MBROLA compilation and things...
Hi guys,
I am forwarding the mails I crossed with people at MBROLA project. I had
some problems trying to run MBROLA
(http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html) in my Powerbook (it needs
an "obsolete" libstdc++), so I tried to get in touch with them. After 6
months, I got the following response with an NDA to sign that seriously
scared the shit out of me! This is my first contact with the
"enterprise" environment... so don't be surprised!
I am sending this out of interest, in case someone managed to run MBROLA
nicely on Debian, or in case someone could sign it and do a port, or
whatever. It would be really good if perhaps they could see that people
would like to use it in the Open Source community. I think the voices
that it generates are really nice, compared to festival (well, it might
be as well that I am too dumb to make festival sound nice! :)
The first email is my original message to them, then it comes what they
sent me and finally, my answer to their NDA email. I would also attach
the NDA as a PDF (they sent me an rtf) in case someone is interested,
but since IANAL, I am a bit scared of doing something wrong (in case the
NDA needs an NDA or whatever to be read!)
Anyways... any feedback is greatly welcomed!
--
J. Javier Maestro
<jjmaestro@computer.org>
http://rigel.homelinux.com
----- Forwarded messages from "J. Javier Maestro" <jesus@student.unsw.edu.au> -----
> > > Dear developers of MBROLA,
> > >
> > > First of all, I would like to thank you as an open source/free software
> > > user. Your work is really valuable and helpful, and nowadays not those
> > > many people would release in the public domain such a nice tool as
> > > yours.
> > >
> > > Now, with my problem :-)
> > >
> > > I run a Debian GNU/Linux distro (unstable) over PowerPC (a PowerBook
> > > G4). I downloaded mbr301h.zip from you web, and when I tried to run the
> > > binary for ppc,
> > >
> > > nias:/home/jjmaestro/stuff/Text2Voice/MBROLA/mbr301h# ./mbrola206a-linux-ppc
> > > ./mbrola206a-linux-ppc: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.27: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> > >
> > > OK, I went and checked my /usr/lib:
> > >
> > > nias:~# ls /usr/lib/libstdc++* -l
> > > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 312028 Mar 18 14:26 /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so
> > > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 May 26 06:23 /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 -> libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so
> > > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 May 29 23:16 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.3 -> libstdc++.so.3.0.4
> > > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 654256 Apr 23 23:42 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.3.0.4
> > > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 May 26 06:20 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 -> libstdc++.so.5.0.4
> > > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 780636 May 19 05:33 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5.0.4
> > >
> > > so, there is no libstdc++.so.27. Right... I tried to link it to
> > > libstdc++.so.3.0.4, in case it would work, but this is the outcome...
> > >
> > > nias:/usr/lib# ln -s libstdc++.so.3.0.4 libstdc++.so.27
> > > nias:/usr/lib# cd /home/jjmaestro/stuff/Text2Voice/MBROLA/mbr301h/
> > > nias:/home/jjmaestro/stuff/Text2Voice/MBROLA/mbr301h# ./mbrola206a-linux-ppc
> > > Not enough arguments, try -h for help
> > > nias:/home/jjmaestro/stuff/Text2Voice/MBROLA/mbr301h# ./mbrola206a-linux-ppc -h
> > > Not enough arguments, try -h for help
> > >
> > > So, although it "runs", it does not behave the way it is supposed to :-(
> > >
> > > Any ideas?? How can I get a libstdc++.so.27 (and any other library
> > > needed to run MBROLA properly!) compiled for my platform?
> > >
> > > Your help would be very welcomed!! Thank you very much in advanced,
> > >
> > > --
> > > J. Javier Maestro
> > > <jesus@student.unsw.edu.au>
> On Oct Fri 17 2003 16:31, bozkurt@multitel.be wrote:
> > Dear J. Javier Maestro,
> > Concerning your mails about Mbrola, first I am sorry for the very late reply.
> > Due to my physical distance and long country change history I could not handle
> > Mbrola e-mails so efficiently these months(I do research in Paris now and visit
> > Mons once every two months).
> >
> > Would you be interested in trying to compile Mbrola for your system?
> > If yes, please sign and send us two copies of agreements attached by regular
> > posting. When I receive them, I will send you the binaries.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Baris Bozkurt
> > Faculte Polytechnique De Mons, TCTS Lab.
> > Avenue Copernic 1, Parc Initialis,
> > B-7000 Mons, Belgium
> Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 04:14:27 +1000
> From: "J. Javier Maestro" <jesus@student.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: mbrola compilation
> To: bozkurt@multitel.be
>
> Dear Baris,
>
>
> I thank you very much for the great offer. Indeed I would be interested
> in helping porting MBROLA, but chances are that the NDA agreement would
> interfere with any future work that I do. The situation around the world
> regarding software patents is shifting, in my opinion, to a very dark
> zone (even in Europe!). Being quite young as I am, I frankly think that
> signing an NDA could diminish my chances of being able to work in and
> for the Community (Hopefully, one day IBM will pay me to do some work on
> their Linux department... I wish :)
>
>
> On the other hand, I would like to ask you for a little favour. Knowing
> that my particular problem concerns *only* (hopefully) the
> libstdc++.so.27 library, and since AFAIK the libstdc++ library is GPL, I
> kindly request from you either a compiled version (preferable) or the
> source code FOR THAT PARTICULAR VERSION that you used in the compilation
> of the binary mbrola206a-linux-ppc distributed in the zip file named
> mbr301h.zip. By just copying the file in my /usr/lib/ directory, mbrola
> should work just fine. I understand that since you compiled it for PPC,
> either you have a running version (in which case I could get the binary
> from you) or you cross-compiled it (then, I will have to try out the
> source code).
>
>
> I kindly ask you for this favour, since I understand that you have
> benefitted from the Community by using the gcc compiler, and I would
> really love to be able to run MBROLA on my system, and perhaps, do my
> own .deb (I run Debian GNU/Linux) and send it to you, in case you want
> to hang it on the web.
>
>
> I am really sorry for not being able to comply with your NDA, and I
> offer myself and all the help I could provide to you, to make your
> project Open Source under the GPL or under the less restrictive BSD
> License. I understand that most surely there was (or there is) some
> great motivation when MBROLA was developed to keep it closed-source,
> I could not sleep peacefully (so as to speak :) if I were not to at
> least, offer you the possibility of joining, in my opinion, the greatest
> software industry available in the world. As an example, I am pretty
> sure that the Gnome (http://www.gnome.org) Community would be really
> interested in a GPL version of MBROLA since they are one of the most
> proactive group of programmers in terms of accesibility
> (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/) and they, together with the
> blind Linux community (http://leb.net/blinux/) could _really_ benefit
> from a product of the quality of MBROLA.
>
>
> Again, thank you very much for the effort you put in MBROLA. With your
> help, I will hopefully be able to enjoy it as much as the i386 users! :)
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> --
> J. Javier Maestro
> <jesus@student.unsw.edu.au>
----- End forwarded message -----
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