Re: Solaris 10 released, with accessibility built-in! Also, FreeTTS 1.2 released.

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Hi:

As far as we know, Sun is the only distro currently testing every build 
for accessibility.
However, the initial Solaris 10 release is not as accessible as one 
built using the GNOME HEAD versions of the assistive technologies and 
accessibility packages. 

> Since the release info suggests Solaris will provide the best
> accessibility to Gnome, I would like to try it.
>  
This statement may be true in the future, but it may be a mistake to 
read too much into it with respect to the initial release.  Certain 
accessibility features are better integrated in Solaris than in other 
releases, for instance keyboard navigation and theming, and Solaris 
includes the Sun-modified accessible version of Mozilla.   On the other 
hand, for some users, it may instead be more important to get the very 
latest version of gnopernicus, gnome-mag, gok, or gnome.  Because of the 
rigorous product testing and release process for Solaris, it doesn't 
always have the very latest bits at the time that it is released.  
"early-adopters" will need to take this into consideration.

There continue to be integration problems with many GNOME distributions 
which mean that the accessibility features don't always work well "out 
of the box".  Sun has spent a lot of time and effort to integrate and 
test accessibility, so we do expect that upcoming Sun JDS releases will 
continue to have significant accessibility advantages.  A bit of gentle 
encouragement to the other distros may help them realize that there are 
real users, or potential users, who are currently experiencing trouble.   

Lastly, GNOME distributions can usually be roughly grouped into a 
'stability first' subset, who tend not to bundle the latest software and 
may lag the bleeding-edge GNOME releases by as much as a year, and a 
'bleeding edge' subset.  The 'bleeding edge' group gives you the 
latest-and-greatest, but such distros usually come with little-or-no 
warranty.

best regards,

Bill