OpenDocument Plans Questioned by Disabled

ComputerWorld is reporting that John Winske, president of the Disability Policy Consortium, is raising some questions about the accessibility of the OpenDocument format. From the article: "Winske, who has muscular dystrophy, said he instantly remembered how Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" to make its software accessible during the transition from DOS to Windows. None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies -- at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft, whose 40-person Accessibility Technology Group is now widely praised by disabilities advocates."

Comments

They can always use word.

[MMC Monster]

As was mentioned in a recent /. article, they can always use word and (soon) be able to export their documents to ODF format.

Re:They can always use word.

[swillden]

Indeed, and not just Word, but Office. The plugin is supposed to support the other apps in the Office suite, too.

My only concern is that it appears the plugin is not going to be made widely available, in order to avoid removing the pressure for people to migrate away from Office, except in cases where there's no other reasonable choice at present.

I think releasing the plugin widely will (a) make the point that the OpenDocument goal isn't to kill Microsoft Office, it's to enable wide interoperability and allow competition in the office document space and (b) greatly facilitate its adoption. If lots of Office users can be convinced to use OpenDocument as their default file format, the motivation to migrate away from Office will come naturally from the high price of Office and the instability of some of its components (notably Word).

And, who knows, maybe Microsoft will rise to the challenge and beat the competition out by producing a superior product that is worth paying for even in a market that's been leveled by OpenDocument? Probably not, but it could happen, and it would be a win for the consumers and the marketplace as a whole.

Re:They can always use word.

[Billosaur]

As was mentioned in a recent /. article, they can always use word and (soon) be able to export their documents to ODF format.

The article in question.

However, I don't think that's the crux of the problem. People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset and not have to be bludgeoned into doing it later. It does no good exporting Word docs to ODF format later if ODF is still incapable of working with the assistive technology required. And let's face it: if ODF whole-heartedly embraces this, it puts them one up on Microsoft, which had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the discussion, then dragged its feet in actually developing the functionality.

Re:They can always use word.

[residieu]

But if Word has ODF support and Word has text reader support, then ODF has text reader support. Users with disabilities can open all the ODF files they want in Word and use whichever of the plugins they need to view the documents.

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

And, who knows, maybe Microsoft will rise to the challenge and beat the competition out by producing a superior product that is worth paying for even in a market that's been leveled by OpenDocument?

All they'd need to do is add an OpenDocument saver and loader.

Re:They can always use word.

[irtza]

I think you are mistaking the function of the document format and the application. Screen reader support does not belong in ODF but in the application. The complaint the disabled have is with the applications that primarily use ODF.

By opening ODF files in Word, you will have all the functionality available.

Re:They can always use word.

[ko9]

That's the beauty of having an open format. Everyone can use the program they like best to deal with the documents. In this person's case, the best program is MS Office.

Re:They can always use word.

[swillden]

And, who knows, maybe Microsoft will rise to the challenge and beat the competition out by producing a superior product that is worth paying for even in a market that's been leveled by OpenDocument?

All they'd need to do is add an OpenDocument saver and loader.

It would take more than that to make Office worth paying for. Well, Word, anyway. PowerPoint and Excel are okay. Word's a buggy, hard-to-use piece of crap.

Re:They can always use word.

[swillden]

People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset

Umm, ODF is just a file format, the notion of incorporating handling for text readers doesn't make any sense. In fact, given that ODF is open and ultimately text-based, it will be very easy for people to write text readers for ODF documents, much easier than it was to build them for Word documents.

The problem, of course, is that even if those ODF text readers are easier to build, that doesn't change the fact that they don't presently exist. Being able to load ODF files into Word, and then to use readers that plug into Word, addresses that problem handily.

Re:They can always use word.

[Kelson]

People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset...

You mean ODF-capable applications, right? Because ODF is just a format for the data. Handling for text readers, magnifiers, etc. is something you build into an application like Word or OpenOffice, not something you build into the file format itself.

A text reader doesn't care whether you've opened a Word doc, and OpenDocument file, a text file, or an HTML file. It cares that your word processor knows how to feed it text.

The crux of the issue is that OpenOffice, Kword, etc. need (better) support for assistive technologies. That's not the same as redesigning the OpenDocument format itself.

Re:They can always use word.

[lysergic.acid]

That's not the point. One of the main benefits of ODF is supposed to be the prevention of vendor lock-ins due to the use of proprietary formats. It's designed as an open alternative to Word documents, and many (including government agencies) plan to migrate to ODF. This is supposed to save people a lot of money and make public documents more accessible.

Saying "oh, disabled people can just stick to Word" leaves the disabled community in practically the same situation as before, except that now there's a higher chance that they'll encounter machines with some word-processor other than MS Word installed on it.

The disabled community just want to be able to receive the same benefits from ODF as the rest of society. I mean, why should they be locked in to a single vendor? How can schools/public institutions switch over to free software by adopting ODF if non-MS packages don't have accessibility options for the disabled?

This isn't about whether disabled people can still use ODF--it's whether the ODF movement is really about the values and ideals that its proponents expound. ODF advocates claim there are benefits to the adoption of an open format, but they seem to ignore a significant segment of our society with special needs; that is what the DPC is afraid of. And comments like yours simply confirm their fears.

Re:They can always use word.

[Angostura]

It's not the same as before, because since this is an open format disabled users/developers can actually write an application that will work splendidly well with screen readers etc. Indeed they can write apps that are specifically tailored for these interfaces.

Re:They can always use word.

[ebyrob]

My only concern is that it appears the plugin is not going to be made widely available

Um... Since no one bothers to back up their words with links, I don't really know which "plugin" you're talking about, nor what it can/can't do. But assuming it is free and/or open source how exactly would you limit availability to it??!!

Re:They can always use word.

[lynx_user_abroad]

People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset and not have to be bludgeoned into doing it later.

ODF (Open Document Format) is not an application. It is merely an open specification for how to represent the contents of an Office-type document.

