[DECtalk] Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical Linux.

[joshknnd1982 at gmail.com]

Here we go more legal paranoia again... time to chug that soda after all!
Hey kyle, how about I use the free tortoise-tts to clone your voice and make
you say all kinds of crazy stuff? First thing I'll do is make your voice
read a Wikipedia article on how elevators and escalators work. Then I'll
make your voice say how much mountain dew I can drink in a week. And I
usually drink 10 or so cans per week. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Dectalk <dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com> On Behalf Of Kyle via
Dectalk
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 13:36
To: DECtalk <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Cc: Kyle <kyle at free2.ml>
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical
Linux.

joshknnd1982 at gmail.com staggered into view and mumbled:
> And don't forget about the people who made the new espeak variants like
bobby and betty. You know they sound identical to decTalk voices when they
read talk or say stuff. Those 70 or so year old decTalk employees will be
coming out of the woodwork any day now to collect their huge sums of money.
After all, how dare you make espeak variants which are copying our decTalk
names and formant algorithms!! Yep, legal paranoia.


Making open source code that implements a speech synthesizer that sounds
like a DECTalk is not a legal issue. Using real DECTalk source code to build
into the DECTalk binary that runs natively is a potential issue, as the
LICENSE file indicates that if we don't have a written license from Fonix or
an authorized sublicenser, we are not allowed to use the code. Period. This
is the permission and authorization we need so that DECTalk can be
tecnically considered to be open source and we can legally use it.


As I said, I don't personally care what the LICENSE file says. However, I'm
also not trying to include it in a software project or a distribution, and
I'm also not trying to redistribute or modify it. Most likely, each
individual is OK just building it and using it with the generic
speech-dispatcher module or for making recordings or whatever. 
But there are certainly licensing issues to consider, so if the current
copyright holder wants us to be able to use it or simply doesn't care if we
do, a valid open source license must be granted to cover all the legal
bases.

~Kyle

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