IBMTTS synthesizer for NVDA, with auto update feature, has been released!


DaVid
 

Hi, the last release of this driver, that is compatible with viavoice
of IBM and also with Eloquence, implements the auto update feature
now. A lot of changes were made, but the most important feature is the
auto update.
I'm open to receive new translations, reports, bugs or fixes.
Please note that this is only the driver, I can't distribute the
libraries and you need to get them on your own.

You can get the latest release of the driver here:

https://davidacm.github.io/getlatest/gh/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

To know more about it, read the readme here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

Regards,
David CM.


Brian's Mail list account
 

Did we not have a heated debate about the legality of this some years ago? Has the position changed more recently?
Brian

--
bglists@...
Sent via blueyonder.(Virgin media)
Please address personal E-mail to:-
briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.

----- Original Message -----
From: "DaVid" <dhf360@...>
To: "nvda-addons" <nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io>
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2023 4:42 AM
Subject: [nvda-addons] IBMTTS synthesizer for NVDA, with auto update feature, has been released!


Hi, the last release of this driver, that is compatible with viavoice
of IBM and also with Eloquence, implements the auto update feature
now. A lot of changes were made, but the most important feature is the
auto update.
I'm open to receive new translations, reports, bugs or fixes.
Please note that this is only the driver, I can't distribute the
libraries and you need to get them on your own.

You can get the latest release of the driver here:

https://davidacm.github.io/getlatest/gh/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

To know more about it, read the readme here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

Regards,
David CM.




Rui Fontes
 

The driver by itself is not ilegal...

By instance I use it with the libraries of the legal Eloquence SAPI5...


Rui Fontes



Às 12:36 de 10/01/2023, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io escreveu:

Did we not have a heated debate about the legality of this some years ago? Has the position changed more recently?
Brian


Locutor Antonio Cezar <antoniocezarlocutor@...>
 

I also use the IBM TTS drive with the eloquence sapi 5 libraries, which is perfectly cool. This is because the Eloquence Sapi 5 license is provided so that the application can be used with any application on Windows... Thanks.



Locutor Antonio Cezar

Em 10/01/2023 10:02, Rui Fontes escreveu:

The driver by itself is not ilegal...

By instance I use it with the libraries of the legal Eloquence SAPI5...


Rui Fontes



Às 12:36 de 10/01/2023, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io escreveu:
Did we not have a heated debate about the legality of this some years ago? Has the position changed more recently?
Brian







DaVid
 

I can't talk about libraries itself, because there are a lot of
different IBM and ELoquence versions and each one has a different
licence. But about the controller, since we've said in the past, the
sdk is public, the linux source code for the driver is also public,
then the driver should not be illegal and the windows driver source
code can be public too.
You can see the references on my github repo, there are links of
documents and source code that I used to develop this driver.

I can't distribute Eloquence or IBMTTS libraries, but I can't check if
you're using legal or not legal libraries, that is hard to verify from
me or another company. I just develop the driver.

Although is very complex and that method waste a lot of resources, you
could use voxin libraries over WSL or docker. But that requires a lot
of knowledge from the user. So, I discarded the project of building a
bridge between NVDA and voxin. Although the option is there, if
someone want to try.

See the references (the base of the driver) here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

Nothing more to add to this thread.

Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-10 6:36 GMT-06:00, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io
<bglists@...>:

Did we not have a heated debate about the legality of this some years ago?
Has the position changed more recently?
Brian


 

Hi all,
To clarify what I think DaVid is trying to say:
We should not confuse between synthesizers as wrappers and synthesizers as a product bundle. The former only includes drivers for the speech synthesizer and the user is expected to obtain the actual TTS engine legally; such is the case with this add-on and drivers for hardware speech synthesizers. On the other hand, synthesizer as a product bundle not only includes the driver, but also the actual TTS engine and needed data, and a good example is Nuance Vocalizer add-on provided that the add-on author did obtain the legal license to package and distribute the engine and sell the license to end users.
Cheers,
Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io <nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io> On Behalf Of DaVid
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2023 7:33 AM
To: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda-addons] IBMTTS synthesizer for NVDA, with auto update feature, has been released!

I can't talk about libraries itself, because there are a lot of different IBM and ELoquence versions and each one has a different licence. But about the controller, since we've said in the past, the sdk is public, the linux source code for the driver is also public, then the driver should not be illegal and the windows driver source code can be public too.
You can see the references on my github repo, there are links of documents and source code that I used to develop this driver.

