Re: [orca-list] Do we need "accessible" linux distributions anymore? was Re: Go to upper left and lower right corner in orca.

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Dave Hunt <ka1cey gmail com> wrote:
> I'm not sure we need specialized accessible distros anymore;
> Trisquel 6.0 GNOME and 5.5 I18N (both 'mainstream' editions) have
> orca turned on, even in the GDM login manager.  In Opensuse, Debian,
> and Fedora (GNOME editions), accessibility can be turned on easily.

I have never been in favour of specialized "accessible" distributions.
However, my opinion doesn't matter. A distribution comes into existence
because a person (or a group of likeminded people) decides to create it. The
distribution will exist for as long as there are people who maintain it. Even
if the only user of a distribution is the person who created it, it fulfills a
purpose.

So although I can give reasons why I don't think specialist distributions for
accessibility are a good idea, that's totally beside the point. What's great
about the Linux community (among other factors) is that no one needs
permission to create a distribution, to write a piece of software or to change
software that others have created. That's the essence of software freedom, and
it brings diversity as an inevitable consequence. There's no central point of
control or coordination and never will be. People work on whatever they want
to work on, or whatever they're employed to work on (often, both amount to the
same thing). There are overlapping and interconnecting software projects that
cooperate with each other; sometimes they're in healthy or in unhealthy
competition. For some projects, having large numbers of users other than the
developers themselves is seen as important; for other projects, it isn't.

And for those who fantasize about how great they think Linux would be if the
entire community moved in the same direction, I would point out that (1) it is
never going to happen, and (2) it's a good thing that this will never occur,
for a variety of reasons which it would take me too far afield to discuss
here.