[nfbcs] jaws so sensitive is BS!

Fri Dec 29 22:07:16 UTC 2017

John,

My experience has been that Sound Forge has a tighter authorization policy
than does JAWS in that it seems to allow only one computer to be authorized.
Also, I use a text editor called UltraEdit that has an authorization scheme
that is somewhat similar.  Maybe I just happened upon two pieces of software
with such requirements, though, but it would seem more common than some
might think.  I used Window-Eyes for years and enjoyed very much not to have
to worry about the authorization scheme that I dealt with when I used early
versions of JAWS.  However, now that I have gone back to JAWS because of
Window-Eyes no longer being developed, I am finding their authorization
scheme less inconvenient than I had feared from what I had read over the
years on these lists.  However, I hope that the newer version of JAWS
resolves Brian's problem as that would be frustrating to have to repeatedly
deal with.

As one who was involved with the positions the NFB took, protecting JAWS was
never a specific reason for not wanting Microsoft to develop a full-featured
screen reader.  When this subject originally came up, there were perhaps a
half dozen Windows screen readers that had a segment of the market,
including Window-Eyes, Artic WinVision, Outspoken, Slimware Windows Bridge
and HAL in addition to JAWS, and I'm probably forgetting some.  The fear was
that a free screen reader from Microsoft would drive the commercial products
out of business while offering a less robust product.  That was a
significantly different environment than that which brought forth VoiceOver
on Apple products, or even what exists today in the Windows environment.

Both Window-Eyes and JAWS still work in some situations on my job where NVDA
and Narrator do not work, due in part to old code and associated techniques.
This will be less and less common as we move toward more secure API's to
Windows, though,and time will tell what will happen.  Narrator is getting
better, and many computer users will find that NVDA is able to do everything
they need now as well.  I still find that JAWS is more responsive in some
cases, but I recognize there are things NVDA does better.  There is still
concern here about the support that will be given to less common software
that people use in employment situations, though.  However, so much is
changing so rapidly that it is hard to predict what will be important to us
in five years.  I have always wanted to learn more about Linux but just have
not gotten there yet.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John Heim via
nfbcs
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 9:22 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: John Heim <john at johnheim.com>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] jaws so sensitive is BS!

Right, years ago, Freedom Scientific made a choice to put preventing 
piracy ahead of customer service. Admittedly, there is always a balance 
to maintain there. Licensing is always an inconvenience. But I've never 
seen any other company put the emphasis so much on preventing piracy. 
I'd be interesting in hearing if you know of any other desktop tool that 
has a licensing policy like jaws.

Years ago, the NFB was part of a group that asked Microsoft not to 
develop a screen reader for Windows. I was very much against it at the 
time, BTW. But we did this in large part to protect jaws. IMO, your 
company now has an obligation to serve the blindness community. I think 
you have an obligation to rethink this policy.

On 12/29/2017 06:33 AM, Glen Gordon via nfbcs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The goal of JAWS authorization has always been to prevent wholesale
piracy, not to treat licensed users as criminals. A couple of years ago we
revamped things so that fewer changes in hardware will cause authorzation
keys to become invalid. In cases such as yours where a key needs to be
reissued, you won't be penalized for changing your hardware and will be
given credit for the "lost key."
> 
> We have a web site that allows you to reset your activation count.
> https://fsactivate.freedomscientific.com/Activation/ResetRequest
> There are limits on how often you can do this without interacting with a
human but if you haven't reset your count recently, this should be an
entirely automated process.
> 
> It is true that you can purchase a dongle to take with you, but assuming
that your machine configuration isn't  regularly changing, that's probably
not necessary.
> 
> --Glen
> 
> P.S. It's been over ten years since anything about JAWS authorization
involved floppy discs.
> 
> Glen Gordon
> VFO | Vice President & Chief Technology Officer
> 11800 31st Court North, St. Petersburg, FL 33716
> T 727-299-6230
> ggordon at vfo-group.com
> www.vfo-group.com
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David Andrews
via nfbcs
> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 3:36 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] jaws so sensitive is BS!
> 
> No, doing so would be defeating their copy protection, which would be
illegal.
> 
> Dave
> 
> At 07:00 PM 12/28/2017, you wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> In the new age when floppy disks are obsolete, for Christmas I bought
>> myself a icy dock dual 2.5" bay drive cage and obtained visual help to
>> make the sata ports hot plug capable in bios.
>>
>> Everything works great and the computer recognized the drive when it
>> was shoved into the slot then it killed the jaws activation.
>>
>> Has anyone found a way around the jaws activation BS that burns a key
>> when you make any little change to your hardware?
>>
>> Bryan Schulz
> 
> 
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