Re: [orca-list] Topics Suggestion for Open Discussion (About Visually Challenged)

[Joanmarie Diggs <joanmarie diggs gmail com>]

Hi Amrith.

On Fri, 2010-04-09 at 16:51 +0530, Amrith Krishna wrote:

> The Free Software Cell of FISAT Engineering college, Angamali,Cochin,
> India is conducting a 3-day national seminar ICE-FOSS'10. We are
> conducting a 3 hour open discussion on the topic FOSS for the
> differently abled(focusing on visually challenged). The discussion is
> going to take place in a group containing both FOSS enthusiasts(Tech
> side) and Differently abled people. It would be highly gracious if
> anyone could suggest possible topics and matters that are needed to be
> covered in the discussion.

For what it's worth, I think long-term sustainability of FOSS AT
solutions might be a worthwhile topic.

Something we've recently seen is that we're relying too heavily on
support and contributions from Western companies:

* The Orca project took a major hit when Oracle laid off the project
lead and UI lead.

* Caribou got hit even worse when the ATRC of the University of Toronto
stopped funding its one developer.

* Right now, a number of companies (Oracle, Novell) are doing the work
to implement AT-SPI over DBus. Thank goodness! But what if they decided
suddenly to pull out, leaving that work unfinished? We'd be in big, big
trouble. (Note: I'm not suggesting such a pull-out might occur because I
don't foresee that happening; I'm merely pointing it out as another
example of the AT community's heavy reliance upon Western companies.)

> From what I've seen and heard, these companies do not believe it is
financially profitable to do the work they are doing in this area.
Turning to Western agencies and associations for persons with
disabilities to support development is something worth considering, but
the reality is that in these countries we have educational and
vocational rehabilitation systems in which most users get their AT paid
for by their employers and/or by government-funded agencies. While I
personally think such systems are broken, not everyone would agree with
me. And even if they did, change is hard.

My observation is that the majority of users with disabilities who rely
upon FOSS AT solutions because of the sheer cost of the alternatives are
in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and India. Therefore, what can
companies and agencies in these regions do to help support FOSS AT
development so that it not only continues to survive, but thrives so
that their users with disabilities have truly compelling access to
software and information?

Possibilities that spring to mind:

* Participating in some sort of consortium which would fund development

* Providing developers

* Adding FOSS AT to computer science curricula

* Encouraging users with disabilities to become active community
participants (and where appropriate, developers) for the software
tool(s) they use

I'm sure there are plenty of other options that make sense and are
doable in your country. It's just a matter of figuring out what they are
and implementing them. :-)

Thanks for raising the question here. I hope you have a productive
discussion!

Take care.
--joanie