[Accessibility] Re: Accessibility Q&As

Peter Korn Peter.Korn at Sun.COM
Fri Jan 16 10:39:23 PST 2004


Hi Janina,

I think this is a pretty good answer to a better question.  But the honestly
proud part of me wants to point out that the "GNOME developments" were a result
of a lot of very hard and active work by the "GNOME community" (and that
largely the very hard and active work by a bunch of specific people funded by
Sun in the GNOME community).  That community has gotten together with the other
existing efforts (e.g.  BrlTTY, the fine AccessX work, etc.) to weave together
a comprehensive and open approach for all to use if they like.

So, I would say that kinda like the Linux kernel joined and helped jell the GNU
work into a complete OS solution, the GNOME work joined and is helping jell the
work of various other developers at the console level and AccessX into a
comprehensive whole.  And that the Accessibility working group of the Free
Standards Group is the forum and vehicle of that jelling (which is all the more
"jelling" thanks to the addition of the KDE accessibility community, additional
AT on GNOME [c.f. Dasher]).


Peter

"'janina at rednote.net'" wrote:
> 
> Hi, Laurie Anne:
> 
> I like the new Q better. Here's a first try at an answer:
> 
> Q:      How has the Community responded to the demand for Linux based
> AT?
> 
> In classic fashion, several developers have created applications that
> support various interface requirements. For example, brltty has provided
> an interface to the console environment for users of refreshable braille
> displays. Emacspeak provided a tightly integrated audio-desktop
> environment for emacs, and Speakup provided a kernel-based screen
> reader. All three are applications typically used by persons who are
> blind.
> 
> There are other examples, but the more important point is that no group
> has attempted to address the issue holistically--to provide a full range
> of support for the range of interface requirements of the various
> requirements of different persons with disabilities. For example, the
> issues of someone who does not have use of their arms or hands are not
> the same as the issues of someone who cannot see. Furthermore, no one
> has attempted to integrate solutions across all environments from bios,
> through boot loader, kernel, console, and graphical desktop to assure
> a seamless user experience wherever a user might need to interface with
> their computer, or their digital device.
> 
> Recent preferences for accessible technology in major markets (such as
> sales to the U.S. Government) have garnered wider industry attention.
> The GNOME developments in accessibility represent an important recent
> response by industry to provide technology which is accessible in order
> that vendors might continue to be competitive in such markets. Our goal
> is to provide comprehensive and powerfully functional technologies that
> users will prefer because they do the job better. We believe this will help 
> end users and vendors alike.
> 
> LaurieAnne Lassek writes:
> > From: LaurieAnne Lassek <LALassek at accesspr.com>
> >
> >    Doug - you raise some good points about the Q below.
> >
> >    My 2 cents is that the nature of a Q&A is that we design Qs to be
> >    difficult, like this, in order to anticipate Qs that might come up in the
> >    course of a press interview. This is the type of question that might be
> >    asked, in some fashion, so we can certainly change it to be broader:
> >
> >    How has the Community responded to the demand for Linux based AT?
> >
> >    Thanks,
> >
> >    -LAL
> >
> >    -----Original Message-----
> >    From: Doug Beattie [mailto:dbb at linkexplorer.com]
> >    Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 9:42 AM
> >    To: LALassek at accesspr.com
> >    Cc: janina at rednote.net; mcneil at freestandards.org; dbb at freestandards.org
> >    Subject: Re: Accessibility Q&As
> >
> >    LaurieAnne:
> >
> >    Re:
> >    On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 04:24:58PM -0700, Doug Beattie wrote:
> >    > LaurieAnne:
> >    >
> >    > See attached text file with eight (8) general questions and even more
> >    > answers.
> >    >
> >    ...
> >    >
> >    > Q2. How many developers are currently using Linux to make AT available
> >    > to the broader community today?
> >    >
> >    > A. See the Linux Accessibility Resource Site (LARS) website
> >    > http://www.tracecenter.org/linux/ for a collection of AT projects, each
> >    > of which has probably 1 to 5 key developers (and many others making
> >    > smaller contributions).
> >    >
> >    > Also see "Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at
> >    > the Numbers!" at http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
> >    ...
> >    >
> >
> >    I really don't like this question or the answer. I don't believe it
> >    helps us either way to know/guess how many developers are working in
> >    the open source community on AT at this time. If we have a lot then
> >    why would we need more? If we don't have many is it because it is
> >    not a priority? One could make as much negative of such a question
> >    as positive from it and as we don't have _good_ statistics with
> >    reasons to back them up I'd prefer we eliminate/avoid this area for
> >    now.
> >
> >    What do the rest of you think?
> >
> >    Doug
> >    --
> >    Doug Beattie
> >    dbb at freestandards.org
> 
> --
> 
> Janina Sajka
> Email: janina at rednote.net
> Phone: (202) 408-8175
> 
> Director, Technology Research and Development
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> http://www.afb.org
> 
> Chair, Accessibility Work Group
> Free Standards Group
> http://accessibility.freestandards.org
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Accessibility mailing list
> Accessibility at freestandards.org
> http://www.freestandards.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/accessibility




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