GNOME 2.16 freeze break requested for two Orca bugs...

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Hi All:

Many apologies for this freeze break request.  I was up late last night
tracking down problems in other modules and ended up not getting to
these in time for the code freeze.  :-( I'm requesting to be able to
apply the following patches to the Orca module for GNOME 2.16.  There
are no associated string changes with either patch:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353467: When launched from a
GUI menu or other launcher, text-based setup cannot be accessed

The impact of this bug is that the user will be very very confused when
they launch Orca from a GUI mechanism (e.g., the "Run Application"
dialog or a launch menu) and Orca falls into text-setup mode.  The
resolution is to spawn a gnome-terminal and launch orca from within it
when appropriate.  We've already seen a number of questions regarding
this on the ubuntu-accessibility mailing list, so it's a high visibility
problem.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353476: Orca does not fallback
properly to a working synthesis engine

The impact of this is that an ill-behaved gnome-speech driver, or one
that is installed without its associated speech engine(s) in place, can
cause Orca to be speechless when it is started.  This is not good and is
also very confusing and difficult for users to debug.  The resolution is
to attempt to fallback to a working gnome-speech synthesis driver and
use it if one exists.

I respect deadlines immensely, and I'm one who hates 11th hour
emergencies.  However, I think these two problems pose a high usability
confusion for end users.  In addition, the patches are tested and
relatively low risk.  As such, I respectfully request your permission to
submit the patches to these bugs for GNOME 2.16.

Sincerely,

Willie Walker
Orca project lead