Orca is a
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...
, flexible, extensible
screen reader
A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to blindness, blind people, and are useful to visually impaired people, Illiteracy, illiterate, ...
from the
GNOME
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...
project for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Using various combinations of speech synthesis and braille, Orca helps provide access to applications and toolkits that support
AT-SPI (e.g., the
GNOME
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...
desktop,
Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
/
Thunderbird,
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed) and Collabora Online, with Apache OpenOffice being considered mostly d ...
/
LibreOffice
LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...
and
GTK
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...
,
Qt and
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
Swing/
SWT applications).
The name "Orca", which is another term for a
killer whale
The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopolit ...
, is a nod to the long-standing tradition of naming screen readers after aquatic creatures, including the Assistive Technology product on Windows called
JAWS (which stands for Job Access With Speech), the early DOS screen reader called Flipper, and the UK vision impairment company Dolphin Computer Access.
As of GNOME 2.16, Orca is the default screen reader of the GNOME platform, replacing
Gnopernicus. As a result, Orca follows the GNOME stable release cycles of approximately six-months. Orca is provided by default on a number of operating system distributions, including
Solaris
Solaris is the Latin word for sun.
It may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film
* ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem
** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg
** ''Sol ...
,
Fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...
,
openSUSE
openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. It is offered in two main variations: ''Tumbleweed'', an upstream rolling release distribution, and ''Leap'', a stable r ...
and
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
.
History
The development of Orca was started by the Accessibility Program Office (APO) of
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
, Inc. (now
Oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
) with contributions from many community members. The original idea and the first working prototype for Orca was started in May 2004 by Marc Mulcahy, a blind programmer who worked for Sun Microsystems. When Mulcahy left Sun Microsystems and ventured out to start his own company, the Accessibility Program Office took his work, continued with it and released the first official version on September 3, 2006. When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010 they cut developer jobs of full-time developers working on GNOME accessibility components, including Orca main maintainer Willie Walker. Since then, Orca is run by volunteers, led by Joanmarie Diggs. On September 7, 2011,
Igalia
Igalia is a private, worker-owned, employee-run cooperative model consultancy focused on open source software. Based in A Coruña, Galicia_(Spain), Galicia (Spain), Igalia is known for its contributions and commitments to both open-source and ope ...
, a company specialized in Free Software, hired Joanmarie Diggs and is supporting her work in Orca.
Features
Orca's profiles allow users to save and load multiple configurations and the users can quickly access to different profiles, making it far easier to access multilingual text and environments.
Maintainer list
Orca development has been led by their maintainers with the help of its community. The maintainers so far are:
Current:
* Joanmarie Diggs
Previous:
* Alejandro Leiva
* Willie Walker
* Mike Pedersen
* Eitan Isaacson
* Mesar Hameed
Other developers who made great contributions to the project are Krishnakant Mane, Marc Mulcahy, Rich Burridge and Scott Haeger.
See also
*
Festival Speech Synthesis System
The Festival Speech Synthesis System is a general multi-lingual speech synthesis system originally developed by Alan W. Black, Paul Taylor and Richard Caley at the Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) at the University of Edinburgh. Subs ...
*
Speech-generating device
Speech-generating devices (SGDs), also known as voice output communication aids, are electronic augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems used to supplement or replace speech or writing for individuals with severe speech impairment ...
References
External links
*
Orca's first programmer/inventor
{{Speech synthesis
Free screen readers
GNOME Accessibility
Linux software
Screen magnifiers