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Re: New GNOME Desktop Accessibility Guide

Folks -

I must say that I am very uncomfortable with the remarkable similarity
between the keyboard navigation section of Sharon's accessibility guide
published last week and the material Irene wrote and made available in
GNOME cvs two months ago.

One of the fundamental values of the free software development process
is the benefit derived by expanding on the work of others. An important
corollary is that the people who did the original work receive
appropriate credit.

On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 08:49, John Sheehan wrote:
> Hi Sharon, 
> 
> I see that you published a GNOME 2.0 Accessibility Guide last week. This relates 
> to the discussion that we had in September about Sun's plans for the GNOME 
> Accessibility Guide. 
> 
> As you are aware, Irene Ryan placed preliminary draft material in gnome cvs of 
> the GNOME 2.0 on Solaris Accessibility Guide on 11 September 2002, for Sun 
> Microsystems. This draft was really intended for review and comment. You appear 
> to have used this draft material to update your GNOME 1.4 Accessibility Guide to 
> 2.0. Some of the chapters are clearly derived from Irene's preliminary draft 
> material, particularly the keynav chapter. 
> 
> We are putting our drafts into gnome-docu/gdp/contrib as a result of requests 
> from you for information about our intentions as regards the accessibility 
> guide. We did not expect that you would publish this draft material under your 
> name and copyright, without any sharing of copyright with Sun or any 
> acknowledgement. 
> 
> As the drafts that Irene issued in gnome cvs are covered by the GFDL, we retain  
> full rights to continue developing our original material. We will publish a 
> final version in a month or so, and therefore we want to clarify the reasons for 
> any similarity between the final manual that we publish and the document that 
> you published last week. 
> 
> We welcome you using material that we put back to the community, but we must 
> establish that we have the right to continue working on our original material in 
> light of your move to publish a work derived from our original sources. You do 
> not need to acknowledge Sun in your manual, but we have to establish that Sun 
> has prior rights to the material in gnome-docu/gdp/contrib/accessibility
> 
> Regards
> 
> John
> 
> 
> John Sheehan wrote:
> > 
> > Sharon D Snider wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi John,
> > >
> > > I noticed you were copied on this email and I would like to confirm that I
> > > understand Pat's response correctly. As I mentioned in the original email.
> > > I would like to contribute documentation on GNOME2 accessibility for Linux
> > > to the GNOME2 User Guide.
> > >
> > > My original request was sent out to the gnome-doc-list to find out if
> > > anyone in the community was working on an accessibility section. the only
> > > response I received back  from my inquiry was from Pat Costello.
> > >
> > > The area that concerned me was his following comment,  "Therefore, we are
> > > not really in a position to collaborate on a generic GNOME accessibility
> > > guide, as such a document would not meet our needs."
> > >
> > > Was Pat speaking for the GNOME documentation project and the GNOME2 User's
> > > Guide that is being distributed for Linux?
> > > It is my goal to be able to help the Linux community provide accessibility
> > > documentation for GNOME2 that can be included in the GNOME2 User Guide for
> > > the Linux distribution.
> > >
> > > If there is someone else I need to contact, please advise. Your help with
> > > this would be greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > 
> > Hi Sharon,
> > 
> > Irene Ryan (irene ryan sun com) is starting to look at the structure of
> > an Accessibility Guide for Gnome on Solaris.  We believe that unlike the
> > User Guide we are not going to be able to keep this generic because it
> > may contain some user information and some system admin information
> > relating to the GNOME bundle we release and to the hardware (including
> > accessibility devices) on which we support it.
> > 
> > We want to cover everything related to accessibility in our one guide.
> > Examples of specific issues are:
> > 
> >     - our X11 server needs certain options set so that AccessX works
> > 
> >     - we may have a specific braille reader that we ship.
> > 
> >     - we may have a freeware text-to-speech that differs from that
> >       of other distributions.
> > 
> >     - our key nav could differ by 0.5% from that of the community
> >       because at the time of shipping it is possible that Owen Taylor
> >       who maintains gtk will not have accepted all our patches back.
> > 
> >     - an accessible login is critical - but we do not use gdm so
> >       we will have to describe our accessible 'dtlogin' to our readers.
> > 
> >     - a lot of freeware tools that the linux accessibility group
> >       would like to see described (and which you may have listed in
> >       your earlier guide) may not work or be appropriate on Solaris
> > 
> > The Guide will be issued under GFDL, and drafts will be made available
> > as soon as they are ready.  Other writers in the GNOME documentation
> > project are welcome to use any parts of it in a generic or in a
> > Linux-specific document.
> > 
> > However, we would like to keep the User Guide and Accessibility Guide