I can't distribute Eloquence or IBMTTS libraries, but I can't check if you're using legal or not legal libraries, that is hard to verify from me or another company. I just develop the driver.

Although is very complex and that method waste a lot of resources, you could use voxin libraries over WSL or docker. But that requires a lot of knowledge from the user. So, I discarded the project of building a bridge between NVDA and voxin. Although the option is there, if someone want to try.

See the references (the base of the driver) here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

Nothing more to add to this thread.

Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-10 6:36 GMT-06:00, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io
<bglists@...>:
Did we not have a heated debate about the legality of this some years ago?
Has the position changed more recently?
Brian


DaVid
 

Hi, thanks Joseph!
Very well explained, that's exactly what i meant. My native language
is spanish, sometimes I'm not so good at english to explain ideas for
non developer users.

Thanks again!
Happy new year for everyone in this list! :)
Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-10 9:54 GMT-06:00, Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@...>:

Hi all,
To clarify what I think DaVid is trying to say:
We should not confuse between synthesizers as wrappers and synthesizers as a
product bundle. The former only includes drivers for the speech synthesizer
and the user is expected to obtain the actual TTS engine legally; such is
the case with this add-on and drivers for hardware speech synthesizers. On
the other hand, synthesizer as a product bundle not only includes the
driver, but also the actual TTS engine and needed data, and a good example
is Nuance Vocalizer add-on provided that the add-on author did obtain the
legal license to package and distribute the engine and sell the license to
end users.
Cheers,
Joseph


 

I'd say that phrasing matters here, and it's clear(er - it's never perfectly clear) to say:

Synthesizer for IBMTTS that works with NVDA . . .

Whenever I see a given XXX synthesizer I immediately go to bundled synth and TTS components as a unit.  I'd also make the point in such announcements that the synthesizer itself is separate from the TTS engine, which must be acquired separately by the end user.

There's lots of room for legitimate confusion in this arena, so being entirely clear about what component is being offered, and what is not, has value.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


DaVid
 

If you read the readme of the add-on, you can see all answers about
your questions there.

I wrote the e-mail fastly, and and sometimes it's hard to think what
other people would think about something written. Even more so, if the
language in which you write is not your native language.

IBMTTS is a well known add-on, that I've been developing for more than
14 years now, without receiving a single penny for it.

I hope you can forgive some mistakes in the subject of the thread or
the message. I also have to eat, I can't spend so much time developing
for free, and thinking about every word I write in an email that is
also not my native language.

Again, my apologies for any confusion that may have arisen.

Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-11 11:29 GMT-06:00, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...>:

I'd say that phrasing matters here, and it's clear(er - it's never perfectly
clear) to say:

Synthesizer for IBMTTS that works with NVDA . . .

Whenever I see a given XXX synthesizer I immediately go to bundled synth and
TTS components as a unit. I'd also make the point in such announcements
that the synthesizer itself is separate from the TTS engine, which must be
acquired separately by the end user.

There's lots of room for legitimate confusion in this arena, so being
entirely clear about what component is being offered, and what is not, has
value.
--
Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

*The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is
coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune
diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.*


 

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 02:24 PM, DaVid wrote:
I hope you can forgive some mistakes in the subject of the thread or the message.
-
Of course I/we can.

You, however, should not take negative feedback as a personal attack.  Language issues aside (and I did take that into account) you will likely need to be writing about this at some point in the future in English.  You now have several data points, from several people, to take into account and to help make things clearer in the future.

You can't fix what you don't know about.  And if no one mentions anything "negative" there's no hope of someone changing what they're doing.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


DaVid
 

I know what you're talking about, but I think there are good ways to
provide positive feedback to developers who create content for free.

This is feedback for you:
I felt your first message as an attempt to create controversy about
something we discussed in the past, and the second as another message
on the same path.
Maybe you didn't mean to, but like me, I think we can both take some
good feedback here.

I'm not going to stop developing add-ons because I feel negative
feedback sometimes, but other developers might be discouraged. I bring
this up because I've seen other people (not you) disguise prickly
comments as feedback.
Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-11 13:31 GMT-06:00, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...>:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 02:24 PM, DaVid wrote:


I hope you can forgive some mistakes in the subject of the thread or the
message.
-
Of course I/we can.

You, however, should not take negative feedback as a personal attack.
Language issues aside (and I did take that into account) you will likely
need to be writing about this at some point in the future in English. You
now have several data points, from several people, to take into account and
to help make things clearer in the future.

