to invest a few thousands just to get a cd full of some rubbish funky speach system which can barely communicate with the customised softwares being used at the organisation. even after paying for licenses if the screen reader fails to work with the custom software being used at the office where that blind person is supposed to work, I don't think there would be any point employing a visually challenged person.
besides the proprietory speech synthesizers fail to work in many languages thus rendering them useless in many situations where regional languages are important. Take for example a case where a blind person would need to write news articles in hindi, which is the national language of India. how does eloquance or jaws help fix this situation?
but due to the developmenrs off late, blind community is now free. they can have the vision of freedom through a couple of free and open source softwares.
orca is one such software which works very well on the gnome desktop. The software is feature rich, works with major free softwares like openoffice, firefox and vlc and is highly customisable. Yes scripting model is followed in orca as well but beyond that since the entire source code is open to the core, many changes at the arketectural level can be made by hackers from any where in the world. The software is not just highly professional and feature rich but also supports espeak by default. espeak is a free software synthesizer which talks in a lot of languages. indian languages supported include hindi and tamil. Ubuntu distro of gnu/linux has the software on its live cd, and the immidiate impact is that gnu/linux can now even be installed by a blind person completely independently.
no such attempt ever happend with windows for example. Orca itself is free and works with other free softwares, which means changes at either side can easily be made or asked to be made by end user So instead of investing or rather waisting money on licenses for useless softwares, money can be better utilised to directly impact the daily computer needs of a blind person. customising the screen reader is one part of it.
this kind of free screen readers certainly change the entire dymention of the opportunities which blind people now have in terms of earning their livelyhood with the use of information technology.
the best examples in india are the projects in the state of kerala through the space foundation, and the "true vision " project started by Electronic Corporation of Tamilnadu (ELCOT).
I am working as the project head and chief resource person for both these projects. the positive impact of these projects has been very prominent. in tamilnadu alone all the blind schools have already shown keen interest in the project and have sent their teachers as participants in the workshops/ seminars which I have conducted for ELCOT.
Government has also provided enough support for this project. Instead of spending money on licenses for proprietory softwares, the ELCOT and the tamilnadu state government arranges all the infrastructure for conducting massive trainning camps for the blind participents including teachers, and for providing computers pre-installed with ubuntu and orca. . Government in Kerala is thinking seriously about increasing the employment of visually challenged people because the government policy prevents entry of the proprietory rubbish of microsoft and the likes now including jaws screen reader as well.
Due to the efords of the free software hacker community, visually disabled people now not just get a cost effective solution which they can easily avail, but also get the bennifit of "free as in freedom " aspect of the softwares. the orca screen reader is rappidly developing and in some cases already overtaken many proprietory screen readers. the soruce code being open, any organisation can think of making suitable changes thus making the software usable for a blind computer user in the context of the software in question.
If that was not enough, Non Visual Desktop Access or NVDA for short is a highly feature rich screen raeder for windows and works very well so far with most of the major softwares.
So why still stick with the proprietory screen readers which have been nothing more than restrictors of freedom? as a pun, I don't find any thing scientific in jaws and jaws does not even care a bit about freedom? so why follow freedom scientific?
the most scientific approach to solve the accessibility problem not just technically but also socially is to use softwares which give complete freedom of use, study, modification and re distribution.
so my personal advice would be to strictly use free softwares. I would strongly recommend to stay away from and discourage people from using and promoting proprietory screen readers.