GNU-Linux's accessibility limitations compared to Windows are basically
baked-in, and I doubt it will change.  It is no one's fault.  It is simply
a result of distributed development with no central leader.  However, you
can use NVDA to access Linux through a terminal window, and most of Linux's
goodness will be accessible this way.

I will try to explain how I see the situation below.  It is certainly not
the fault of anyone working on Orca, or any a11y developer at all.  It is
just life in the land of distributed open source projects.

TL;DR

Janky a11y on Linux is not the fault of the various a11y developers, who
genuinely care about the needs of blind folks, and IMO do a great job with
very limited resources.  The problems are baked into GNU-Linux in various
ways.  One way to look at this is that Microsoft is like the military, with
a top commander issuing orders, which are followed by everyone, while Linux
is more like a slime mold, with no central nervous system.  There is good
and bad with both approaches, and unfortunately, a11y support will
generally be better in a military-style run organization, assuming that the
top leaders have made a11y a priority.

Bill Gates mandated that accessibility was a top priority, and attended
accessibility meetings personally.  That is why Windows is as accessible as
it is.  Ubuntu is an open source project, and it is simply not possible to
force every developer to get onboard.  IIUC, Steve Jobs did not care about
a11y, which is why Apple had non-accessible products for so long, and IIUC,
Tim Cook does care, and was able to force Apple to embrace a11y.  With
Linux, we have various leaders who do care, and some who don't.  The result
is that a11y on Linux is janky and probably always will be.

There are many examples I can point to.  For example, the main developer of
PulseAudio cares about music, but not as much about screen reader users,
which is why PulseAudio has broken a11y so many times.  Some devs in the
low level GTK widgets refuse to make pixmaps capable of having a text
description, which is why the icons remain inaccessible in many desktop
environments in Linux.  Gnome does better than any other Linux desktop
environment, in my experience, but Gnome can't make non-accessible widgets
magically accessible.  While in most cases, the goals of free software
advocates are in line with a11y advocates, these groups tend to differ on
support for commercial closed-source software, such as text-to-speech
engines, which is one reason we have limited options in Linux.  I use the
Voxin voice, which is the same as Eloquence, and if I were not a programmer
capable of hacking the speech stack, I doubt I could consistently use it.

A common reply to a11y advocates in the open-source community is that if
you don't like the way it is, fix it yourself.  However, this is simply not
realistic.  For example, I fixed the pixmap GTK class to add an accessible
description, and attempted to merge this fix into the Vinux version of
Linux.  I had to fork not just GTK, but all of Gnome to make this work.  I
don't have the time to maintain a fork of the entire desktop just to make
pixmaps talk.

Another problem I've faced personally in the open-source community is
dealing with folks' feelings.  For example, I have an entire alternate
speech stack that can work with Orca, but this upset some of the
speech-dispatcher devs who do very important a11y work.  I tried working
with them, and to their credit, they did incorporate one of the most
important changes I have in my stack: they moved the code to talk to the
sound system into speech-dispatcher proper.  However, I keep most of my
a11y code to myself simply not to upset anyone.  Maybe if I understood
people's feelings better, I could contribute more effectively, but from my
point of view, I poke a random weak spot of the slime mold, and the whole
thing freaks out.

So, I hope that long winded explanation helps you understand why Linux a11y
is as janky as it is.

Best regards,
Bill






On Sat, May 29, 2021 at 12:21 PM Jason White via gnome-accessibility-list <
gnome-accessibility-list@gnome.org> wrote:

>
> On 29/5/21 4:29 am, Rynhardt Kruger via gnome-accessibility-list wrote:
> > I definitely think image recognition has improved a lot, both in speed
> > and accuracy. However, even a difference like 50 milliseconds may be
> > noticeable by an experienced screen reader user, especially if one
> > uses speech at 400 words per minute or more.
>
> A further difficulty is that any system relying on image recognition
> imposes the burden of errors on the user, whose ability to correct for
> them is limited.
>
> Image recognition might be useful, however, in automatically detecting
> errors in the implementation of accessibility APIs. I suppose that would
> be a research project.
>
> My understanding is that the GNOME Foundation has accessibility plans
> which include a new accessibility API in GTK 4, guidance for developers,
> and, possibly, better tools for automatically detecting implementation
> errors.
>
> I don't know whether GNOME developers also plan to fix the accessibility
> API and keyboard navigation of their own applications during the
> transition to GTK 4. Some proprietary operating system developers have
> been relatively successful in setting an accessibility policy for their
> software and implementing it reasonably consistently (e.g., Apple and
> Microsoft in recent years). So there are precedents that GNOME could
> surpass, given suitable project governance, developer education, and
> associated commitment of time and expertise. The GTK 4 initiative is an
> encouraging start.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-accessibility-list mailing list
> gnome-accessibility-list@gnome.org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
>
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