[DECtalk] decTalk 4.4 4.5 and 4.6 as sapi5?

[Don]

On 5/28/2021 5:22 AM, Jake McMahan wrote:
> He said either $15,000 for a license or nothing.

Ouch.  Yeah, he's probably thinking you're going to "add value"
to the codebase and incorporate it into something else -- that
you will sell (or otherwise derive profit from).  Obviously,
if YOU were going to be making money off of YOUR endeavors,
leveraged on his "existing work", he'd want to get something
for the value he is offering to you.

He *could* offer you "better terms" (from your standpoint)
if he stipulated that you couldn't republish nor sell any
"derived works".  I.e., "You can modify/maintain this
software if you never let others see it and if you only
distribute executables free-of-charge".  This would allow you
to maintain the code and distribute it in binary (only) form
with the added sublicense that those binaries could not be
distributed in a "for sale" product.

So, folks could *use* it but not profit from it (by bundling
it with their screen reader, for example)  nor "leak" any
of his "technology" to competitors.

He could go further and require any changes or additions
(enhancements/fixes) to the codebase be fed BACK to him for
incorporation, license free, in *his* product (i.e., he
gets the benefit of your efforts in improving the item
that *he* owns).

Nowadays, there are lots of other speech synthesis products
available so the value of his IP (Intellectual Property)
has diminished, to some degree (this isn't 1980 anymore!)

And, the technology (hardware) is so much cheaper that the
price-performance point has shifted considerably; I can put
100MB into a product for less than the cost of the ROMs in
an original DECtalk -- and run it off a small battery!

OTOH, if you wanted to design a formant-based synthesizer,
$15,000 is pocket change to skip all of the development
and debugging effort that you'd need to invest just to get
to that point -- even if you view it as only a STARTING
point for YOUR design.