People with disabilites are concerned that the applications which currently support ODF do not support text readers and such to the same level that the Microsoft Office suite supports those devices. With assistive technology, they can access electronically-stored documents in MS Office proprietary format better than they can (currently) access electronically-stored documents in ODF format (without using the plug-in).

But wait; there's a flaw to that argument Microsoft doesn't want anyone to notice.

When it comes to accessing electronically-stored documents, we are all handicapped. None of us can access any sort of electronically-stored document without the use of the assistive technology commonly known as a computer/operating system/office application stack. But if the document is stored in MS Office proprietary format, it becomes unavailable to those individuals who are handicapped by not having paid Microsoft a license to access the document, and there ain't no way around it.

Nobody want's to be disabled. But we all are, to some extent. Where disabilities can be reasonably addressed, they should, and I don't think anyone has any problem doing this where it's reasonable to do so. But to handicap the entire population in a half-assed attempt to make access more 'equal' for everyone is patently absurd.

Kudos to those disabled individuals who succeeded in convincing Microsoft to 'do the right thing' by making documents stored by their office suite accessible to people requiring less-common assistive technology, like text readers and such. Maybe they can help the rest of us (or the rest of us can help them) to convince Microsoft to once again 'do the right thing' and make documents stored by their office suite accessible to the rest of us. All they need to do is either open their file formats or support ODF.

In the meantime, those of us 'less disabled' disabled individuals will focus on building applications which allow electronically-stored documents to be accessed by everyone.

Re:They can always use word.

[sbrown123]

My only concern is that it appears the plugin is not going to be made widely available, in order to avoid removing the pressure for people to migrate away from Office,

What limited availability?!

Re:They can always use word.

[Billosaur]

You mean ODF-capable applications, right?

Yup. Didn't screen it as well as I thought I had, but then my eyes are old, my limbs are weak...

Re:They can always use word.

[iabervon]

ODF doesn't have support for interacting with documents, either with a GUI for people with no special requirements or any special interaction pattern. It only specifies what's in the document, not what you can do with it.

Now ODF does lack support for audio documents, such as voicemails or podcasts, but I don't know of any office software that supports this. Generally, even blind people tend to want to produce documents consisting of text that sighted people can read, instead of only being audio. On the other hand, it should be possible to write documents in Braille, because Unicode has characters for it.

From the article, companies that make applications that support ODF have been putting a lot of effort into accessibility. It's hard to say whether they should be considered to have been dragged into it; they didn't put as much emphasis on it until it came up as an issue with adoption in MA, but before that they didn't have enough user interest to find out what was needed.

Re:They can always use word.

[shotfeel]

Don't bother hunting for a download. It's not available. The ODF Plugin came
out of testing last week. I wish i could say we did this last night, but it's
been at least a year in development.

Above quote from message posted by Gary Edwards, one of the principles at OpenDocument Foundation.

Re:They can always use word.

[shotfeel]

It might also make sense to push screen reader support to the API or OS level. Any text API's should be written with this kind of support built in IMO.

Re:They can always use word.

[SillyNickName4me]

Saying "oh, disabled people can just stick to Word" leaves the disabled community in practically the same situation as before, except that now there's a higher chance that they'll encounter machines with some word-processor other than MS Word installed on it.

That is all true and such.. but how exactly is ODF to blame for that? I'd suggest to talk to the people who write the software that uses ODF instead.

Re:They can always use word.

[wtansill]

However, I don't think that's the crux of the problem. People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset and not have to be bludgeoned into doing it later. It does no good exporting Word docs to ODF format later if ODF is still incapable of working with the assistive technology required. And let's face it: if ODF whole-heartedly embraces this, it puts them one up on Microsoft, which had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the discussion, then dragged its feet in actually developing the functionality.

I think that this is the wrong qay to frame the debate.

With M$ products, there is no alternative to building a plugin for Word as the .doc formats are closed. While I agree that a plugin for OpenOffice, etc. would be nice so that screen reading/editing can occur simultaneously, I would think that the vast majority of folks only have to read documents, not edit them (I've been wrong before). If that's the case, I would think that it would be simpler to adapt curent text-to-speech products to parse the .ODF files directly than to jigger up something that ties them to OpenOffice, K-Office, StarOffice and the like directly. The document format is open, unencumbered and standardized, yes?

Re:They can always use word.

[Chode2235]

Isn't that the beauty of open source. They can simply add the accessability features themselves. Now they only need to open up their IDE that supports accessability features and code away. Whine less, code more. Jeeze its like the boat left and these people are still sitting on the pier waiting. Honestly though, they can/should use the tool that is better for their task. Today it may be word, 15 years from now it may be StarOffice. The point is that with open document they have the freedom to choose the best product for their own needs, rather than be tied to the only software that can open and interpret their files.

Re:They can always use word.

[theguyfromsaturn]

I don't understand what these features have to do with a document format. Don't they have to do with the application handling the files?

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's really a demand for these assistive technologies, then patches will start flowing in from these users soon enough.

As they say, "If you have an itch, scratch it." It's the open source way.

Re:They can always use word.

[Kelson]

If there's really a demand for these assistive technologies, then patches will start flowing in from these users soon enough.

Well, from the ones who are also developers, perhaps...

Re:They can always use word.

[Moofie]

I don't think it's a matter of ignoring, I think it's a matter of not having the resources to do the R&D for accessibility concerns.

But, again, isn't the idea to have a document format that allows you, the user, to select an editing application based on whatever your needs and predilections are? If the best tool for the job is Word, use Word. As long as you can use ODF to send data from your favorite application to my favorite application (FooWrite Gold 2000 Pro), haven't the open document people done their jobs?

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that going to help them? Point is that every program needs to have this feature already if they are to be forced into using them. If they go to the town library it needs to have the software for them, if they go into a school again it needs to have the software for them. Making them write their own software to do something that they can already do now with Office is a waste. OpenOffice.org needs to add this feature, any other word processor that uses the ODF needs to add this feature. It should not be up to the end users to write their own software for a format being forced on them that is suppose to make things easier and cheaper.

