Dear all, I will try to give my two cents, although I'm not an a11y expert :-)
2013/2/10 Peter Drysdale <drysdalep...@gmail.com> > Dear Maintainer/Uploaders of festival and Users of festival-docs, > > To clarify the situation. festival-doc currently contains a html and ps > (Postscript) version of > the "Festival Manual". The version number is 1.4.2 and dates from 25th > July 2001. > > CMU (the current employer of Prof. Alan Black - one of the original > authors of festival) > has an online version of the manual version number 1.4.3 and dated 27th > December 2002. > > CSTR at University of Edinburgh - (the University where festival was > originally written) has an > online version of the manual version number 1.4.0 and dated 17th July 1999. > > No later copies of the main content of "Festival Manual" appear to have > been published. > > The current Debian festival (not festival-docs) package ships a copy of > "Festival Manual" > as part of the festival deb file. It is labelled 1.4.3. It like all the > others is old. > It is superior to the CMU online version in one respect the festival > Scheme interpreter > function list at the end of this manual is dynamically regenerated from > the source > code each time we build the festival package. Thus is reflects the > "function comment lines" > of the current Debian version of festival. > Even though the Festival documentation may be old it is still quite accurate, as Festival has not changed much in the past 10 years :-) > > Please note the copy of "Festival manual" we ship with the festival deb is > in "info" format > and may be accessed using "info festival" command. > > I didn't really care which format I use hence my suggestion that we drop > festival-doc. BUT... > > The format may be important from an a11y perspective for our users ! > > Based your combined knowledge a11y issues could everyone give an opinion > on "info" > vs "html" vs "ps". Please everyone give your opinion on this. > I would say that HTML is better than PS for accessibility. For instance, I am not able to select text using evince from the festival manual included in the festival-doc package. Maybe modern PS or modern PDF formats such as [PDF/UA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/UA) are good for accessibility purposes, but I have seen many more a11y-ready web pages than a11y-ready PDF files. Regarding the info format... I don't know much about its a11y... :-S > > Should we just choose one of those formats not necessarily the current > "info" format > for bundling with festival deb and drop festival-doc or are the additional > formats important? > > I strongly suggest from now on we build whatever manuals regenerated from > the actual > festival source code in our current deb. This suggests festival-doc even > if it is decided > to continue to exist should be a binary package built from the common > festival source package, > i.e. from the debian/control and debian/rules files of the festival source > package. > I agree. The festival-doc source package should be removed and the festival-doc and speech-tools-doc binary packages should be built from festival and speech-tools sources respectively. > > Based on this I think it would be appropriate for JP as maintainer of > festival to issue a > Debian ITA over the orphaned packages while we decide the formats and then > choose > whether we ship a binary festival-doc package built from festival source > package or only ship the one format > (as best serves the need of a11y users) inside the festival binary package. > > I look forward to hearing your experiences on formats from a a11y > perspective. Comments? > > I hope you agree that we should regenerate any shipped version of > "Festival manual" (even > though the bulk text is old) from our source code as we do for the current > "info" format (which > may change based on your input). Comments? > I agree completely. > > I have not pursued the speech-tools angle yet, but as a precaution I think > JP should Debian ITA in > his capacity as maintainer of speech-tools while we figure out how to > integrate its building out > of the common source or drop etc... > > with very best regards, > Peter > > Best regards, Sergio
