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

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Samuel Thibault <samuel thibault ens-lyon org> wrote:
> Jason White, le Mon 22 Feb 2010 16:27:53 +1100, a écrit :
> > The decision process doesn't have the same top-down control structure
> > that a proprietary operating system vendor can exercise.
> 
> 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.

True, but my point was that these control structures only operate, where they
do occur, within projects. Accessibility tends to have strong dependencies
that cross project boundaries, so there's no single organizational structure
responsible for it. I suppose one could argue that distributors are
ultimately responsible, since it is they who decide which packages go into the
releases or pre-releases that we all use.

However, I agree that release criteria for individual projects are very
relevant to this discussion, and that strengthening these might be helpful.
> 
> > 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  However, if in gnome an application is superseded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".

More automated testing to find regressions would also be valuable. This,
naturally, would be easiest in projects that already have test suites - they
just have to write test cases to cover the accessibility API.