You can't fix what you don't know about. And if no one mentions anything
"negative" there's no hope of someone changing what they're doing.
--
Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

*The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is
coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune
diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.*

~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks (
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks )


 

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 03:00 PM, DaVid wrote:
I felt your first message as an attempt to create controversy about something we discussed in the past, and the second as another message
on the same path.
-
I suggest you carefully check which Brian said what.  Carefully.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


Ramón Corominas
 

Despite the missunderstanding with "Brian vs. Brian", from the original announcement:

"this driver, that is compatible with viavoic of IBM and also with Eloquence ..."

"Please note that this is only the driver, I can't distribute the libraries and you need to get them on your own."

"To know more about it, read the readme here:"

I think it's clear enough that this is just a driver and that he is not distributing (nor promoting) anything illegal, if someone gets confused maybe it's not because of the announcement... 🤔�

Cheers,
Ramón.

Brian Vogel wrote:

I'd say that phrasing matters here, and it's clear(er - it's never perfectly clear) to say:

Synthesizer for IBMTTS that works with NVDA . . .

Whenever I see a given XXX synthesizer I immediately go to bundled synth and TTS components as a unit.  I'd also make the point in such announcements that the synthesizer itself is separate from the TTS engine, which must be acquired separately by the end user.

There's lots of room for legitimate confusion in this arena, so being entirely clear about what component is being offered, and what is not, has value.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


Noelia Ruiz
 

Hello:
As an owner of this group, I am responsible for taking care about contents shared on this list. If someone thinks that an add-on is illegal, pleas provide info like licenses or references to show it. Otherwise, let"s foster an environment where people can share add-ons in a secure and comfortable way; this list is primarily to help on add-ons development and also a place to announce add-ons. I"m traveling and may take more time to read threads, but I"ll take care if I can help on this list; kind regards
Enviado desde mi iPhone

El 11 ene 2023, a las 23:22, Ramón Corominas <ramon@...> escribió:



Despite the missunderstanding with "Brian vs. Brian", from the original announcement:

"this driver, that is compatible with viavoic of IBM and also with Eloquence ..."

"Please note that this is only the driver, I can't distribute the libraries and you need to get them on your own."

"To know more about it, read the readme here:"

I think it's clear enough that this is just a driver and that he is not distributing (nor promoting) anything illegal, if someone gets confused maybe it's not because of the announcement... 🤔�

Cheers,
Ramón.

Brian Vogel wrote:
I'd say that phrasing matters here, and it's clear(er - it's never perfectly clear) to say:

Synthesizer for IBMTTS that works with NVDA . . .

Whenever I see a given XXX synthesizer I immediately go to bundled synth and TTS components as a unit.  I'd also make the point in such announcements that the synthesizer itself is separate from the TTS engine, which must be acquired separately by the end user.

There's lots of room for legitimate confusion in this arena, so being entirely clear about what component is being offered, and what is not, has value.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


 

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 05:21 PM, Ramón Corominas wrote:
Despite the missunderstanding with "Brian vs. Brian", from the original announcement:
-
That's actually the crux of the matter to which I was responding.  I did not say, in any way, shape, or form, anything about legality of anything.

It is important that one accurately identify who actually said what when accusations are being made.  I made no comments beyond those I thought would be helpful as far as phrasing for future announcements.  And those seemed to be being taken as an attack, even though those comments (message ) were very measured indeed.

If that feedback is considered to be "too harsh," it's not me who needs an adjustment of attitude.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


 

Hi all,

I think a post on clarification on wrapper versus bundle might be in order – will come up with something as soon as tonight.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

From: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io <nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2023 2:40 PM
To: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda-addons] IBMTTS synthesizer for NVDA, with auto update feature, has been released!

 

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 05:21 PM, Ramón Corominas wrote:

Despite the missunderstanding with "Brian vs. Brian", from the original announcement:

-
That's actually the crux of the matter to which I was responding.  I did not say, in any way, shape, or form, anything about legality of anything.

It is important that one accurately identify who actually said what when accusations are being made.  I made no comments beyond those I thought would be helpful as far as phrasing for future announcements.  And those seemed to be being taken as an attack, even though those comments (message ) were very measured indeed.

If that feedback is considered to be "too harsh," it's not me who needs an adjustment of attitude.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


DaVid
 

Hi.
My apologies to Brian Vogel, I replied from my cell phone and I did
not read the entire conversation to see the original message I
mentioned. Since I thought they were both the same person, I felt the
second message as an insistence on the same thing that I, Joseph and
others, had clarified. That was my mistake for seeing only the name...
So sorry for that.