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true but it's a chance for a vocal minority "special interest" group to gain media attention, being the attention whores they are. "Wah! Treat us like everybody else because we're people too! Oh by the way gimme gimme gimme because I'm crippled!!" all in the same breath.

Re:They can always use word.

[walt-sjc]

Um, open office is open source. It should be possible for anyone interested to add hooks for screenreaders / etc.

Re:They can always use word.

[Trelane]

It should be possible for anyone interested to add hooks for screenreaders / etc.

Actually, it should be noted that it already is. Well, within sane accesibility implementations, namely MacOS, Solaris, and Linux/GNOME (and maybe KDE; I don't recall). The problem is that Microsoft's accesibility framework is crap, and hooks have to be added into the accesibility method for each application to be made accessible. So the solution would be to use OpenOffice + Linux, Solaris, or MacOS.

Re:They can always use word.

[Blakey Rat]

maybe Microsoft will rise to the challenge and beat the competition out by producing a superior product that is worth paying for even in a market that's been leveled by OpenDocument?

Well, more accessible = better, right? So it looks like Microsoft's already got a head start.

Re:They can always use word.

[dnoyeb]

This is an extremely strong point. My mother is legally blind and has to use screen readers and enlangeners and whatnot. After 2-3 years of fighting I capitulated. She uses all Microsoft programs now because those are the programs that the screen readers and magnifiers actually Test with. (though they claim much more support than they appear to test) She is completely locked in.

Why just last week she required a database program and I had to tell her how much it would cost to add MS Access to her set of programs.

I recall a few months back having to comment on how open office's approach to assistive technology was poor as well.

In the end, it took MS a team to get it done, and it does work. It may take an open source team/ focus group to get this done. I may end up in it myself as my mother expects me to 'make work' any features she wants anyway...

Re:They can always use word.

[BasilBrush]

Word's a buggy, hard-to-use piece of crap.

Unfortunately so is Open Office writer.

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

"How is that going to help them? Point is that every program needs to have this feature already if they are to be forced into using them. If they go to the town library it needs to have the software for them, if they go into a school again it needs to have the software for them. Making them write their own software to do something that they can already do now with Office is a waste. OpenOffice.org needs to add this feature, any other word processor that uses the ODF needs to add this feature. It should not be up to the end users to write their own software for a format being forced on them that is suppose to make things easier and cheaper."

No, by your thinking EVERY application needs to add this feature. Why just those that use ODF? I'd accept that if libraries already use MS office they should probably not switch to OpenOffice until these features are added. The plugin at least allows them to switch to ODF until then, which helps a lot of people, just not all of the people (yet).

Software is always funded by end users. You don't have to write it yourself, just pay for it. If a group of people want to expedite certain features getting into some software, they can always pay the developers to get things moving. Large numbers of people have freed themselves from expensive proprietary software - by writing Free software. They've been nice enough to make that work available to others for free, and now some folks can find nothing better to do than bitch about it.

That said, people tend to focus on things that are important to themselves. I don't tend to think about issues for the disabled because I am fortunate not to be disabled. OTOH, I'm sure disabled people spend a lot of time noticing how the world is not built with them in mind. As a result, they have to complain loudly to get things done to accomodate them. I get that. If I were you, I'd complain if the library switched to software that locked me out. Hey, I avoid web sites that use flash (I bet you do too). But please don't complain if they offer documents that you can still read with MS, and I can read with free software.

Re:They can always use word.

[Flossymike]

Ok, I agree to some extent that the problem in quesiton is not relevant to the Open Document Format but that is not the whole point. Looking around at other widely used formats I cann't help but look at HTML. Checking the standards for it that there is an entire section on accessibility http://www.w3.org/WAI/

So as a non programmer, would it be fair to say that there should be space in the specification to addess accessibility issues?

Re:They can always use word.

[Fordiman]

*blinks*

Uhh, since when did the format have anything to do with the accessibility capabilities of the app?

Ok, you want a screen reader and magnifier for OOo? Fine, ask the community for it - I promise it won't be as hard to obtain as it was from MS.

But honestly, the format just stores the data. The accesibility features are part of the software, not the data.

Re:They can always use word.

[Fordiman]

And I'll bet that by the time ODF is live, rolled out and running, some enterprising diabled human will have written a screen reading routine and added it to OO.o's sources.

Which is the point: first, it's the app, not the format that has the actual problem here. Second, it's an OSS app, so 'See a problem, fix a problem'. This is of course better than what is happining according to the article, which seems like 'See a problem, bitch about the problem in the hopes that someone will fix it for you'.

Re:They can always use word.

[CastrTroy]

You are my hero. I have never heard a better argument. The fact that ODF is an open format means that we no longer have to rely on microsoft to read our documents for us. There is a market, and in time, screen readers will support ODF files. Maybe even directly. There may be not only a screen reader, but an entire word processor written to by used by those with disabilities.

Re:They can always use word.

[ebyrob]

Wow, I hadn't realized (till reading more posts and your response) that this thing isn't available and hadn't even been talked about before that article. And, on further reading I'm beginning to wonder about this OpenDocument Fellowship.

Where is this "ODF plugin for Office" even listed on their activities page?

These guys are accepting donations to promote "openness" while their principles are off writing what appears to be proprietary software? That kind of turns my stomach. Even if this ODF plugin for Office were just vaporware, they're still baldly lieing to the community.

Either way my opinion of the OpenDocument Fellowship just dropped quite a few rungs.

Re:They can always use word.

[Fordiman]

There are problems with that whole statement.

First assuming OS level, it would mean building a whole sound server (bad idea; crashes in sound system become fatal) and text-to-speech engine (bad idea; size constraints) into the OS's kernel space.

Assuming API level, we have a different set of issues. For example, say that Qt (kOffice, Konqueror, KDE) includes text-to-speech functionality for all GUI text in its API. What about GTK+ (OO.o, Firefox, the GIMP, Gnome)? Also, how do you ensure that aRts/ESounD is running?

