GNOME AT receives honors in "Trophées du Libre" competition

[Peter Korn <peter korn sun com>]

Greetings,

The Sun Accessibility team is delighted to inform you that the two assistive
technologies being built into the GNOME desktop - the GOK dynamic on-screen
keyboard, and the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier with Braille support -
were honored at the "Trophées du Libre" International Free Software
Competition ceremony last month at the Cultural Center in Soissons France on
May 23rd, 2003.  The award ceremony was part of an all-day series of events in
Soissons, which began with a speech by Richard Stallman on the "Free Software
Spirit", and a speech by Dr. Roberto Di Cosmo on the "Future Hope" of free
software.  These were followed by a lectures on WiFi networking and free
software, and a press briefing at the Soissons Arsenal.  The afternoon ended
with the awards ceremony in the large auditorium in the Cultural Center.

The GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard received the top award in the Accessibility
category: a handsome trophy and a UNIX file server.  Simon Bates of the
University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Center accepted the award
on behalf of the GOK project.  On stage, Simon described the work of the
Adaptive Technology Resource Center, and the functions of the GNOME On-screen
Keyboard.  He then thanked the other members of the GOK development team,
noting the many contributions that GOK had received from the open source
community.  A photo of the trophy awarded to GOK can be seen at:
http://www.gok.ca/pics/award1.jpg

The Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier was one of the two finalists for the
"Trophées du Libre" accessibility award.  Principal developer Adi Dascal of
BAUM represented the Gnopernicus project, and at the end of the ceremony Adi
and the other award finalists all came on stage and each said a few words
about their project.  On stage, Adi thanked the the other members of the BAUM
development team in Romania and Germany, and also noted the contributions of
the larger open source community to Gnopernicus.  She received a smaller
trophy for Gnopernicus (but no UNIX server).  Adi was in town only briefly for
the ceremony, returning immediately to Frankfurt to continue her duties
demonstrating Gnopernicus to large audiences in the BAUM booth at the Sight
City conference (see http://www.sightcity.de/ for info on Sight City).

The other finalist in the "Trophées du Libre" accessibility category was the
KDE Accessibility project, represented by its principals Olaf and Gunnar
Schmidt.  On stage, they noted that they are working with the GNOME
Accessibility effort, and hope in the future to support interpretability with
GOK and Gnopernicus.  They wrote a brief article on the award ceremony, which
can be seen at: http://dot.kde.org/1054006853/

There were five other categories in the "Trophées du Libre" competition:
Games, Educational software, company management, general user, and software
for public agencies.  Descriptions of the finalists and award winners in these
categories can be found at: http://www.sil-cetril.org/trophees/

Near the end of the ceremony, Peter Korn came on stage and gave a brief speech
discussing the GNOME Accessibility effort.  Peter talked about the ideals of
"Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" - noting that for people with disabilities, we
have a long way to go.  Peter observed that while computers come with drivers
for printers and keyboards and digital cameras, and come ready to drive all
manner of video displays, they don't come with drivers for Braille printers
and displays or drivers for single switch devices; nor in many cases do they
come ready to magnify what goes onto the screen.  This is not Egalité!  Peter
then noted that the GNOME Accessibility project, and Gnopernicus and GOK,
address these issues by building assistive technologies directly into the
platform.  Likewise, Peter stated that we should all of us have a choice of
which computer we use, and not be limited to a specific web browser or
application suite or computer system (as is the case today for people with
disabilities).  This limitation is not Liberté!  Peter then noted that part of
the GNOME Accessibility project is work on bridging accessibility support from
the Java platform and StarOffice/OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, and working with
the KDE Accessibility team, to ensure that users with disabilities have a
choice.  Finally, Peter noted that given the right tools and equipment, people
with disabilities can fully participate in work and life; but in a world of
web pages that work with only certain browsers on certain platforms, and
documents that can only be read by certain applications on certain platforms,
we likewise do not have Fraternité.  Peter went on to credit the work of Sun
engineers in Beijing and Hamburg, defining and building accessibility support
into Mozilla and StarOffice/OpenOffice.org respectively to give people choice
and improve the ability to use the same documents and formats as the rest of
the world.