I tried to clarify all questions on the readme, that everyone can read here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

If after read that, anyone has more questions, those can be sent to my
e-mail, to avoid cluttering the list with unwanted messages. Perhaps
from those questions more things arise that I should clarify in the
readme.

I have no problem commenting about those topics here, but I think it
might be tedious for other users looking to talk about add-on
development topics.

Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-11 15:48 GMT-06:00, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...>:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 03:00 PM, DaVid wrote:


I felt your first message as an attempt to create controversy about
something we discussed in the past, and the second as another message
on the same path.
-
I suggest you carefully check which Brian said what. Carefully.
--
Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

*The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is
coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune
diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.*

~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks (
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks )


Hareth
 

Hello DaVid,
Your years worth of effort for sure greatly appreciated. The IBM tts
driver addon is one of the most used addons here and beyond .
And as a non English native, with lame EN language I did understood
your first post, some unfortunately cannot help them self's without
stating whatever in their usual negative tone.
Please don't pay attention to that meaningless blabber\, and keep up
the great job.
TC

On 1/11/23, DaVid <dhf360@...> wrote:
I know what you're talking about, but I think there are good ways to
provide positive feedback to developers who create content for free.

This is feedback for you:
I felt your first message as an attempt to create controversy about
something we discussed in the past, and the second as another message
on the same path.
Maybe you didn't mean to, but like me, I think we can both take some
good feedback here.

I'm not going to stop developing add-ons because I feel negative
feedback sometimes, but other developers might be discouraged. I bring
this up because I've seen other people (not you) disguise prickly
comments as feedback.
Regards,
David CM.

2023-01-11 13:31 GMT-06:00, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...>:
On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 02:24 PM, DaVid wrote:


I hope you can forgive some mistakes in the subject of the thread or the
message.
-
Of course I/we can.

You, however, should not take negative feedback as a personal attack.
Language issues aside (and I did take that into account) you will likely
need to be writing about this at some point in the future in English.
You
now have several data points, from several people, to take into account
and
to help make things clearer in the future.

You can't fix what you don't know about. And if no one mentions anything
"negative" there's no hope of someone changing what they're doing.
--
Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build
22621;
Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

*The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers
is
coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune
diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.*

~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks (
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks )





Ramón Corominas
 

> Brian said: "it's not me who needs an adjustment of attitude."


I'm really sorry, it was not my intention to discuss about anyone's attitude, I just tried to rescue the initial announcement because I think it had more than enough info about the differences between "driver" and "copyrighted library", especially in the context of a technical list like this.

My apologies, it's clear that my wording was also not the best...

Cheers,
Ramón.


Brian Vogel wrote:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 05:21 PM, Ramón Corominas wrote:
Despite the missunderstanding with "Brian vs. Brian", from the original announcement:
-
That's actually the crux of the matter to which I was responding.  I did not say, in any way, shape, or form, anything about legality of anything.

It is important that one accurately identify who actually said what when accusations are being made.  I made no comments beyond those I thought would be helpful as far as phrasing for future announcements.  And those seemed to be being taken as an attack, even though those comments (message ) were very measured indeed.

If that feedback is considered to be "too harsh," it's not me who needs an adjustment of attitude.
--
Brian Virginia, USA Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.

      ~ Peter Hunt Welch, in essay/rant, Programming Sucks


Tony Malykh
 

I am late to this discussion, but I would like to express my opinion that some might find provocative - but I would like to hear what people think about that. This email has a lot of arguments and is pretty long.
David, would you perhaps consider bundling ibm_tts with a copy of eloquence despite the fact it is technically illegal?
The fact that the library needs to be downloaded separately makes it too hard for majority of blind users - as most of blind people outside this mailing list are not that tech savvy. You'd probably increase the number of downloads of your add-on perhaps 10 times if you bundle it with eloquence.

