Of course. The other part of this includes more willingness to back such 
projects financially, but the other angle to consider is that so many blind 
people are unemployed now. Even if they become pretty good programmers there's 
not likely going to be work for them all, and  even less traditional fulltime 
work. While one is looking for work they could also sharpen their skills 
working on the kind of software projects we're talking about here. Others may 
be content to dedicate some window of time to this work living on some kind  of 
disability paymentss, and on the more extreme edge of the conversation there's 
the alt economy model. Whether its possible to  create a group with the 
critical mass of talent and deverse skillset needed to be sustainable is not 
one I'm willing to bet on; but I would certainly consider donating some labor 
to a person who has made my computer more usable above and beyond the very 
limited money I can donate to open-source projects. 
While I don't see a revolution in the making, maybe we can see a significant 
evolution in thinking and behavior where more users of FOS-access-tech donate 
to developers. While there's a long way to go, NVDA has made notable progress 
getting donations from  end-users over the last few years.
Another thing to consider is that many programmers work on a project basis, not 
a salary payed by one company. This means that even very good coders with 
contacts and good work habits are likely to have some down time between 
projects that they could dedicate to accessibility work, or they could choose 
to give a couple weeks here and there to something that interests them. 
Get a job with Google and use your discressionary time to improve 
g-access...lolThere's nomagic bullet, but I think many of us can organize our 
lives better on an individual basis, and we can perhaps create some support 
systems making this easier. 
--
B.H. 
  
 
On Sat, Nov 02, 2013 at 04:44:35PM -0500, Christopher Chaltain wrote:
> I agree with this sentiment, but one challenge I see is that it's
> hard to make a living doing accessibility programming. If a blind
> person has the aptitude and becomes a programmer then they may have
> a hard time getting paid to do any accessibility related coding. Of
> course they could do this in their spare time, but then their time
> is constrained and it takes a while to come up to speed on some of
> this access technology infrastructure.
> 
> 
> On 11/01/2013 07:39 PM, B. Henry wrote:
> >Ah_men!
> >
> >Sadly, neither drugs nor prayer seem to be able to give many blind folk 
> >that; and I think we all know of more than a couple bind folks who have both 
> >1 or more degrees and above average inteligence who are unemployed.
> >
> >One alternative is for more of those who have some potential as far as 
> >logical thinking and such, and a fair math back ground to learn to code.
> >It's a longer and harder row to hoe, but if enough folks got in to the nuts 
> >and bolts of the tech they use so much then most of the money could be taken 
> >out of the equation.
> >I have a terrible math background, am over 50 with responsibilities, and a 
> >few not very promising hours looking at beginners programing tutorials; so, 
> >I''m probably not our boy, but there must be othrs who could really do 
> >something.
> >I'm still hoping I can say I've done something real to advance Linux 
> >accessibility before I die, but this may not be as concrete as I'd like.
> >On Fri, Nov 01, 2013 at 07:24:25PM -0400, Doug Smith wrote:
> >>No, the thing we need is to become those rich visionaries.  How in infinity 
> >>can we do it?  What is the over night, have nothing to have it all quick
> >>fix approach to getting blind people into areas of work where they will 
> >>have real incomes and earn that kind of money so that each of us might be
> >>willing to put that few million into it.  Instead of waiting for someone 
> >>else to do it, how in the known universe can we become those people?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>I'm serious.  Any possible answers that might be doable for all of us?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>-- 
> >>Doug Smith: Special Agent
> >>S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
> >>Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
> >>
> >>
> >>-- 
> >>Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
> >>[email protected]
> >>https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
> >>
> >>
> 
> -- 
> Christopher (CJ)
> chaltain at Gmail
> 

> -- 
> Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility

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