Hi Brian, gang, >> As Linux becomes a real option for consumers it would be fantastic if >> those needing accessibility were drawn to it as it provides the best >> options. e.g an eye tracking system would be a winner as commercial >> systems are so expensive > > Perhaps it would be useful if someone put together some marketing > information comparing how much it costs to make a Windows or MacOS > machine as accessible as Linux is for free. It would be handy to put > together the cost for different kinds of accessibility use cases.
This is definitely useful. But cost is not the only key dimension/differentiator. Taking control of ones own destiny is another. Jan Buchal has spoken eloquently on the free-as-in-freedom aspects of open source accessibility. As a long time participant and observer of the commercial accessibility marketplace and disability community, there has been a very effective dynamic of disability advocates and users spending their time "advocating" for access (ranging from getting laws passed requiring accessibility to suing folks who don't comply with those laws, and everything in between [including a lot of consciousness raising]). To me, FOSS a11y presents this community with a new and powerful tool to achieving access ends - the ability to participate in technology solutions directly. I'd like us to ensure that this is a prominent part of the UNIX accessibility message. > I think it would be useful to frame Linux a11y as being a vehicle > for providing affordable accessibility to the world. Many people > with disabilities cannot afford expensive software. Providing free > software solutions opens new opportunities for people with disabilities > to find jobs and to interact with people. We should make more of an > effort to push the humanitarian angles of Linux a11y. Yes, and the participatory aspects of this humanitarian angle is key. By the way, you'll hear/see me calling it UNIX accessibility instead of Linux accessibility. I know there are issues with the UNIX trademark, but our work is larger than Linux (Solaris, NetBSD, etc.), and larger than GNOME (X, KDE, etc.). We need a term that encompasses all that. > It is my understanding that MSAA (MicroSoft Active Accessibility) > doesn't work with common programs like Office, and that users need to > buy special MSAA-enabled versions of Word Processors, Spreadsheets, etc. > I would think this would make setting up a functional a11y Microsoft > machine quite expensive. No? MSAA is implemented in MS-Office. The problem with MSAA is that it is only a small subset of ATK/AT-SPI; too much necessary information cannot be easily or well conveyed via MSAA (though Aaron Leventhall among others can tell you about the many hacks folks have used trying to shoehorn info into MSAA). UI Automation is the MS replacement for MSAA (well, one of them; UIA Express is another). It appears to be rich enough to behave as a good accessibility API. Microsoft has not implemented UIA on much of anything of any importance in their software library. Certainly not on MS-Office or IE. The result is that to deliver a really rich and powerful experience, AT vendors have had to use proprietary and app-unique APIs to get at info. The proprietary COM interface to Word (as distinct from the proprietary COM interface to Excel, different again for PowerPoint, different again for IE). Utilizing very much the same API calls, methods, fields, etc. as ATK/AT-SPI, IBM introduced IAccessible2 as an extension to MSAA that provides a rich accessibility interface to Windows. They and others are in the process of implementing IAcc2 support on a bunch of apps, including Lotus Symphony, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org. In fact, it may be worth noting as part of our messaging to the world that the GNOME accessibility framework is a close sibling to the Java Accessibility API, the UNO Accessibility API, the XUL accessibility API, IAccessible2, and WAI ARIA. They all have a common root (the Java Accessibility API), and together they represent a much more integrated, portable, interoperable set of accessibility interfaces than what Microsoft and Apple have done. > Considering that in the U.S.A. Section 508 requires that publicly > funded institutions (such as libraries and schools) need to provide > accessible access to the internet, it would be helpful to show the > cost savings using Linux based a11y solutions. Absolutely! Another key benefit is that it is all built-in. A key issue in situations like schools & libraries is that expensive and brittle 3rd party AT is only installed on one or two systems (as few as they can get away with), and those systems are essentially "kept out of circulation". E.g. in a lab of 10 machines, the JAWS machine is special and in order to not "mess things up", commonly kept out of the pool (of now, 9 machines), until such time as the blind user needs it. When the second blind user comes along.... oh well. And when 10 non-blind users want to use the lab, well, one gets to wait. But when every computer has the screen reader installed on it, all or none can use it. And when it is a core part of the OS/platform (that isn't replacing keyboard drivers and chaining video drivers and doing other system-level hackery), you don't worry so much about "messing things up" by allowing others to use the system. Of course, UNIX in general has a much stronger security model and stronger boundaries between users, making this less of a concern overall as well. > I'd think this sort of information would make sense to include or > reference prominently on the Wiki and in other GNOME marketing > blurbs. Absolutely! Regards, Peter Korn Accessibility Architect, Sun Microsystems, Inc. _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
