eeejay
libspiel in a sandboxed world [providers]
Currently lispiel providers don't need special permissions when packaged as Flatpak. :ok_hand:
We know that each provider voice can be big so we don't want to ship all voices in the provider. Voices should be shipped as Flatpak extensions of the provider.
A provider might want a GUI to list and install voices. For obvious privacy reasons, we don't want to give network access to speech providers.
Flatpak should provide APIs to apps so they can list, download and install their own extensions. One trouble is that the provider will need to restart to "mount" its extension. There might be workarounds.
I wouldn't forcefully restrict network access. The best text to speech service I know is currently ElevenLabs and it's a cloud service. The quality difference is noticeable. The user should have the choice to use cloud services if they really wish so.
Nothing is forced on anyone :) But a speech provider with network access will not be considered safe.