Luke,
It may not make much of a difference, but I posted the following message
to Ubuntu's Facebook page.
I know that it may sound fickle with all that is going on in the world
today, but it is just saddening when you feel at home using your
operating system of choice and then it is almost like you are locked out
of where you once lived. That is how I felt when I learned that Ubuntu
was no longer usable to me. I understand the whole idea of
innovation...it is just too bad that they, in a sense, are leaving us
out of it.
By no means am I trying to discredit all of the work which has been put
in to making UBuntu accessible over the years. And, as I mention below,
I have no intention of sounding irate. I just hope that, someday in the
future, they remember us.
Thanks again for responding to my message here on the list.
Take care.
I am not writing this message with any ill intent, and I
certainly do not at all wish to seem irate.
I do not know if this will be seen by anyone who can make a
difference, but I want to leave a message here just in case.
I am a former low-vision Ubuntu user. Ubuntu has a very
special place in my heart; it was the first Linux distribution
which I came to know and love as a solid, stable alternative
to proprietary alternatives on the market. Ubuntu is what I
used throughout my college career. It is the operating system
which I wanted to stick with for the long-haul.
Over the past two years, I have been put in Linux Limbo. When
I first started using Ubuntu, I began to work with the Compiz
Window Manager's eZoom plugin which allowed me to literally
magnify my screen, making it so that I could fully access my
system. Things were wonderful. Unity came into the picture,
and I was excited to try out a new desktop environment. I felt
that Unity was a wonderful environment in which to work. The
eZoom plugin for Compiz worked very well in Unity 2D, but not
so well at all in Unity 3D. Then the bad news came about:
Unity 2D was being discontinued.
You have a very elegant operating system, but myself as well
as many other visually impaired users have been tossed out.
For the past two years, I have been living in Linux Limbo. I
know that there are distributions for blind users out there,
but I am the only blind member in my family, and I would
rather use Ubuntu.
It was brought to my attention that there may not be a
magnifier in upcoming versions of Ubuntu.
I am not writing this as an advocate for the visually impaired
community (but there are many who are very disappointed in
what is going on in the area of accessibility within Ubuntu),
but rather as a saddened and concerned user. I felt at home
using Ubuntu, but now it seems as though there is nothing to
come back to.
You have some wonderful people who work with you who want to
make Ubuntu accessible, but they have very limited resources.
I am writing today to kindly and humbly ask you if you would
please do something about this. There are visually impaired
individuals around the world who truly depend on Ubuntu
because ti is solid and user-friendly, but they have no idea
where to go because they are being left behind.
Would you please stop for a moment and consider these users,
of which I am one, who cannot afford proprietary assistive
technologies, and who have stuck with your operating system
because of the philosophy which it once stood for--"humanity
toward others"
I believe that innovation is a wonderful thing. Thee is so
much technology out there that can be used to make your
operating system accessible to the blind. Please do not let it
go to waste.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you know
someone who could make a difference in bringing Ubuntu back to
us blind users, would you please share this with them.
Kind regards,
Bob
On 05/06/2013 03:42 PM, Luke Yelavich wrote:
On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 01:09:54AM EST, Robert Cole wrote:
Hello, everyone.
I have enjoyed using fedora over the past year or so, but I just do
not have time to solve the big problems which I am having with the
system. My wife and family who use my system have run into quite a
number of issues, and it makes their experience pretty unpleasant.
I am thinking about moving back to Ubuntu, but I have a few questions:
1) Does the problem with the Compiz eZoom plugin on Unity 3D still
exist (e.g. only the desktop area si zoomed, but the panel and dash
remain unaltered)?
Yes, this is still a problem, and won't be solved with the current Compiz+unity
code base. At this point I don't know whether a magnifier will be written for
the new Unity rewrite in 14.04 either. I will try to push for one, but no
promises.
Luke
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