Ubuntu accessibility (mini) summit Nov. 5-10

[Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik ubuntu com>]

Invitation to participate:

Ubuntu is organising it's 6-monthly development summit on Nov. 5-10 at 
the Google headquarters in Mountain View California. As part of that we 
are putting together a mini accessibility summit to discuss steps we can 
take in the next 6-12 months to take access on the Free desktop forward.

In addition to the Ubuntu developers there will be some participants 
from the Sun, IBM and Google accessibility teams and many other 
community members. It's an open event so anyone with a desire to 
contribute to the accessibility effort is encouraged to participate, 
either in person or via IRC, or by contributing to the specifications on 
the wiki. Unfortunately the application deadline for Canonical-sponsored 
travel and accommodation has long since passed, but if you are able to 
make your own way there you are very welcome!

The main page for the summit is here: 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitMountainView It will be 
located at the Google complex at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain 
View, California. (You'll see the event referred to as 'UDS-MTV' -- 
Ubuntu Development Summit - Mountain View)

A partial list of guests is here: 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitMountainView/Attendees
(feel free to add yourself to it if you want to participate and drop me 
an email so I can coordinate topics).

On this page I've started a list of possible topics for discussion in 
the accessibility field: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs 
Feel free to expand on any of those topics or to to add your own (but 
please do so using the spec format: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SpecTemplate)

I should explain a bit about the structure of the event because it's 
rather different from most conferences. At the summit there will 
generally not be any talks to large audiences but mostly work in small 
groups. It's directly development-focused, as the name suggest, looking 
mainly an the next 6-month cycle, planning features and writing detailed 
specifications. After the meeting there is a 1-2 week period where the 
remaining specs are completed and approved and we decide which ones will 
go forward as targets for the next edition of Ubuntu. From then on it's 
all about feature implementation.

I hope this summit can compliment the Boston Gnome accessibility summit 
held recently in that we take a few points from there and develop them 
in more detail, looking toward an implementation in the next cycle or 
two (of Gnome/Ubuntu). See this page for the agenda and minutes for that 
meeting: http://live.gnome.org/Boston2006/AccessibilitySummit

The agenda for the Ubuntu meeting will be comprised of proposed 
specifications. The (very preliminary) list of topics to be discussed at 
UDS-MTV is shown here: https://features.launchpad.net/sprints/uds-mtv 
The schedule will change as we approach the summit, and new 
specifications are added. Once more specs are approved for the meeting 
the list will likely grow to about 150 entries. These will each be 
discussed in one or more hour-long sessions, of which 6-8 may run in 
parallel at any one time.

The schedule for each day of the summit will be decided that same 
morning based on what topics need further discussion, who is involved 
and what their schedule is like. It's scheduled semi-automatically 
(using launchpad but with human tweaks). If you are attending and have 
particular interests you should (a) register an account in launchpad (an 
account used in the Ubuntu wiki will work), (b) subscribe yourself to 
the topics you are interested in and (c) let the organisers 
(claire.newman AT canonical.com in this case) know of any time 
constraints you have.

It may seem confusing that times for the discussions are not settled 
before the meeting. It is done in this way to make the meeting more 
flexible and allow extra time for those meetings that need it. The 
meetings are also very informal, with typically 5-10 people sitting 
around a table. Some may just be listening in or working on their laptops :)

Each topic will typically have one or more free discussion sessions 
followed by a drafting session where a detailed specification is 
written, all in the Ubuntu wiki. The drafting session may be held with 
just one or two people, possibly including someone off-site just writing 
on the wiki.

Participants will of course gather outside of these meeting times to 
discuss topics that interest them as at any conference, and many 
developers simply spend most of the time hacking, coding up prototypes 
of new features and working together.

To prepare for the physical meeting we will hold one or more virtual 
ones as needed, starting with an IRC meeting next Monday: 
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/593 Please join us if you want to 
contribute to the initial planning of the Ubuntu Edgy+1 accessibility 
features.


Henrik Nilsen Omma
Ubuntu Accessibility Coordinator