[orca-list] Linux, free software and accessibility discussion

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

kendell clark <coffeekingms gmail com> wrote:
> I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with that. That's the same logic that gets
> people to stick with and continue to use windows. I'd love to switch to
> linux but the non free stuff is just too easy. I'd be the last person to say
> linux is always easy, but it takes developers to close the gap. If
> proprietary OCR is indeed better, then we need developers to fix the open
> source stuff so that's no longer the case. I don't buy the common excuses
> taht go along with logic like this either, reasons like "it takes money to
> make accessibility better." 

Well, in fact, there is money associated with free/open-source software
development, as can be seen from the commercial distributors, consulting
firms, hardware vendors, and so on, that all derive revenue from it.
Unfortunately, for osme reason, they're not experiencing the regulatory
pressures that would motivate them to invest some of those profits into
development efforts to improve accessibility. Will it take litigation to
change the situation?

Having encountered Microsoft Windows in my work environment after being a
Linux user for many years, I can't be sure that it's easier either. It's
different; the user is faced with learning a long list of screen reader and
operating system keyboard commands in order to be productive with it; one has
to master the art of finding options that might be hidden three layers deep in
dialogues, and the command line is very different from that in Linux.

OCR, speech recognition and similar applications are about to become much more
accurate due to advances in artificial neural networks. There are open tools
for working with these networks, but there is also a need for skilled
developers who understand this technology to use it in open projects - a large
potential, including for accessibility applications.