Re: Can the community work with Gnome to improve GTK+ a11y?

[Bill Cox <waywardgeek gmail com>]

On 1/1/12, Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com> wrote:
> Based on what you, Halim, and Bill have stated it sounds like an RFE
> should be filed in bugzilla against Gtk requesting a change in how this
> widget behaves. And then engage the Gtk community to hopefully find a
> resolution that works for everyone.

Hi, Joanmarie.  Everyone here probably has discovered that I am in
fact somewhat of an ass hole, at least when I don't get what I want in
accessibility.  Richard Stallman heard that I am working as a
volunteer coder for free software accessibility, and asked that I try
and work with the Gnome community.  I told him that I am likely not
welcome by the GTK team, as I've electronically shouted as loudly as
possible at them, without any effect.

Given my past inability to get any action at all from the GTK team,
and given how they likely feel about my complaining about it, I'm not
sure that I can engage the GTK team to find resolutions.  In the end,
I am a coder, not a politician.  I'm happy to track down bugs like the
locking up of the desktop when GTK+ widgets are draw from another
thread while at-spi is running.  I just can't find a way to
diplomatically deal with people who are not passionate about
accessibility.  What I hear so far is "reformat the patch", "submit it
as a Gail bug, not a GTK bug", and "I don't think thats the right
approach".  What I need to be a passionate supporter of GTK
accessibility is a developer who says "your approach sucks, but I
fixed it, and committed an accessibility upgrade".  This takes actual
time, work, and passion for a11y.  In my experience, there is no
substitute for this.  People like me can submit patches and tests and
work like heck jumping through never ending hoops, but I don't believe
we can succeed in making progress without help from the team that
maintains the code.

I am huge fan of your work with Orca.  I'll continue trying to help
projects where guys like me can contribute.  If there is a way for a
coder like me to help make GTK work properly, I'm interested.
Otherwise, I'll find somewhere else to be useful.

Thanks,
Bill