Re: Question for candidates

[Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu tomeuvizoso net>]

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 03:34, Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net> wrote:
> [resent from the right address, sorry]
>
> On Wed, 2011-06-01 at 15:15 +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> [...]
>> What about translations, accessibility and other needs of minorities?
>> For big companies it's *impossible* to support those needs but for
>> community-developed software that's just what we do.
>
> Large companies often do work to address needs of significant
> minorities, either because of market pressures or because of
> legislation. Not always, for sure.

But we have the "inherent advantage" of minorities being able to cater
to their needs because our software is free.

> When it comes to accessibility, though, making software easier to use
> for people with specific needs often ends up making the software easier
> to use for everyone.
>
>> I think it would be sad to focus just on the ethical argument when we
>> have so much practical potential that can help us engage first-time
>> users.
>
> Ethical and Practical do not need to be mutually exclusive.

The point I was trying to make is that we *do* have an "inherent
advantage" in bringing practical benefits to users and would be sad to
relinquish that, as I understood RMS was saying.

Regards,

Tomeu

> Liam
>
> --
> Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
> Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
>
> --
> Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
> Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
> Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
>
>