Google OCR
Written on October 2, 2009
OCR for the common man. Thank you Google.
There are free online OCR services; there are companies that sell the software. I don’t think it will be too long before it becomes bundled standard with an operating system and people will just expect it as part of something a computer does.
But having an open project is special, precisely because this is the kind of feature that is destined to become a basic, taken-for-granted part of a computing package. It’s infrastructure, and infrastructure should be free and open, part of the commons.
Infrastructure shouldn’t be able to disappear with the whim of a company.
It’s not a coincidence that the most successful, highest profile open source projects are an operating system, a web browser, and an office suite. Niche programs like AutoCAD have very poor open source representation.
Filed in: technical.
“Free” is never without cost.
Someone, somewhere, has spent time/energy/resources to develop/maintain/patch open source software.
It behooves the rest of us mere users to provide community support wherever/whenever we can.
I guess my primary point is that not all software applications are equal. I think some of them logically belong in public hands.
This means, of course, that the public must bear the burden of supporting them. This is almost always bourne unevenly; there is a small community (a tiny slice of the public) that cares passionately enough to do the work.
Open source works at the moment because large companies have a vested interest in software infrastructure (Google, Oracle, IBM, and yes even Microsoft) and they supply the bucks to back the passion.
But they also form part of the software consuming public.