I'm a little puzzled at the statement in this article that claims
disabled users don't like opensource.
Who are they kidding?
I *love* opensource.
Although it doesn't happen often, opensource gives us the ability
(even if it isn't exercised often) to *make* a product accessible
(the dvd player I just released is an example of this, though it
wasn't opensource, it was an apple demo project) Without opensource,
some accessibility initiaves wouldn't even exist (the one recently
rheavily discussed here is the brltty project) There's of cours
others, and I freely admit there's nowhere near as many blind
programmers as there shold be working on os software making it
accessible, but the point is that we *can* work to make it
accessible, and we can do it ourselves. Try doing that with a
microsoft product, and see how far you get.
I have no doubt these two users were saying what they conceived to be
the truth, but I submit that perhaps they haven't been looking at or
using opensource software long enough to be used as authoratative
sources on this topic.
On Mar 20, 2006, at 12:06 PM, Kafka's Daytime wrote:
Ha! The irony. Accessibility for the page I posted is pretty
rotten. I'm posting the text inline instead. Here it is:
Joe
NewsForge
The Online Newspaper for Linux and Open Source
http://software.newsforge.com/
Title
FOSS community, disabled users must learn to communicate
Date
2006.03.18 4:00
Author
Marco Fioretti
Topic
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/13/1628249
Accessibility is an increasingly important issue for free and open
source software (FOSS) developers and advocates. The International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed standards for
ensuring that software is accessible to people with disabilities.
Governments around the world often require that software procured
for public use must meet or exceed accessibility standards.
Disabled users and the FOSS community, however, still have a
serious communication problem.
An example of the need for better communication between the FOSS
community and disability advocates emerged last year, when
government officials in Massachusetts announced their intention to
transition to the use of OASIS Open Document Format for Office
Applications (OpenDocument). FOSS supporters celebrated the
announcement, noting that the switch would reduce public
expenditures, guarantee perpetual access to data, and end
discrimination. FOSS supporters, however, were unprepared for
criticism from organizations that fight discrimination against the
disabled, such as the Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) and the
Bay State Council for the Blind (BSCB).
OpenDocument is a well-documented, modern, rich file format that
can be used with any software program. Currently, OpenDocument is
undergoing an accessibility review process. Some of its components,
however, have already passed the W3C's Wide Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI).
Last November, FOSS and industry representatives met with
Massachusetts officials and representatives from disability rights
groups such as the DPC and BSCB. The meeting revealed that the FOSS
community fails to understand or appreciate the needs of disabled
users, and that the disability community lacks interest in FOSS.
According to an unofficial report on the meeting, FOSS supporters
explained the relationship between the ODF, open standards, and
accessibility standards. FOSS advocates also outlined the technical
limitations of proprietary software such as Microsoft's products.
They maintained that accessibility in Microsoft Office has often
been the result of reverse engineering, which must be done with
each new release using tools from third-party vendors. The FOSS
advocates also pointed out that the adoption of a FOSS-based
accessibility infrastructure would open more jobs to disabled
users, in positions such as Unix systems administration and Web
site design.
It didn't matter. Disability advocates confirmed the position
expressed in the Joint Statement on OpenSource & OpenDocuments in
Massachusetts:
Without advanced training to develop a qualified pool of talent,
new hires for state government agencies with OpenSource,
OpenDocument platforms will be everybody but people with
disabilities because of perceived or real training requirements.
People with disabilities will not be on hiring lists for years to
come.
Actually, according to the report quoted above, the disabled users
at the meeting just summarized this position in a clearer way, if
one that might be shocking for FOSS fanatics: "Variety is bad, we
don't want to have to change." Even if Office 12 will force them to
change anyway, the disabled representatives request that, as a
minimum, "all ODF applications have common functionality and [...]
the same keyboard shortcuts".
In general, FOSS developers strive to meet accessibility standards.
OpenOffice.org is compatible with the JAWS screen reader, for
instance, though problems remain. The Free Standards Group's
Accessibility Workgroup (FSGA) has asked for feedback on drafts of
accessibility standards for Linux and Unix.