Text to speech is generally a separated API for a reason: it ensures the lib is accessible to every program, even command line. The same is true for a lot of less-than-common libraries.

Re:They can always use word.

[Mr Z]

This hypothetical machine that has a non-MS Word word processor installed... Does it have all the screen-reader and other accessibility software installed?

Re:They can always use word.

[DragonWriter]

Saying "oh, disabled people can just stick to Word" leaves the disabled community in practically the same situation as before, except that now there's a higher chance that they'll encounter machines with some word-processor other than MS Word installed on it.

Um, so?

The purpose of an open format is to allow every user access to the software best suited for their particular needs (whether those stem from personal disability, special business-domain-specific needs, or whatever), without being tied to one system by vendor lock-in.

Of course, in the short-term, it doesn't spread all the features attractive to particular users that are found in one piece of software to every other piece of software; OTOH, it also makes it more likely that software focussed on communities with special needs (business needs, disability, or otherwise) will be created which seemlessly exchanges information with users of different software. An open document format means that people with a particular disability can use the software with the best accessibility features for their particular condition, without limiting the software used by other people they work with, and vice versa.

The disabled community just want to be able to receive the same benefits from ODF as the rest of society. I mean, why should they be locked in to a single vendor? How can schools/public institutions switch over to free software by adopting ODF if non-MS packages don't have accessibility options for the disabled?

While ODF is used by some free, open source software, it is not the same thing as free or open source software, and the purpose of an open document format is distinct from (though complementary to) FOSS.

Open file formats promotes software choice at the customer level by eliminating vendor lock-in through proprietary file formats and allowing heterogenous software to communicate seemlessly.

FOSS promotes software choice by promoting customization from a common code base at the developer/vendor level without having to reinvent the wheel to adapt existing functionality to better fit a different set of needs. These are clearly complementary, in the long-term, but adopting an open file format isn't likely a basis for instant, organization-wide conversion to FOSS, thought it enables such a conversion (either to FOSS or different commercial software) later (either piecemeal or total, as fits the needs of the users in the organization) by providing the ability to use existing data once the conversion happens.

Re:They can always use word.

[Americano]

I think releasing the plugin widely will (a) make the point that the OpenDocument goal isn't to kill Microsoft Office, it's to enable wide interoperability and allow competition in the office document space[...]

Wait... the goal of OpenDocument isn't to kill MSFT Office? Somebody better distribute that memo.

When MSFT offered to open up their OfficeXML format, it was "just another trick" from Redmond... when MSFT offered to submit OfficeXML to a standards body (ECMA), it was "just another delay tactic to cripple ODF". The terms of this "battle" really do seem to be pitched by many as an ODF versus MSFT issue.

Which is a crying shame, really. I agree with your statement -- it should be about fostering competition, opening up office documents to interoperability, and all that sort of warm-n-fuzzy stuff... but if you read through a lot of the discussions on this, it really is pitched in terms of Open Standards versus Microsoft. And I wonder what's going to happen when Microsoft decides that, to compete & make money, they'll support those open standards, and simply deliver an Office suite that is more reliable & more functional than the competition, because hobbyist programmers just don't feel like fixing all the outstanding bugs, because it's not as cool as a shiny new feature?

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

And to those people who got the federal government to pass the ADA, which mandates that "reasonable accomidations" be made for people with disabilities.

Those same "reasonable accomidations (yeah, I know I can't spell)" translate into requirements that any software adopted by the federal (and most state) government meet certain accessibility requirements. Those accessibility requirements include the ability to use screen readers and magnifiers, and the like.

The authors of those ODF supporting applications run the risk of being locked out of certain state governments if they don't also "do the right thing".

Don't assume that Microsoft did this out of the goodness of their heart - they were 100% motivated by profit - they couldn't sell their products to the Federal government if they didn't do this.

Re:They can always use word.

[Dolda2000]

The GNOME project always keeps reiterating how much they work to make GNOME accessible. For example, see the GNOME Accessibility Project. I'm not disabled and don't know anything at all about these technologies, so I can't verify their claims, though. Does anyone know how it compares with Windows/MS Office?

Re:They can always use word.

[mrchaotica]

Ah, but what about KWrite, AbiWord, and the whole other world of software that does or will soon support ODF? That's what's so great about it being a standard: sooner or later an ODF app will emerge that's not "a buggy, hard to use piece of crap" (if it hasn't already)!

Re:They can always use word.

[mrchaotica]

Did you ever try having her use a Mac? It's got "screen readers and enlargeners and whatnot" built into the whole operating system, and it works well (I just tried it).

Re:They can always use word.

[ozmanjusri]

The terms of this "battle" really do seem to be pitched by many as an ODF versus MSFT issue.

No, the battle has been MSFT against any potential competitor.

ODF has been defended by many because of Microsoft's attacks, but activities like pointing out the traps in Office-XML are more akin to signposting minefields than fighting battles, in that they benefit all potential competitors.

Re:They can always use word.

[ajs]

No, the open source effort will fail. That's the bad news. The good news is that the problem will be solved.

The reason that an open source effort will fail is because it's not a software problem. It's a hardware problem. More specifically, it's a problem getting the hardware vendors to support open source products (e.g. OOo on Windows and various ODF-compatible applications under Linux, etc.)

That WILL happen. Once more states, hopefully the U.S. Federal Government, and many foriegn governments start requiring ODF supporting applications, the hardware vendors will want their products to get used, and they will make sure that they work.

Step 1: Move the buyers.
Step 2: Let the vendors follow.

Re:They can always use word.

[LordOfTheNoobs]

Everyone will keep using and paying for the MS product, just like they do now. Only now the saved files won't be lost on those unable or unwilling to adopt MSOffice ( not that they're lost per se given OpenOffices excellent translation skills, but there will no longer be the chance that MS says hey you can't do that ). Life will get a little better all around.

This is a good thing, like everyone using IP and TCP. Sure we can translate this to IPX and bridge across, but it's much easier if instead of everyone pushing a format, they're just doing the best they can to utilize a well defined standard.

