call to arms

[Bill McGonigle]

On Dec 5, 2005, at 18:06, Bruce Dawson wrote:

> . 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.

I have to admit being interested in this issue mostly from an advocacy 
standpoint as I don't have any real-world applications to the 
technology, but it would be helpful to hear from folks who have 
first-hand experience what the whole story is.

As I understand it, JAWS is the most popular screenreader for Windows, 
by some margin.  Behind JAWS in popularity is Virgo, another screen 
reader, which doesn't have some of the scripting features of JAWS.  
Gnopernicus is made by the same people as Virgo and is FLOSS, or a 
least FS such that it comes with Fedora.  Gnopernicus reportedly works 
fine with ooOffice for most users.

The main complaint I hear about gnopernicus is that it isn't as 
featureful as JAWS and/or it's differently-featured.  As I understand 
it JAWS is based on application-specific scripts (optimizations) 
whereas Virgo/Gnopernicus take the "you shouldn't need scripts" 
approach and aren't 100% efficient at that goal to date.  And some 
people complain that using Virgo is like using a JAWS from 1999 or that 
the new text-zoomer that Microsoft came out with last week is 'way 
better' than gnopernicus, therefore gnopernicus is now unusable.

So, the point I'd like to understand is, roughly: Is gnopernicus 
somehow insufficient for the needs of the blind or is it just that JAWS 
is some users' personal preference?  Fundamentally, is this an 
accessibility issue or a productivity issue?  And does the ADA require 
accessibility or maximal productivity - because that's a difficult 
argument for JAWS supporters to back if gnopernicus is expected to 
eventually surpass JAWS in capability.

-Bill
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