Re: [orca-list] Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually Impaired EVA III

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:35:59AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
 
> > That would go a long way to eliminating the need for this project, I 
> > think, and is probably the way I would rather see things go.
>
> I definitely see it this way, yes.  Instead of duplicating the work of
> mastering a CD, it'd be better to just fix Ubuntu itself.  Yes, that
> means talking with developers to get things included, but once it's
> there, it's for good (if you provide a way to test it).

I agree that this is the best solution. Creating a custom distribution has
at least one disadvantage: the need to maintain it over time and to deal with
any problems resulting from changes in the underlying distribution from which
it is derived. If improvements are integrated upstream, then the community
responsible for that distribution (Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.), has the
responsibility to ensure that those accessibility-related features are
properly maintained.

This is also why the Orca developers work to have improvements to Mozilla,
Gnome, etc., incorporated upstream, so they don't end up with the enormous
task of maintaining patched versions of complex and highly interdependent
libraries and applications, not to mention the work of actually doing the
patching.

Specialized distributions such as GRML, I notice, strive to reduce as far as
possible the additional work involved by using another distribution's
packages, wherever possible, and creating their own packages of additions and
improvements that add desired functionality.