Frankly, the whiners will still whine, the fanboys will still fanaticise, and the world will keep spinning without skipping a beat.

Re:They can always use word.

[ozmanjusri]

It might also make sense to push screen reader support to the API or OS level.

Amiga Workbench 2.04, released October 1991.

DEVS:narrator.device
L:speak-handler
LIBS:translator.library
C:Say
SYS:PREFS/Translator
SYS:PREFS/Translator.info
ENVARC:Sys/Translator.prefs
LOCALE:Accents/*.accent
SYS:STORAGE/DosDrivers/SPEAK
SYS:STORAGE/DosDrivers/SPEAK.info

Monopolies cost us much more than just money...

Re:They can always use word.

[scott_karana]

"And, who knows, maybe Microsoft will rise to the challenge and beat the competition out by producing a superior product that is worth paying for even in a market that's been leveled by OpenDocument? Probably not, but it could happen, and it would be a win for the consumers and the marketplace as a whole." This is precisely what happened with Netscape, and look at the situation we're in now. ;)

Re:They can always use word.

[swillden]

OpenOffice Writer is better than Word. It doesn't crash on me all the time, anyway, unlike Word. It has problems, too, but it's considerably less flaky than Word.

Re:They can always use word.

[swillden]

This is precisely what happened with Netscape, and look at the situation we're in now. ;)

Not exactly. We don't pay for IE. I suppose the same thing could happen if MS tried to bundle Office with Windows, but I think anti-trust regulators would be much quicker to stop that this time around.

Re:They can always use word.

[lysergic.acid]

I understand your point, but it still remains that unless proponents of ODF push for accessibility features to be added to other word-processors, the disabled community will only be left with one option. Under the current conditions, Word may be the best tool for their needs. But have you considered that handicapped individuals have just as diverse needs as non-handicapped individuals? If Word isn't good enough for the entire non-disabled community, then how is it good enough for the entire disabled community? What about disabled persons who prefer Linux and open source solutions?

The way I see it is, if the ODF movement is dedicated to providing "choices" to users, they should not neglect the disabled community.

Re:They can always use word.

[bigpicture]

ODF is the file format, not the accessibility tool. ODF itself does not cause any accessibility issues for the disabled. It is the programs that support ODF, or not, that are the source of the problem.

The plug-in that lets MS Office 2003 read and save files in ODF is one solution. KDE Office and Open Office developing accessibility functions in the programs is another. It is not intentional nor inconsideration for the disabled, but timing that is the issue. This functionality is not available now but it will be in the future.

Re:They can always use word.

[Trelane]

Does anyone know how it compares with Windows/MS Office?

Look for one of several links to an article from Korn, below.

Re:They can always use word.

[rearden1982]

So they're condemning a file format because they don't like the current software that uses it?

That's like saying "I don't like Chevrolets, therefore I don't like roads since Chevrolets use them."

Re:They can always use word.

[Bert64]

So rather than wasting piles and piles of cash bludgeoning sun into supporting these technologies in star/open office, why not devote that same time and money towards contributing such code themselves, or even writing their own applications with accessibility as the primary goal?

Surely it makes more sense for the people who are asking for these accessibility features to play the largest possible role in creating them? That way they will suit their needs all the better.

Re:They can always use word.

[Bert64]

Well if these pressure groups have the financial and manpower resources to force microsoft to listen to them, then hiring a few programmers won't be beyond them either.

Rather than complaining, why don't they actually do something about it? Once they've implemented accessibility features for opendocument the situation will greatly benefit them, as these features will be under the control of the people who need them, instead of beholden to a company who's sole concern is making profit.

Re:They can always use word.

[Bert64]

narrator.device was present in Workbench 1.3 aswell, possibly earlier versions too (i've never used earlier versions myself so can't be sure)...
It was later dropped from Workbench 3.0, tho could still be installed seperately.

Any application could write speech, by saving text to the speak: device (speak: is treated like a normal drive, you just copy files there same as you would to a normal disk)

Re:They can always use word.

[amorsen]

Wow, I hadn't realized (till reading more posts and your response) that this thing isn't available and hadn't even been talked about before that article.

Ok you didn't bother to check your facts before telling everyone how wonderful the ODF plugin is.

Even if this ODF plugin for Office were just vaporware, they're still baldly lieing to the community.

...And now you're again spouting off without checking your facts. Impressive.

Re:They can always use word.

[Kilz]

That's the beauty of having an open format. Everyone can use the program they like best to deal with the documents. In this person's case, the best program is MS Office

Only in this case MS Word isn't going to support the ODF format itself. They are relying on outside help in the form of a plugin. I wonder if the disabled community has started a "dialog" with M$ to support the format that some states are going to use. Don't tell me it isn't possible, if OpenOffice can make a plugin, M$ can add support. The reason M$ doesn't want to is it removes the vendor lock in. Keeping all the disabled people hostage to the file format Word writes.

Re:They can always use word.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's a matter of ignoring, I think it's a matter of not having the resources to do the R&D for accessibility concerns.

No, as an open source developer, I can wholeheartedly say that it's a matter of ignoring. You write primarily for yourself, and only add features that other wants based on outcry or to increase popularity. Minorities are not even thought of, unless they're likely to be a squeaky wheel or contribute to the effort.
We also see the same mentality in posts here, like the chaps who clarified that the disabled could write their own functionality. Yeah, right. That's fine for someone without functional feet, but a great many disabled are effectively prevented from writing software.

Re:They can always use word.

[Americano]

Thanks for providing me with an example of what I was talking about. Until the FOSS community in general gets over this "victimized" stance they like to take whenever Microsoft attempts to compete with them, they're going to be perpetually hamstrung by ineffectiveness, and perpetually "almost great."

The success of ODF as a standard & in government adoption, as well as the examples of linux in the server space, perl, python, apache, ant, tomcat, and so many other FOSS products (my apologies if I've overlooked your favorites), should be seen as proof that the technilcally superior products DO tend to win out in the marketplace over the long run. Instead of screaming "Monopoly! Unfair competitive advantage! Illegal use of monopolistic practices!", open source advocates should simply go about their business, and make a better product than Microsoft can. There's plenty of examples... figure out what they're doing right, and apply those best practices to your own projects.