To understand the objections from disability rights advocates, we
can look at the experiences of two disabled computer users in
Italy, Fabrizio Marini and Paolo Pietrosanti.
A blind Italian Linux newbie
My first direct contact with accessibility issues was last summer,
when I responded to a request sent to a local LUG by computer
science student Fabrizio Marini. Marini needed someone to install
SUSE 9.2 in dual boot mode on his PC and then download, compile,
and install the driver for his Braille terminal. I volunteered to
help with the job. Since then, another Linux user, Fabrizio
Sebastiani from LUG Roma, has also worked with Marini, helping him
master Linux.
Marini was very pleased, for example, when he managed to make GRUB
beep at the right moment. Now he knows for sure when it's time to
select the operating system; he no longer has to guess based on
hard disk noises. Recently, Marini tweaked Mutt and Postfix
configuration files in order to make email work under Linux. To do
all this, Marini has also been relying on "Appunti di Informatica
Libera" ("Notes of Free Information Technology"), a guide to GNU/
Linux that is an astonishing 8,839 pages long.
While proud of his accomplishments, Marini also feels that the
situation is far from optimal. For instance, he has not found "a
distribution that boots" and detects "Italian speech synthesizers,
or Braille terminals with the brltty driver." For now, Marini says
that the only solution is to find somebody without impaired vision
who is willing to help install Linux.
After installation, Marini contended with the same problems other
novices face. "Most Linux documentation is still too technical and
difficult for newbies," Marini said. For blind users, there is the
added burden of dealing with resources that aren't really
accessible, including, ironically, some online documentation for
Linux-compatible assistive technologies. Sure enough, when I read
this, I did recall many a beginner's tutorial which was mostly a
sequence of screenshots.
Marini is still testing speech synthesis and screen reader programs
for Linux. His first impression is that, again, variety is not
necessarily a good thing:
There are many projects, but all seem started with ambitious goals
and then stopped more or less half way before being really usable.
In my opinion, if more developers focused on only one product, or
at least less of them, things would go better.
A political point of view
Paolo Pietrosanti, a member of the General Council of the Radical
Party, became blind in 1993. This made him realize that "the
disabled must be turned from costly assisted persons into
taxpayers." Two years ago, the City of Rome announced that it would
move some services to FOSS platforms. While GNU/Linux fans were
celebrating, Pietrosanti asked in an open letter to Rome's mayor,
"Do you know that choosing Linux means excluding blind users?" His
arguments were similar to those presented in Massachusetts.
Pietrosanti has nothing against free software. "What really matters
to me," Pietrosanti says, "is to establish and guarantee the right
to access (both to information and to jobs), and the penalties when
it is violated." Pietrosanti wants to ensure that open standards
don't exclude disabled users from jobs and, if they do, he wants
mechanisms in place so disabled users can sue to defend their rights.
Pietrosanti is equally indifferent to the heated debates over which
operating system is superior. As he puts it, no one "outside of a
madhouse would ever waste time figuring out which car model is
better when the nature of the streets they will be used on must
still be decided."
He gets to the heart of the issue when, just like FOSS supporters,
he puts it in terms of freedom. "Proprietary or free (as in
freedom) software are really the same to me. What matters is the
actual freedom of each individual." As an example, his home page
denounces the fact that, even in a digital world, blind users still
aren't free to read everything -- not because of licensing issues,
but because "this society is so insane that, not forcing all
content to be available in digital format, practically forbids
reading to blind users."
Pietrosanti says he can already do what he needs to do with his
Windows system and software. What is the real issue, Pietrosanti
asks: "The way the software was developed and distributed, or the
way it limits or protects my rights?"
Conclusion
Both in Europe and the US, there is still much to do to reconcile
disabled users and the FOSS community. Disabled users fail to
perceive that they have the same needs and rights as everybody
else, including full control of, and long term access to,
government and their own private documents; or the fact that some
types of software can create more local jobs than others, even for
them. Such inattention can cost a lot in an all-digital world.