Now as for counterarguments: what are we really afraid of? Are we afraid of a potential lawsuit  or are we afraid of doing immoral things? Let me address these two separately.
# Lawsuit
I am not a lawyer, but my common sense tells me that lawsuit is really hard to imagine. Whom are they going to sue? NVAccess is safe since they have nothing to do with it. Are they going to sue David? While technically possible, in reality that would be a PR nightmare for CodeFactory (or whoever holds legal rights to eloquence these days). Imagine this: a greedy American corporation is suing a blind guy, who is just trying to work on computer, access Internet, etc. This will be a giant shit storm and no sane company would be able to afford that kind of PR crisis.
Suppose in the worst case I am wrong and CodeFactory indeed wants to sue David despite PR shit storm. Well if David is concerned about that, then he can just create another github account that doesn't have his real name and release ibm_tts+eloquence anonymously. There is no way tiny company like CodeFactory ever going to figure out your identity in this case. So nobody is hurt even in the worst case.
Suppose CodeFactory wants to threat nvda-addons or the main nvda mailing list. First they would need to send cease and desist letter or whatever it's called in legalese. Well, not a big deal, owner or admin can reply to them that we are very sorry, bla-bla-bla, we will delete that particular thread. In order to take it to the next step, and ask groups.io to take down the entire mailing list, they would need, I imagine, to prove that sharing of illegal software happens consistently on a regular basis. And truth to be told, it will never be the case. We'll see an occasional thread when someone would ask for a download link, and there will always be 99 more questions that are not related to eloquence, so list owners can always claim that there are bad apples among us and it's not a good reason to take the entire mailing list down.
Whom else can they threaten? Github? Whatever! Even if they convince github to tkae down the repository - just create a new one. Big deal! We can play cat and mouse game, since it is so easy to create another github account, and they would have to hire expensive lawyers for every step and fear PR shit storm.
So from legal point of view, I really don't see any credible threat, unless I'm being blind (pun intended). Let's not be scared of a threat that is only theoretical.

# Morality
This argument is more tricky because everyone's moral values are different, and I don't want to get into rabbithole of philosophy, so I'll try to use simple arguments.
1. Blind people are already one of the least privileged categories of people. What are we asking for? We are asking for basic rights: the right to access computer and Internet. It is immoral to charge blind people extra sixty bucks compared to sighted people. Sixty bucks might be affordable for even poorest people in America, but it might be totally unacceptable fee for blind people everywhere else.
2. Most of CodeFactory income comes from licensing eloquence to Jaws. I don't have any concrete numbers, but I would guess that they would sell at least 100 times more to Jaws than their NVDA add-ons, since every copy of Jaws comes with Eloquence by default, and how many NVDA users outside of nvda-addons mailing list are tech savvy enough to buy an add-on and install it? I typically don't like counting others' money, but trust me, CodeFactory won't go bankrupt if we stop buying their add-on.
3. CodeFactory add-on sucks. It's licensing and registration procedure is way too strict. Blind people again are not that tech savvy and CodeFactory is already treating them like criminals by allowing only 3 activations, that are often lost when people forget to deactivate. In my own experience activation also resets itself when a new device driver is installed on the computer. Who would call CodeFactory behavior moral after inventing such prohibitive licensing algorithm? And why do we need to exhitbit particularly moral behavior if CodeFactory behaves like that?
4.  CodeFactory is actually not motivated to spend effort on NVDA add-on, precisely because too few people use it. I suspect they have to do it to avoid claims that they help Jaws become monopoly or something.
5. Eloquence is 30 years old. It's a fossil by computer standards. If CodeFactory wasn't milking Jaws, and if Jaws weren't milking rich American blind people for money, this project would have been open-sourced decades ago.
I expect that some people would respond to this by employing hardcoded rule "stealing is wrong, don't steal. Using illegal software is wrong, don't do that anymore" - but this is a pretty childish and overly simplistic argument in my mind. Big and small revolutions always start with breaking law. Oppressed groups of people have to fight for their rights by breaking the law first: think of MLK and his fight for civil rights for black people, or think about gay people and their fight for their rights (homosexuality used to be punishable by death in America and Europe some 200 years ago).

I am no LMK, but in conclusion I want to ask people here: do you want to fight for free access to a good speech synthesizer for the blind? Especially since there is no realistic chances of being prosecuted in any way for this fight - unlike MLK.
If this discussion happened a couple of years ago I would have offered my help to David to bundle ibm_tts with eloquence and publish it somewhere, maybe on github. Unfortunately I am too overwhelmed by other personal commitments in my life and I don't have time for that, even my add-ons are falling into disrepair. But I encourage David or anyone else from this mailing list who has time and energy to consider this.

Best regards
--Tony

On 1/9/2023 8:42 PM, DaVid wrote:
Hi, the last release of this driver, that is compatible with viavoice
of IBM and also with Eloquence, implements the auto update feature
now. A lot of changes were made, but the most important feature is the
auto update.
I'm open to receive new translations, reports, bugs or fixes.
Please note that this is only the driver, I can't distribute the
libraries and you need to get them on your own.

You can get the latest release of the driver here:

https://davidacm.github.io/getlatest/gh/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

To know more about it, read the readme here:
https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver

Regards,
David CM.