Hi all, I'm the developer for the gentoo sound herd, and I just wanted
to drop a note in here that I recently committed updated ebuilds for
speechd and festival.  These updated ebuilds provide init scripts which
provide a /dev/speech fifo (speechd) that connects to a speech
synthesizer server (festival).  I am very interested in coordinating
with accessibility developers to further speech synthesis and
accessibility for the blind.

Please /msg me on IRC or send me an email if you want to chat or have
questions.

Thanks,
Jeremy