Sun Microsystems, Inc. is proud to be part of both the Gnopernicus and GOK
projects, and is the principal contributor to and maintainer of the GNOME
Accessibility project - the foundation upon which these two assistive
technologies are built.  With the tremendous accessibility support being
built into GNOME, users of UNIX and GNU/Linux computer systems will now have
a real accessibility alternative to the mainstream desktop environments of
Windows and the Macintosh.  Being honored in the "Trophées du Libre"
software competition is recognition of this historic and groundbreaking
work.

For more information on the "Trophées du Libre" International Free Software
Competition, please visit:

  http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/


About GNOME
===========

The GNOME project includes a desktop user environment: a graphical desktop
user interface and a set of user interface libraries.  GNOME is commonly
part of GNU/Linux distributions (such as those from RedHat, SuSE, VA
Linux, etc.) and it will be the standard graphical desktop for future Sun
desktops, workstations and servers.  The GNOME 2 desktop includes full
support for mouseless operation from the keyboard, and a themeing mechanism
which ships with several custom designed themes for high and low contrast
use, as well as large print providing support for a variety of vision
impairments.  Finally, the GNOME 2 desktop includes a built-in accessibility
framework, supported by the applications on that desktop, which provides
rich, detailed information about all of the user interface elements on the
screen.  The Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier and GOK on-screen keyboard
are two assistive technologies in development which utilize this framework.

For more information on GNOME, please visit:

  http://www.gnome.org

For more information about the GNOME Accessibility Project, please visit:

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap



The GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard
==================================

GOK is an open source, dynamic on-screen keyboard that enables users to
control their computer without having to rely on a standard keyboard or
mouse.  Supporting the majority of single-switch devices already on the
market, GOK allows users with limited voluntary movement to completely
control and interact with their GNOME 2 desktop via one or more alternative
input devices, choosing from a wide range of input techniques and
configurations.  These input methods may be controlled by actions such as
blowing and sipping to activate a pneumatic switch, an eye blink and/or
directed gaze with an eye tracking system, head movement, muscle
contractions or limb movements. 

Using innovative dynamic keyboard strategies, and leveraging the built-in
accessibility framework of GNOME 2, GOK makes desktop and application
control and interaction tremendously more efficient for users with severe
physical impairments.  GOK directly presents on the dynamic keyboard the
users' menu options, toolbar choices, and text manipulation commands,
thereby saving the user the time and frustration of having to enter lengthy
series of keyboard sequences to do those commands.  GOK also includes word
completion dictionary to speed text entry.

The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (http://atrc.utoronto.ca/) is
guiding GOK development, and is also the principal author and project
maintainer. The University of Toronto's ATRC research and development lab
not only brings strong leadership to the project with expertise in
alternative input devices and software, but also a sincere passion regarding
accessibility issues. (The team has already produced a full-featured
onscreen keyboard for another platform.) 

GOK is in active development, and has not yet been released as a product.

More information about GOK can be found at:

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/GOK

and also at:

  http://www.gok.ca


The Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier
=======================================

Gnopernicus is an open source screen reader/magnifier which enables users
with limited vision, or no vision, to use the GNOME 2 desktop and GNOME
applications effectively. By providing automated focus tracking and full
screen magnification, Gnopernicus aids low-vision GNOME users, and its
screen reader features will allow low-vision and blind users access a large
range of applications via speech and braille output.

BAUM Retec AG (http://www.baum.de/) is guiding Gnopernicus development, and
is also the principal author and project maintainer.  BAUM has been
developing screen reading and magnification software, as well as other
software and hardware products for the blind, for over 20 years.  Their
current products include the POET reading machine, the Vario 40, Vario 80,
and DM 80 plus Braille displays, the Galileo screen magnifier for Windows
NT, the Virgo screen reader for Windows & Windows NT, and the Visio
low-vision workstation.

Gnopernicus is in active development, and has not yet been released as a
product.

More information about Gnopernicus can be found at: 

  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopernicus

and also at:

  http://www.baum.ro/gnopernicus.html



On behalf of the Sun Microsystems,

Peter Korn
Sun Microsystems Accessibility team
http://www.sun.com/access