Re: An Open Letter to Oracle on the Topic Of Accessibility

[Kenny Hitt <kenny hittsjunk net>]

Hi.
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:53:24AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Mmm, Even free software projects do have such top-down control
> structures.  For instance in Debian you're not supposed to leave an
> architecture apart when you package an application, and critical bugs on
> them are release-critical and will get your package out if you don't fix
> them.
> 
> > Another way of saying this is that the more application developers
> > have to think about "accessibility" as a discrete, separate phenomenon that
> > needs to be taken into account, the more accessibility is likely to lose,
> > despite constant "education" efforts and repair strategies to deal with the
> > deluge of regressions.
> 
> I think there are a couple of things that could be done.
> 
> - in glade, some automatic tests could be done: for instance, if a
>   button doesn't have _any_ text attached to it, glade could warn the
>   developper.
> - like in the Debian case with architectures, accessibility regressions
>   should be marked as release critical.  Yes, only regressions.  Debian
>   doesn't require an application to work on all architectures, but it
>   cares about regressions, which means that things only improve, except
>   for new packages.  However, if in gnome an application is superseded
>   by another, it should also be release critical that the newer is at
>   least as accessible.  In all cases, the
>   http://library.gnome.org/devel/accessibility-devel-guide/nightly/
>   URL should be reminded.  I believe it's a way to get in people mind
>   that it is a "must do", not only a "should do".
> 
> Samuel

Thank you.  You did a much better job than me at explaining the issue I have
with Gnome accessibility.  If the Gnome board would only make a small
policy change, accessibility would stop going backwards.

          Kenny