And let's be honest... if Microsoft said, "our products just aren't going to support the 802.11a standard (an open wireless networking standard) because it's too costly," that announcement would be greeted with a big yawn by most people. The only difference is, ODF is a cause celebre in the FOSS community, because lots of members of that community see it as a way to promote their own anti-microsoft agenda. Soul search a little, and read some of the comments people make here on slashdot... you'll see it's really hard to argue that that's not the case.

Re:They can always use word.

[Fred_A]

That has been the feedback I've had from most of the users I've pushed OOWriter upon as well. OTOH they seem to prefer Excel to OOCalc (even though the type of users I deal with typically makes fairly simple sheets). I haven't managed to get some very coherent reasons as to why yet.
I've upgraded most of them to OOo2 now, I'm currently gathering impressions on the new version.

As for me I haven't used Word seriously since v.6 so I can't really comment...

Re:They can always use word.

[ebyrob]

But assuming it is free and/or open source how exactly would you limit availability to it??!!

Ok you didn't bother to check your facts before telling everyone how wonderful the ODF plugin is.

I suppose in your mind asking a simple question is spouting off about how great something is...

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which two web-sites I got confused after a quick googling, and why that might be a likely mistake...

As to expecting open source tools from people prominently pushing "openness"... How could I be so naive?

Re:They can always use word.

[ozmanjusri]

Until the FOSS community in general gets over this "victimized" stance

Except what I've said is that it's not the FOSS community which is being victimised, it's all computer users.

ODF is the first opportunity for commercial and FOSS competition to break the Microsoft stranglehold on office formats. My own company makes a (commercial) reliability/risk management tool. Our customers would like it to export to a word-processable format, and until now that's been subject to the limitations of .RTF. Now, with ODF we have a way of giving our customers what they want with the security of knowing there are no nastly little patent "gotchas" in there.

Re:They can always use word.

[Americano]

ODF is the first opportunity for commercial and FOSS competition to break the Microsoft stranglehold on office formats.

And the only reason they had that "stranglehold" is because they spent the time and effort putting together a halfway decent Office package. What's at work here is called a network effect: the value of a product goes up in proportion to the number of people using it. If 90% of the people out there use Word, it's awfully difficult to get much use out of a non-compatible program, unless you deal strictly in hard-copy printouts. The only reason people have continued using Word is because -- until quite recently -- there really haven't been many *serious* competitors out there. As programs like KOffice, StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, and others gain features and become more serious competitors, then yes, the formatting is a big deal. And what you see is this: ODF is winning, regardless of Microsoft's attempts to stop it.

I'll absolutely agree with you that the open standard is preferable for consumers, because everybody can use it, and it's a common interchange format. Companies like yours will benefit greatly, because you can export to a common format, and other people can edit that format. It makes the format more accessible to anybody who doesn't have the US$400 - 500 to spend on Office, which in turn increases the potential value of any Office document & program via the network effect... more benefit for consumers.

But to repeat myself -- what we can learn from ODF (and other successful open source projects) is that a good idea, and a technically sound idea, will tend to win in the marketplace in the long run. All of these projects are not succeeding because they're "anti-microsoft", they're succeeding because they're good . Microsoft cannot and has not squashed these "free" projects, because they can compete with Microsoft, and win on the merits of their usefulness. The fundamental point here (to the FOSS community in general) is: do what you do, and do it well... stop worrying about Microsoft. If your idea is good, and technically sound, people will come around to your way of thinking.

Re:They can always use word.

[ozmanjusri]

All of these projects are not succeeding because they're "anti-microsoft", they're succeeding because they're good . Microsoft cannot and has not squashed these "free" projects, because they can compete with Microsoft, and win on the merits of their usefulness.

Projects are not formats. Projects will win on merits (eventually). Formats can be quashed forever if a monopoly player leverages their power.

Microsoft has done this before, and is in the process of doing it again with e-ink formats. The open InkML format http://www.w3.org/TR/InkML/ and the Jot interchange format http://unipen.nici.kun.nl/jot.html format, which Microsoft even participated in developing, have been abandoned for their own closed, proprietary and patent encumbered format in Tablet PCs.

Remember, this is the binary Ink format which ODF does not support, and which Microsoft states is one of the reasons they won't support ODF. This is all about leverage. Microsoft is leveraging its desktop monopoly to quash Jot. They're leveraging their monopoly to quash InkML. They're leveraging their monopoly to try to quash ODF.

They're doing this so that their customers cannot migrate to better alternatives when they're available, and developers like myself don't even try to compete, because we know those customers we might attract are nailed to Microsoft by those proprietary formats. That's wonderful for Microsoft, but bloody awful for customers and competitors.

Hold on!

[MindStalker]

Didn't we just read the other day about a plugin to make MS Word open OpenDocument. Once MS Word can open the documents shouldn't you then be able to preform all of the other functions..

Case closed.

Re:Hold on!

[OuroborosCobra]

Case not closed. I do not agree with the argument of just using the Word plugin for ODF. ODF is supposed to be both open source and cheaper than MS Office. Last time I had to buy a copy of MS Office Pro I spent $200, and that was with student pricing. I switched to OpenOffice largely because I could not afford the idea of paying that price again. Are we saying that open source is not for the disabled. Is the goal of the open source community to discriminate against the disabled? I think not, but when people make statements like "Just use MS Word, case closed," that is just what they are doing.

Re:Hold on!

[MindStalker]

Hold on there!! The original argument in the article was the OpenDocument was BAD because MS Word has disabled access and OpenDocument readers don't. I stated that MS Word WAS a OpenDocument reader. Thus nulling the original argument.

If your changing the argument to be that Open Source software is bad because it generally doesn't support disabled access, I would partially agree that yes, Open Source software should improve in this way, but should we just stop all development untill disabled access can be complete? Word didn't do this..

