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Hello everyone,
The JAWS for Windows screen reading software product made by Freedom Scientific Inc.
http://www.freedomscientific.com/produc ... t-page.asp
is one of the most popular of it's type among blind and visually impaired computer users. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most expensive. Many of us simply do not have the necessary financial income to purchase such costly software. Therefore, a petition has been written to encourage the company to change their policy, making the JAWS software more affordable, by making it possible to lease-to-own. If this petition is accepted by Freedom Scientific, many of us will be able to purchase jaws by paying periodically in smaller amounts, instead of one giant lump sum upfront. This will be very convenient, and many more people will be encouraged to buy the product. If you agree that this is indeed what Freedom Scientific should do, please sign the petition by following the link below and clicking on the sign petition button. I'm sure many of us will greatly appreciate it. Thank you all for your cooperation and your time.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FSl2o/

Why not get a small loan from a bank and pay that back to the bank instead.

Or better yet find an entirely free alternative. For example a few minutes of searching found this one: http://www.nvda-project.org/

For many low-income consumers a loan is not an option.



I am aware of NVDA, but it is one of the very few freely available screen readers and it does not even come close to being comparable in terms of capability to JAWS. While with most types of software this might be an acceptable compromise, I do not consider it a reasonable option when all of your computer usage is dependent on this one piece of software. Computers are literally not usable at all by someone who is blind without some type of screen reader and screen reading software with minimal functionality can severely limit your productivity. Although I respect the work that has been put into NVDA, the fact that it is free means that it's feature set will always be several orders of magnitude behind commercial equivalents. Besides, I do not believe that we are making an unreasonable request since many other businesses offer similar payment options.

so not true.
Gimp can be compared to photoshop, only drawback is the interface, and lack of a good community.
Blender3D can be compared to many professional 3D applications.
theres a few great audio tools too, but i can't remember the names.
web browsers are almost all free, and feature packed.
linux is one of many free Operating systems.
Autohotkey.
... and so on...

though there lacks good free stuff in some complex categories of software, give em time.most FOSS devs do stuff on there spare time.

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In general I would agree, but screen readers are a very specialized type of software with an extremely limited market. This means that development also requires specialized knowledge and a huge time investment. I'm not saying that NVDA will never have features which are comparable to it's commercial counterparts, but they will come as time allows for the developers which again means reduced productivity for it's users in the meantime. To me this is not acceptable when you are completely dependent on the software for all your computer usage. I must reinforce that this is not the same as using free equivalents to other types of commercial software like Gimp or Blender3D. You can find quite a few alternatives to expensive software like Photoshop. This is not the case with screen readers. Also, not having a decent graphics editor won't prevent you from using your computer efficiently for other activities. Using a screen reader which for example might not speak controls in a dialog or access web content correctly most certainly will. As I previously stated, I respect the time and work being invested into NVDA, but I also recognize that the authors can only do so much when the program is being developed for free. However, using a computer is difficult enough for some people even with commercial adaptive products. Using something which limits you even more because of understandably slow development in this particular case is counter productive unless you absolutely have no other options.

You do realize you're answering your own question:



Leasing is only a feasible business option when you can lease enough product to pay for all of your other expenses at the same time. My guess is that with a product that has an extremely limited market, they cannot afford to institute a lease-to-own program in conjunction with the kind of pay required to keep developers with specialized knowledge on the job.

Since the market for this product is extremely limited, I don't see why you couldn't create a charitable group dedicated to attracting donations to help people in need to afford this kind of software. If people online are willing to donate money to help someone pay off their credit card bills just because they shopped too much, certainly something like this would be doable.

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Again I would agree except for the fact that GW Micro,
http://www.gwmicro.com/
Freedom Scientifics' primary competition and a couple of the other commercial screen reader developers offer such a payment plan already. So apparently it's not as unfeasible as it would initially seem. In my opinion, any good business model should at least try to take into account the income bracket of it's target audience which in this case is low-income visually impaired consumers. Unfortunately, despite the better payment plans which some of the other companies offer, Freedom Scientifics' screen reading software "JAWS for Windows" is still a superior product.



There are already government sponsored organizations which will purchase the software for you in certain cases, but like a loan this is not an option available to many visually disabled computer users.

Well then that begs the question: Why not just use theirs if it's more affordable? Forget the quality of the product, if it's what you can afford and something's better than nothing then that's what you need to get.



It's only apparent if you honestly believe every one of those companies is making products for only that one single narrow audience and that all companies make equal monies from that one single narrow audience. It's apparent from one glance at GW Micro's website that they have a different business model for their software/hardware distribution, so leasing (or payment plans) is more affordable for them. It's also clear that their corporate and government affiliations are quite different as well.



Who said anything about a loan? Get a confirmed group of people who are looking to obtain some of the company's software, get an exact amount so there's a monetary fundraising goal, then find a non-profit group for the visually impaired and appeal to them to take up your cause.

Do you realize that with a $100 donation it will only take 1000 donors to raise $100,000? And if a crafty non-profit group can show businesses a discernible benefit from dontating, you're likely to get a donation larger than $100. If you're trying to get the equipment to go with the software $100K is chump change, but if it's just about the software that would be more than enough.

EDIT: Ugh, one slip of the finger. Thanks, hugov.

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Back to school I say

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If the free open source alternatives are not up to the quality of JAWS and that quality is required perhaps the best use of resources would be to work on the development of the free open source alternatives. This would probably end up helping more people get the software in the long run.

Hardware is a different story though. Hell, some of that costs more for one unit than I paid for my last two cars combined (excluding gas, maintenance and insurance).

LOL forget about the quality? Tell me that when you lose your sight and all of your computer usage becomes dependent on a screen reader. You keep suggesting alternatives which may or may not have merit, but you're missing the point. We are already aware of the available options. We are not looking for alternatives. Freedom Scientific has a product which many consider superior to what the competition offers. We are simply trying to convince them to implement a policy which will make their software available to more visually impaired consumers. It might not work. They may never institute such a payment plan, but we'll never know if we don't try. Some will obviously choose the alternatives either by preference or for lack of choice, but I think that a petition which may potentially give them more options is certainly not unreasonable. I mentioned loans because it was a suggestion brought up in the first response to this thread.

True enough, but it's difficult to get many people with the specialized skills required to develop screen reading software to work for free. At least for the amount of time that would be needed to make any open source alternative comparable to JAWS.
LOL and JAWS cost more than some hardware. The current price for the professional version is $1095.