I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive criticism, rather than pointless ranting. I would like to raise a red-flag at Canonical with this post. Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the visually impaired. Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced to switch future development to Debian branches. Until now, Ubuntu has had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other distros, but 9.04 has trashed that.
If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero testing of Orca for 9.04. At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance for the visually impaired would be a good step. If Ubuntu wants to own the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the taking. Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it. Otherwise, I suspect that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian. There's some sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited by Ubuntu and several other great distros. However, making Linux easy to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on Ubuntu. Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu. I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend anyone. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