So if your argument that its simply unfair that handicapped people have to spent more. Yes, I agree the world is unfair.. Either way that wasn't the original argument.

Re:Hold on!

[Atzanteol]

Your comment is what happens when people start confusing a file format for an application.

ODF has *nothing* to do with any of this.

Re:Hold on!

[tepples]

Your comment is what happens when people start confusing a file format for an application.

What about confusing a file format with the entire set of applications that can edit that format?

Re:Hold on!

[OuroborosCobra]

Fine, replace the ODF with OpenOffice, since OpenOffice is one of the common suits that uses ODF, and my comment makes sense, and is still valid.

Re:Hold on!

[ElleyKitten]

What about confusing a file format with the entire set of applications that can edit that format?

That's not a static group. It's only a matter of time before MS Office reads/writes ODF, and more and more programs will support it over time. With that in mind, the original comment makes no sense.

Re:Hold on!

[dufachi]

Case isn't closed, no. According to your scenario, disabled folks would still have to plunk down a considerable sum of cash for MS Word (or other MS Office product), so where is their incentive to use ODF/OpenOffice?

Re:Hold on!

[Atzanteol]

It was a valid critique though, since the format itself is being heavilly attacked it's comments like yours that make it sound like this is actually a problem with the format and not with the available applications.

Sorry for being nit-picky, but I felt it was important.

Re:Hold on!

[OuroborosCobra]

Your entirely right. It isn't ODF that is the problem, that would be like accusing XML of causing a similar problem in MS Office. Its the application, not the format.

Don't know where my head was at when I wrote my first post.

So how is this OpenDocument's problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he wants to continue to use Microsoft Word, that is his right. All we need is for Microsoft to support the very open OpenDocument standard so that he can read and write the files within his choice of app. Microsoft, of course, refuses to do that. Everyone else seems happy to cooperate.

This is probably Microsoft-supported FUD trying to turn the tide against OpenDocument. Won't work.

Re:So how is this OpenDocument's problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone else seems happy to cooperate.

A bunch of retarded FOSS-monkeys does not qualify as 'everybody'.

Re:So how is this OpenDocument's problem?

[WarForge]

Actually, Microsoft has recently committed to supporting the format within its applications.

Free as in beer

[mboverload]

As long as you can drink it?

Re:Free as in beer

[Ingolfke]

Free as in stale Miller High Life from the bottom of the keg... just doesn't have the same ring does it :)

In truth I'm really just trying to poke fun on High Life, not Open Source.

Re:Free as in beer

[wed128]

<poor college kid> I like high life! </poor college kid>

Re:Free as in beer

[Ingolfke]

I like it in the can... but I had some on draft the other day and could barely finish it. Maybe I just had a bad glass. I thought you poor college kids like PBR... or is that just for the hipsters.

Re:Free as in beer

[wed128]

no, the poor college kids from the south like PBR. here at penn state, the main cheap beer is Natural Light (tastes like pisswater) or Natural ICE (pisswater with a headache). High life is gold in comparison.

Re:Free as in beer

[Ingolfke]

Somebody needs to write a dissertation on the regional drinking preferences of poor college students... you sir may be the one. I will stay away from the the Natie Light.

Re:Free as in beer

[chicagotypewriter]

I just graduated this past saturday, so I don't fit into the college kid group anymore, but my mainstay for the past few months has been Molson Canadian. Forget about Natty/Natty Ice.

Re:Free as in beer

[drinkypoo]

If you're going to drink a light beer in a can, I suggest Bud Light. No, really! I won't drink Budweiser, but the light version makes a nice substitute for bottled water when you're in the sun a lot.

Natural Ice is an almost-tolerable piss-beer that has a surprisingly high alcohol content for its low, low price. It's definitely the choice of kids in California, too.

Disabled

[mattwarden]

As someone without a working soul, I have felt very accommodated by Microsoft's team.

Re:Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Disabled (Score:2)
by mattwarden on Tuesday May 09, @02:36PM
(http://mattwarden.com/)
As someone without a working soul, I have felt very accommodated by Microsoft's team.
--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com [mattwarden.com]

---

You aren't, by any chance, Matt Warden, are you?

Re:Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, he could just as easily be Mattwar Den.
 

Re:Disabled

[Procrastin8er]

You seem at home here on /. as well. ;-)

Re:Disabled

[mattwarden]

I didn't even realize I had a sig, as I have them disabled (no pun intended).

Re:Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that it's important to think of the disabled. A sad example is that so few web sites are designed to be accessible for deaf people. There are some good exceptions though, like the Swedish Road Administration who made the web site available in sign language.

Doesn't Office have a plugin for OD

[varmittang]

Software industry group Open Source Victoria has teamed up with NSW technology company Phase N to develop a plug-in for Microsoft Office users to view documents in the Open Document Format. From here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking/opendoc-plu gin-for-ms-office-users/2005/10/20/1129775888552.h tml So it is being worked on, just give it time since MS isn't helping at all.

at least give them a chance to develop these

[yagu]

From the article:

Getting support for OpenOffice, Workplace or Sun's StarOffice software built into screen readers and magnifiers won't be easy. According to assistive technology vendors, which are generally small companies, the economics of supporting applications that have limited market demand don't work in their favor.

Kind of reminds me the first time I went looking for a job: We need someone with "x" years experience, sorry; But, how do I ever get those "x" years? Also, I would think these companies are suffering from the Microsoft Syndrome (it's the biggest market, therefor that's all we'll write to) and are missing an opportunity. I hope they roll the dice and buy into their own futures. What is there about entire state governments switching to Open Document Format (ODF) that sounds like "limited markets"?

Also from the fine article:

Winske, who has muscular dystrophy, said he instantly remembered how Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" to make its software accessible during the transition from DOS to Windows

First, it's unfortunate the example set by Microsoft is what sets the stage and expectation for anyone else. OSS is not Microsoft. And, I hope OSS and ODF is given the time and opportunity to step up to accessibility issues rather than being brushed aside.

