[g-a-devel] Re: [Kde-accessibility] Re: KDE and AT-SPI [was: Re: Is it the time for "KSpeach"?]

[Olaf Jan Schmidt <ojschmidt kde org>]

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[Bill Haneman, Mittwoch, 15. September 2004 20:04]
> DBUS isn't even used much in GNOME yet; I really think its a long way
> from being capable (at this time) of supporting the needs of AT-SPI.

At the Unix Accessibility Forum, Harald Fernengel has shown some 
proof-of-concept code using D-BUS for an at-poke-like tool. The code is 
not available yet, so maybe we should discuss later.

Anyway, what exactly are things missing in DBUS?
Could you write a list of features that are needed?

> That doesn't mean that it cannot or will not be extended later on.  All
> the same, I have a concern, which I think is very realistic, that if
> you implement all the features you need for a truly object-oriented,
> network-capable object protocol, you will have more-or-less
> reimplemented CORBA.

Yes, but do we really need all of the CORBA features for AT-SPI?

> At least with CORBA we have a real, pre-existing
> standard, and interoperability with other ORBs.
>

CORBA is not used at all in KDE, so I am not familiar with CORBA enough to 
evaluate which ORBs we could use. At one point, you strongly recommended 
that we should bridge to ORBit2, saying the other ORBs are not really up 
to the task. But linking to ORBit2 from KDE is impossible because of 
dependency issues.

My impression from talks with you was that there is no other ORB for Linux 
which is stable enough and contains the same amount of features that 
ORBit2 has, without adding even more dependencies. Maybe I misunderstood 
you.

> We would also need an idl compiler for any new protocol
> developed, because the AT-SPI IDL is really the normative part of the
> interface. If we had an alternate protocol, IDL compiler, Python
> bindings, and bindings for other languages/VMs that currently use CORBA
> to talk to AT-SPI (for instance Java, which is how OpenOffice talks to
> at-spi), then (and only then) we would have a drop-in solution.
>

Yes, I know that we don't have a drop-in solution. There is no convincing 
solution for AT client bridging at the moment, so it is important that we 
evaluate all options. 

My impression from listening to Thomas Friehoff's presentation and to the 
feedback by blind people at the Unix Accessibility Forum was that we 
still need to solve a lot of issues before we can call the Linux desktop 
truly accessible. This also means that it will be a long way before we 
can say that we have a mature standard for AT communication on Unix, 
whichever solution we will agree on.

Olaf

- -- 
Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility Project
KDEAP co-maintainer, maintainer of http://accessibility.kde.org

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