speechcontrolteam team mailing list archive

[Phill Whiteside <phillw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hiyas,

Just to clear up the chatter, and any mis-understandings. Speech Control has
been moved 'upstream'. We are no longer a sub group under Ubuntu
Accesibility, but a fully standalone project. What difference does this
make? Well, as we want to be able to help all linux's it means that we still
have full access to ubuntu people, but can now pull in anyone from anyother
linux flavour that wishes to help. Being a stand alone project does make
some changes necessary. As we are pretty reliant on the success of the
wintermute project we're pretty much now joined to them. This was
inevitable, our devs are their devs. But Speech Control is not just
wintermute, there are other areas that speech control uses. We now have much
more freedom than before to get people. Having had a chat with Manuela, once
the ssi forum area and website is up and running to save duplication (and
money!) we will have our own areas on both. After my initial reservations of
being moved upstream, I can now see this in the way it was meant, it is
actually a huge step forward in allowing us develop across all of the linux
family, to benefit everyone who runs linux to have access to speechcontrol.
We do and will continue to have very close ties to ubuntu and their
accessibility group, but are now tasked with helping all of linux family.
Change is never easy, but being an upstream project is a massive stepping
stone in bringing speech control to all of the linux familiy. Whilst we are
still targeting ubuntu familiy first, the freedom to help and request help
from the rest of linux community is a testament to just how far Manuela has
driven this project. We are blessed to have such a wonderful TL to keep us
all focused, I'm not going to carry on naming people as invariably I miss
someone out. We have a fantastic team, most of whom are already involved in
wintermute but whilst wintermute is an essential part of speech control we
retain our identity and with the two visionary Team Leaders on each of the
areas, Manuela's statement of making the impossible possible is actually
coming true. We CAN do this, and I honestly think we WILL do this, there are
so many gifted and dedicated people on both teams. Failure is NOT an option.
Over the coming days we will get the new forum and website set up. As I
jokingly say... "We are Borg, we will adapt".... Well we are now, and we
will. Resistance is futile, we WILL prevail and bring an area of
accessibility to people that have previously been denied it.

On a personal note, I'd like to say a massive thank-you to Manuela she said
the  "making the impossible possible" is her motto. Well, she has assembled
in such a short time a fantastic team. With her at the head of speech
control as our inspriation and Dante the inspirational head of wintermute,
something that only a few months ago seemed years away is occurring. To
everyone involved, there is still much work to do, but we have people of
high enough caliber to achieve this. I'm honoured to be a little part of
this, it is going to change peoples lives for the better, there can be no
more a noble thing than that to be able bring access to the people who were
denied it. Work hard drones, as a collective we are stronger and we WILL
succeed.

Regards,

Phill.

-- 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw