Re: Fwd: Idea on linux.com article on a11y

[Juanjo Marín <juanjomarin96 yahoo es>]

----- Mensaje original -----
> De: Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>
> Para: marketing-list gnome org
> CC: 
> Enviado: Miércoles 22 de febrero de 2012 21:56
> Asunto: Re: Fwd: Idea on linux.com article on a11y
> 
> Hi Sri,
> 
> It's a risky strategy - from what I can tell our accessibility story has 
> regressed since 2.32. Do we have an action plan to get back to where we 
> were before? I have been getting the impression that accessibility 
> wasn't a top priority for some of the teams driving GNOME 3.
> 
> If we really do have a good accessibility story, and legitimate gripes 
> with the linux.com story, then it sounds like it's worth a shot.
> 
Hi !

The transition to GNOME 3.0 was at the same time that Oracle adquired
Sun and dismatled the Accessibility Program Office that was one of the 
main contributors to GNOME a11y so far.

The GNOME a11y team has been reorganizing and new members have 
landed in the team to tackle the daunting transition to GNOME 3, specially 
because a11y relayed in bonobo that was going to be dropped in GNOME 
3 and it had to be re-written using D-bus, not to mention the other details
to be migrated.

GNOME 3.2 is the first release of the the GNOME 3 series that can be 
stated as accessible, though it has some glitches. GNOME 3.4 looks
very promising.

So there was a regression, but we are in general terms close to the
same level again (orca seems more performant than ever in the current 
development cycle, gnome magnification works great now with new 
features around the corner, the on-screen keyboard it's built using a 
promising Caribou tech with a11y features , etc... and other 
applications like dots needs some work to be working again or 
gnome-voice was dropped).

Also, GNOME a11y technologies are being used in other free desktops,
like Xfce, Unity and KDE. So I think GNOME has an important leading 
role in terms of accessibility.

However, the resources in accessibility are less than in the past, and we
need more resources to keep the pace for adding new features and 
maintaining what we have.

Cheers,

    -- Juanjo Marin