Re: Improving stability in Vinux testing repo by dropping GTK+ patches

[Penelope Stowe <pstowe gmail com>]

On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Bill Cox <waywardgeek gmail com> wrote:
>
> Now, all that said, Luke has limited influence at Ubuntu.  Major
> headaches, like switching to pulseaudio, and likely the upcoming Unity
> Desktop, trash accessibility.  Ubuntu rolls out updates without any
> a11y testing at all, so now and then we find that some critical piece
> of Vinux dies after an update.

The Ubuntu Accessibility Team is trying to change this. We'd really
love to get as many people involved with testing as possible, however,
we're still relatively new in our current formation and need more
people! Right now we're waiting for the accessibility framework for
Natty to make it into the PPA and next development release, but we do
hope as many people as possible will help us test. We've been working
hard to get these issues recognized by the Ubuntu community and
Canonical and are slowly making some progress. We are currently
working so that as soon as a11y can be tested for Natty/Unity, we will
be able to push for lots of testing. Some of this progress is harder
to see if you're not active in the group, but it is happening. There's
been a lot more discussion in the wider Ubuntu and Canonical community
about accessibility in the last 6 months or so and it's slowly
starting to make a difference slowly. I can say for sure that ISO
testing now includes a look at the accessible install (you can now
install Natty using Orca, however you can't do anything else yet - see
http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/2011/01/dash-has-landed.html for
more info) and, once the framework is there, we will have test cases
that will be pushed all over the place with guidelines on how people
without impairments can test accessibility. What I've seen in talking
to people in the community and at Canonical is that many of them have
been unaware of how to test many of the accessibility features, so
hopefully this will help.

I really would love to have as many people as possible involved who
are interested in Ubuntu accessibility. Unfortunately, so far I often
feel like I see a lot of complaining and fewer people getting
involved. I know Bill's doing a lot of good work in Vinux and as an
end user with accessibility needs, I completely understand why many
people are reticent to possibly break their systems to do testing.
That said, we really do welcome people to be involved in other ways
that can also help accessibility.

I know Ubuntu isn't for everyone, but if you are interested in
actually helping Ubuntu become more accessible, please do come join
us! The best ways are on our mailing list (
ubuntu-accessibility lists ubuntu com ) and IRC (
#ubuntu-accessibility)

Ubuntu has a long way to go with accessibility support and getting the
importance of accessibility through to the larger community, but we
are making progress. The accessibility team is currently a small
number of people, but we've been getting more and more visability and
support.

Sorry for sidetracking the discussion, but I felt I had to say
something as so few of these concerns are being raised directly with
the Ubuntu Accessibility Team.

Thanks!

~Penelope
Ubuntu Accessibility Team Lead