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

[Eitan Isaacson <eitan monotonous org>]

On Mon, 2010-02-22 at 14:49 -0600, Kenny Hitt wrote:
> 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  However, if in gnome an application is superseded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.
> 

Accessibility is definitely seen as a priority by GNOME leadership. I
agree with you that there needs to be more stringent rules for GNOME
applications. I believe the folks to lobby regarding this are the
release team, even though I know that they are also concerned about
accessibility. What would be even better is if someone who is a11y
oriented would join the release team. I think the new module inclusion
process[1] should include formal a11y requirements. Accessibility should
also find itself in the release schedule[2], just as i18n does.

Eitan.

1. http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/ModuleProposing
2. http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning