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Re: [orca-list] Feedback for Microsoft [was "Re: favorite linux distros."]

I like your thinking. 
I'd also add that my favorite desktop that I can't quite totally use, panel access is still broken, XFCE, is 
going to be or maybe already is default on 
a few major distros according to a couple articles I read a few months back. 
Fixing xfce would probably be rather low-hanging fruit compared with making KDE ready for Orca primetime. 
The evolution point is very valid also, one of the most important things that could help in the corperate 
world I think. There's some good integration 
with the FOS office suites as I recall.
Impress also...How much would be in the LO or OO camp, and how much work would be needed on the Orca side, 
anyone have a good idea?
Thanks
 
 
-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  Alex Midence wrote:
Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 05:19:44PM -0600


One thing that would help drive more attention from the American front in the way of grants and other 
funding is a stronger focus on improving accessibility with a goal to assist with using Linux in a gainful 
employment setting.   There are a few aplicaitons with are in use in enterprise environments that might do 
with some touching up.  Charitable and philanthropic organizations might be interested in funding their 
a11y development.  I am referring to such applications as Impress, Evolution and Evince to give some 
examples.  They address situations encountered in an office environment.

Impress lets you create presentations without the need to learn any markup.  It also lets you show material 
created in other industry standard packages like Powerpoint.  Evolution works well with stuff like 
Microsoft exchange and other groupware packages which are not uncommon in the enterprise and, unlike 
thunderbird, is still under active development.  Thunderbird isn't comparable to Outlook in its set of 
features without going out and hunting down a bunch of plugins.  It doesn't even come with a built-in 
calendar, something indispensable in a business setting.  Evince has come a long way but still needs work 
to come up to the level of accessibility of pdf documents found in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.  This is 
a worldwide industry standard in document format which is in wide use in many organizations.  

These are just three areas in which I think accessibility could use some advancement in Linux.  There are 
lots more, I'm sure.  The KDE desktop could use lots of TLC, for instance.  It's fairly popular as a 
desktop in use in corporations that use Linux.  All of this requires lots of work, man hours and probably a 
ton of money to bring about.  It's a pity there isn't an organization out there, not affiliated with any 
particular distribution or desktop but, rather, exclusively dedicated to the furtherance of accessible 
access to Linux for blind and VI users.  This organization could be involved in fund raising and 
coordinating these issues.  

Just my two cents.  

Alex M


-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Krishnakant Mane
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 1:40 AM
To: orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Feedback for Microsoft [was "Re: favorite linux distros."]

My take on this is simple.
When there is freedom, it is just the mindset that matters when it comes to contributing code, 
documentation, testing or even training.
I am happy to run an organization which does at laest training and testing.
And as far as insentives are concerned, there are a lot at least here in India, our state governments fund 
such initiatives with no second thought.
The issue however is that given this digital freedom, people some times tend to fork and work differently, 
so the necessary synergy we need to attain critical mass is not acieved.
However I would still go with some degree of sacrifise, given the advantages of GNU/Linux over proprietary 
software.
There is always this potential of growth and I see it has gathered momentum off late.
Orca seems to be at it's best so far and gnome 3.14 is doing great in accessibility.
So it is hardly unusable, except some issues we have to grapple with some times.
Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.
On 12/26/2014 04:38 AM, Jason White wrote:

Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com> wrote:

Don't sweat it. It certainly didn't bother me. It is absolutely not 
the very first and probably will not be the very last off-topic 
message to be posted to this list.

True. Having now used Linux (console, GNOME etc.), Microsoft Winodws 7 
with MS-Office, OS X 10.10, Android 4.3 and iOS 8, in other words most 
of the major operating systems currently in use, I am in  a position to make comparisons.

I think GNOME 3 accessibility (and, in addition, Firefox accessibility 
with Orca, thanks to Joanie's excellent work) have imrpoved 
considerably in the past year. Still needed, though, is rigorous 
quality control before releases - the bug count remains unacceptably 
high, and proprietary operating systems have the edge in relation to 
GUI accessibility. Linux is unsurpassed at the console, however, and 
in environments such as Emacs. If several large Linux distributions 
were to commit resources and funding to accessibility-related work, I think we could see the rough edges 
smoothed rather rapidly.
Unfortunately, regulations in this area don't seem to be creating an 
incentive for them to combine and devote larger resources to this 
area. Alternatively, if we had a sizable community of people who found 
bugs, fixed them and submitted patches, improvements would occur more 
rapidly, but again there would be the problem of quality control prior 
to release. Users don't welcome regressions.

Resources aren't always decisive, of course. I expected Microsoft 
Winodws to be much more reliable than it has so far proven to be, 
given the large amounts of money involved and the influence of 
regulations in a number of countries, quite aside from Microsoft's 
long-standing involvement in accessibility. I may simply have been 
unlucky enough to encounter certain bugs, but on the other hand, I haven't done anything out of the 
ordinary in that environment.

Apple Accessibility tends to be reliably and consistently implemented, 
for the most part, but for various reasons I'm not gravitating to a 
Mac as my primary enviornment at home or at work.

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at 
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out 
how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at 
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
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