Jim Gettys
Fri, 17 Oct 2008 05:00:10 -0700
Congratulations, Peter, and all who have worked so long and hard to get
to this point!
- Jim
On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 20:33 -0700, Peter Korn wrote: > I am *very* pleased to share with you news about the AEGIS project, a > €12.6m investment in accessibility, with the vast majority of it focused > on open source solutions. > > Rather than repeat here all that I have written about AEGIS already, I > will instead invite you to read about it in my blog: > http://blogs.sun.com/korn/ or check out the AEGIS website at: > http://www.aegis-project.eu/ > > I have worked in the field of accessibility for nearly 17 years, and on > open source accessibility almost a dozen of those years. In that time, > open source accessibility has become a deep and abiding passion. > > I'm very proud that the techniques we have pioneered in the open source > community have since been adopted by Apple with the Macintosh & > VoiceOver, and are being adopted by Microsoft with UI Automation. These > same techniques are enshrined in the report a 42 member committee > delivered to the U.S. Access Board earlier this year (and which at this > very moment being reviewed by them as they work on their refresh of the > Section 508 accessibility standard). And these techniques are at the > core of the AEGIS project. > > With AEGIS, over the next 3.5 years we will attempt to bring > programmatic accessibility more fully to the web, and to the mobile > world. With AEGIS we will also address a number of issues that still > remain in accessibility on the open desktop. And while we're at it, we > will bring a bunch of new and talented people into the open source > accessibility community (you should start seeing them showing up on our > mailing lists and wikis in the coming months). We will also fund a > number of the experts who have already made tremendous open source > accessibility contributions - to enable to them to continue and to do > even more. I'm sure they will shortly make their voices heard on these > lists and in the blogosphere. And we will explicitly fund a number of > European disability organizations. These organizations and many dozens > of their members will be providing their expert input on our work, and > thoughtfully evaluating our prototypes, and perhaps adopting the > solutions we come up with because they do a great job of meeting their > needs. > > Oh, and we'll also write a bunch of open source accessibility code. > > > By the way - this Sunday the 19th of October marks the 8th anniversary > of the GNOME Accessibility Project. AEGIS helps bring a fantastic 8th > year to a close, and also serves to inaugurate the next 3.5 years! > > > Regards, > > Peter Korn > Accessibility Architect & Principal Engineer, > Sun Microsystems, Inc. > _______________________________________________ > accessibility mailing list > accessibility@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility -- Jim Gettys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> One Laptop Per Child _______________________________________________ accessibility mailing list accessibility@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility