call to arms

[Bruce Dawson]

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Warning: seriously long composition - reminiscent of some of Ben's
replies ;-)

Ed Lawson wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Dec 2005 14:16:41 -0500
> Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> 
>> One additional point:
>>
>> Since Open Source is much more inclined to add features WITHOUT
>> requiring a "corporate giants" style economic justification its
> quite
>> possible that the access ability issue can be one place
> (feature set)
>> where FOSS can be completely superior to proprietary products.
> 
>> This makes FOSS accessibility a major strategic advantage for
> FOSS and 
> 
> 
> Seems to me the issue now is for FOSS to somehow develop
> accessibility features that currently exist in proprietary
> software.  While Gnome has done some good work in this area, the
> reality is FOSS simply is not anywhere near where it needs to be
> just to be roughly equal to proprietary software.

The last sentence is not entirely true. In my previous message, I
alluded that FOSS (i.e. OpenOffice) has a long way to go. I should have
qualified FOSS to be GUI-based FOSS. But even here, FOSS is at an
advantage because it uses X-11 which has a lot of hints (in ICCCMP) that
can be exploited (assuming the application doesn't try to do things like
compose fonts from pixels).

However, the origins of FOSS (Unix) had a very strong start that
"proprietary" software such as MS-Windows and even Mac's didn't have:
The command line. (I believe Jerry already mentioned this).

> For now, most FOSS is at a great disadvantage in this area and is
> not a viable option. Long way to go before it can be seen as
> competitive let alone having an advantage.

For some people, the only option for general-purpose computing is Linux.
(And I'm thinking of things like Emacspeak, festival, ...)

However, in spite of all the advantages of Linux for "handicapped"
people, its still at a disadvantage because the rest of the world is
fully "sensed". Which is to say, its hard for a (for instance) blind
person to read something in MS-Word, a heavily graphic'ed web page, or a
PDF file. Quadriplegics (e.g. Christopher Reeves) have other problems -
like controlling a mouse (which are all-but-required for GUIs).

It is a challenge to come up with a usage paradigm that will accommodate
all input and output methods. Interestingly enough, the thing that comes
closest is KISS; aka plain text. All we need now is a "semantic
dictionary" - but that would make artificial intelligence a little too easy.

- --Bruce
PS: Did I say that our business manager is blind? And he's actually
faster than "us lowly sighted humans" at a number of tasks - his
cognitive abilities are phenomenal, but he is completely stymied when he
runs into a heavily graphical web site, or a PDF file. However, he is
highly reliant on MS-Windows and JAWS. And for the most part, he's using
Windows only so he can read MS-Word files.
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