At the same time, there is no doubt that current FOSS-only
platforms are not ready for many disabled users. Disabled users may
be helping the FOSS community, or at least a large part of it, to
finally acknowledge a general attitude problem. Pietrosanti's
"actual freedom" reaction is not the one of a person with special
needs. It is the same that most non-geeks would have when reading
the GNU Manifesto, and this doesn't mean that they are stupid. Very
likely, many office workers would like to sue, or at least to stop,
any manager who told them, "next month you will have to use
programs you never heard of before, with a different look and feel,
because of some policy based on obscure theories about software
engineering." Disabled users have the actual legal weapons to do it.
In the meantime, how can the FOSS community address the issues of
the disabled? The most urgent task is to improve documentation.
Perhaps you can make it a personal goal to be able to configure
your favorite FOSS tool blindfolded while someone reads your
improved instructions aloud. Your local LUG could organize ways to
connect volunteers to assist disabled users with installations. Be
sure to contact local disability rights groups to let them know
what you're doing. They may also be able to provide more feedback
about needs in your community.
For the long term, we also need to lobby for more public funding
for research projects that advance the development of the FOSS
accessibility infrastructure. Another move that would solve a lot
of problems could be to legally mandate that only accessibility
software that also works with OpenOffice.org and Linux can be
purchased with public money. If you have other suggestions, I
welcome them. Please also let me know of any future cooperation
between FOSS and disabled users.
Links
"International Organization for Standardization" - http://
www.iso.org/iso/en/ISOOnline.frontpage
"standards" - http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/r_international.htm
"announced" - http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8616
"criticism" - http://www.dpcma.org/opensource/positionstatement.html
"Disability Policy Consortium" - http://www.dpcma.org/
"Bay State Council for the Blind" - http://www.acb.org/baystate/
"Wide Web Accessibility Initiative" - http://www.w3.org/WAI/
"unofficial report on the meeting" - http://lists.kde.org/?
l=koffice-devel&m=113391263301325&w=1
"FOSS-based accessibility infrastructure" - http://blogs.sun.com/
roller/page/korn?entry=gnome_kde_fsg_statement_on
"Joint Statement on OpenSource & OpenDocuments in Massachusetts" -
http://www.dpcma.org/opensource/positionstatement.html
"OpenOffice.org" - http://www.openoffice.org/
"JAWS screen reader" - http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/
software_jaws.asp
"Free Standards Group's Accessibility Workgroup" - http://
accessibility.freestandards.org/
"drafts of accessibility standards for Linux and Unix" - http://
accessibility.freestandards.org/modules.php?
name=News&file=article&sid=11&mode=&order=0&thold=0
"Fabrizio Marini" - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Fabrizio Sebastiani" - http://www.lugroma.org/Members/fsebastiani
"Appunti di Informatica Libera" - http://a2.pluto.it/
"Paolo Pietrosanti" - http://www.pietrosanti.net/bio_eng.htm
"open letter to Rome's mayor" - http://itlists.org/pipermail/
pdl3486/2004-February/001116.html
"GNU Manifesto" - http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
On Mar 20, 2006, at 11:44 AM, Kafka's Daytime wrote:
Hi Folks,
Link to an interesting Newsforge article below. This article is,
perhaps, not strictly related to the use of Mac OS X by the
blind...but it speaks to some broader accessibility issues which
affect us - developers and end users alike. Also valuable,
perhaps, for purposes of drawing some comparisons between the
state of accessibility in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and
commercial solutions like Mac OS X (the Mac OS being an
interesting nexus of the two).
Here's an interesting excerpt from posted comments on the article:
--begin clip
"While proud of his accomplishments, Marini also feels that the
situation is far from optimal. For instance, he has not found "a
distribution that boots" and detects "Italian speech synthesizers,
or Braille terminals with the brltty driver." For now, Marini says
that the only solution is to find somebody without impaired vision
who is willing to help install Linux."
Interesting but can any of the other OS's out there be installed
without the assistance of an unimpaired user?
--end clip
I know of at least one. Anyway, here's the link:
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?
sid=06/03/13/1628249&from=rss
Joe