> > separate for the reasons listed above.  Also we believe the level of
> > detail in an Accessibility Guide would be much deeper than a User Guide.
> > For example:
> > 
> >      - the AccessX preference tool is described in about 1 page in
> >        the User Guide.  In the Accessibility Guide several pages will
> >        be devoted to how it might be used.
> > 
> >      - We would need 5 to 10 pages to describe keynav in Gnome.  This
> >        would be a central section in the Accessiblity Guide, whereas
> >        in a User Guide it might be best as an Appendix because it would
> >        break the flow of the book otherwise.
> > 
> > Perhaps the User Guide could contain a link to the Accessibility
> > Guide(s) so that it could be seamlessly accessed.
> > 
> > Regards
> > 
> > John
> > 
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Sharon Snider
> > > Linux Information Development, Accessibility, and Usability
> > > IBM Linux Technology Services
> > > (512) 838-4127, T/L 678-4127
> > >
> > > ----- Forwarded by Sharon D Snider/Austin/IBM on 09/03/2002 01:57 PM -----
> > >
> > >                       Pat Costello
> > >                       <Patrick.Costello        To:       Sharon D Snider/Austin/IBM IBMUS
> > >                       @Sun.COM>                cc:       john sheehan dub-mail1 Ireland Sun COM
> > >                                                Subject:  Re: New GNOME Desktop Accessibility Guide
> > >                       08/14/2002 11:46
> > >                       AM
> > >                       Please respond to
> > >                       Pat Costello
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Sharon,
> > >
> > > Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier about your attached mail, we are
> > > just
> > > emerging from the holiday season. The documentation team at Sun has
> > > considered
> > > your mail, and we thought it only fair to let you know what we are doing as
> > >
> > > regards an Accessibility Guide.
> > >
> > > We will produce an Accessibility Guide for the GNOME on Solaris desktop,
> > > but the
> > > way things look at the moment, the guide will be very Sun-specific. The
> > > guide
> > > will talk about Sun-only accessibility applications, Sun hardware, and
> > > Solaris-specific considerations. Beyond those few topics, we are still
> > > forming
> > > our ideas about what we want to put into the manual.
> > >
> > > Therefore, we are not really in a position to collaborate on a generic
> > > GNOME
> > > accessibility guide, as such a document would not meet our needs.
> > >
> > > Having said that, when we have our document in a reasonably advanced state,
> > > we
> > > will issue drafts to anyone who is interested in the subject. We would
> > > appreciate your comments, if you are willing to be a reviewer. Even though
> > > our
> > > document will have a strong Sun flavor, we aim to publish our Accessiblity
> > > Guide
> > > as an open-source manual when the document is completed.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Pat
> > >
> > > > Delivered-To: gnome-doc-list gnome org
> > > > Subject: New GNOME Desktop Accessibility Guide
> > > > To: gnome-doc-list gnome org
> > > > X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D03NM805/03/M/IBM(Release 5.0.10
> > > |March
> > > 22, 2002) at 07/26/2002 09:35:55 AM
> > > > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > > > X-BeenThere: gnome-doc-list gnome org
> > > > X-Loop: gnome-doc-list gnome org
> > > > X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8
> > > > List-Help: <mailto:gnome-doc-list-request gnome org?subject=help>
> > > > List-Post: <mailto:gnome-doc-list gnome org>
> > > > List-Subscribe: <http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list>,
> > > <mailto:gnome-doc-list-request gnome org?subject=subscribe>
> > > > List-Id: GNOME documentation issues <gnome-doc-list.gnome.org>
> > > > List-Unsubscribe: <http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list
> > > >,
> > > <mailto:gnome-doc-list-request gnome org?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > List-Archive: <http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-doc-list/>
> > > >
> > > > Last February, I sent out a note regarding a GNOME 1.4 Desktop
> > > > Accessibility User's Guide, primarily for  Ximian,  that we have been
> > > > working. It may have been poor timing with all the work and effort going
> > > > toward GNOME2. However, now that GNOME2 is available, I would like to
> > > > update the guide so the information  can be included with the GNOME2
> > > > desktop, or if others are currently working on accessibility
> > > documentation,
> > > > I would like to help in their efforts.
> > > >
> > > > If there is anyway I can help or if you would like a copy of the original
> > > > guide, please let me know and I'll forward you the zip file.
> > > >
> > > > Sharon Snider
> > > > Linux Information Development, Accessibility, and Usability
> > > > IBM Linux Technology Services
> > > > (512) 838-4127, T/L 678-4127
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > gnome-doc-list mailing list
> > > > gnome-doc-list gnome org
> > > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h) jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.inkstain.net http://www.abqjournal.com

"Sometimes, a diner is all about the mac and cheese." 
  - Zippy the Pinhead
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