As for the article's claim these documents today don't work well with screen magnifiers, etc., while I haven't done the research, I find it difficult to believe there aren't some tools out there that either are sufficient or could bridge the gap until a more mature suite of extensions and support are added to OpenOffice and others.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[NutscrapeSucks]

> We need someone with "x" years experience, sorry;

StarOffice is older than dirt. It has "x" years experience, plus some.

> it's unfortunate the example set by Microsoft is what sets the stage and expectation for anyone else. OSS is not Microsoft. And, I hope OSS and ODF is given the time

Second, please stop conflating ODF and "OSS". This whole issue has become so much more problematic because it keeps getting hijacked by the OpenOffice advocates. OpenOffice has these problems with or without ODF.

And finally, why shouldn't OpenOffice be held to the same 'expectations' as Microsoft Office? Isn't OpenOffice trying to be a direct replacement? It's not anyone's responsiblity to accomodate an inferior software product -- espeically if they're disabled and can't even use that inferior product to begin with. Once again, it's a fundemental failure to realize that Microsoft is on top because they give users what they want rather than pleading with people to overlook their faults.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[SydShamino]

First, it's unfortunate the example set by Microsoft is what sets the stage and expectation for anyone else. OSS is not Microsoft.

You are absolutely right. OSS developers are not like Microsoft developers. Microsoft developers work on neat features proposed by engineering, and boring features proposed by marketing based on customer demands (like useability). Far too many OSS developers work just on what they damn well want to!

Of course everyone who is volunteering their time should be able to do so as they wish, and everyone in a job should have the right to do something they enjoy, yadda yadda. But nobody's job is 100% fun all the time.

Even if it is generally untrue, the stereotypical OSS developer response is as stated by a post just a few down from yours: "Surely there are...disabled people who can write code? Get busy, and stop expecting others to take care of you." Harsh, considering many disabled would not be alive without constant care from others.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[DerekLyons]

What is there about entire state governments switching to Open Document Format (ODF) that sounds like "limited markets"?

The fact that those state goverments together aren't as big as any one of the top 100 in the Fortune 500. Collectively, they are a fair size market - but comparatively, they are vanishingly small.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[Eideewt]

Erm, the expectation is that like Microsoft, everyone making an ODF reader will need to "be prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming." OP wasn't talking about living up to something good.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[PitaBred]

Why do you hate Darwin?

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[SydShamino]

Because Darwin dares to deny the truth about His Noodly-ness.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[Blakey Rat]

Give them a chance? OpenOffice has been around for ages, and they haven't gotten around to accessibility yet? Criminy, if they haven't done it in the last 5 years, why should any disable person believe they would in the next six months?

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[LWATCDR]

Very simple...
Hello Sun;
If you want the option to sell a lot of copies of Star-Office to government then pony up some money.

Actually I want to know just what this guy is talking about. I have used screen readers with many Windows programs without any issues.
The product that my company produces runs under Windows and works just fine with these devices. We have several users that depend on screen readers.
Is OO.org doing something strange or is Microsoft spreading FUD about this. Maybe they showed these groups OO.org running under Linux?

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[adtifyj]

OSS developers are not like Microsoft developers.

Spot on. OSS developers are often employed by companies such as redhat, suse and IBM. Sometimes they need to focus on boring features proposed by their respective marketing divisions, but these horrible tasks are divided between the competing companies so that the developers can spend more of their time doing whatever the hell they like, i.e. working on neat features and rewriting the core.

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[drinkypoo]

As I see it there are basically two reasons for someone to develop accessibility features. One: they are being paid to do so. Two: they are going to be using said features.

As such, I think that was an entirely reasonable response. Aside from some clergy and a handful of other people, most of whom find it impossible to function in normal society themselves, people who work with the disabled are paid for their efforts.

Suggesting that people should develop accessibility features out of altruism is no different from saying that they should go out and spend some time taking care of the disabled in person without reward beyond a warm fuzzy feeling. (Maybe they should, but I don't particularly want to have that debate now.)

Re:at least give them a chance to develop these

[amber_of_luxor]

> IS OO.org doing something strange or is Mcirosoft spreding FUD.

OOo has had a long history of being incompatible with JAWS. The only way to get JAWS to work with OOo is turn the Accessiblity features _OFF_. Even then, there are issues in using JAWS.

ZoomText does work with OOo, but there are still some issues with it.

OOo uses the Java Accessibility Bridge, for a11y products to hook into. Thus far, the number of a11y tools that use those hooks can be counted on one hand, with a thumb, and fingers left over.

Amber

Wind Under They Wings

Format/Software confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like this group has fallen for Microsoft's repeated lies that OpenDocument == OpenOffice. Accessibility is a software issue, not a document format issue. They should be complaining that OpenOffice, KWord, AbiWord, etc aren't accessible, not that OpenDocument isn't. OpenDocument is just as accessible as .doc format now that Word has a plugin to save in OpenDocument format.

Re:Format/Software confusion

[KarmaMB84]

None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers

I think that's what they are saying...

Re:Format/Software confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Until software is actually RELEASED, it does not count, dipshit.

And yeah, Kword is very accessible from WINDOWS. Ugh.

Surely there are...

[msauve]

disabled people who can write code?

Get busy, and stop expecting others to take care of you. Do you want to be treated equally, or do you want to be subject to discrimination (such as having code written by others specific to your needs)? You can't have your cake, and eat it, too.

Re:Surely there are...

[DrSkwid]

I think you meant : "you can't hold your cake & eat it", this guy has muscular distrophy !

Re:Surely there are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

Re:Surely there are...

[iSwitched]

WOW! Thanks for a very neat, concise post that sums up everything that's wrong with 'Free Software' today. Doesn't have a feature you need? Write it yourself. Don't understand how to use it? RTFM.

As someone who loves OSS as much as the next slashbot, but who makes 100% of his living off closed source projects, I find it reassuring that these attitudes still prevail, and are even modded up here. I look forward to a long and propserous career actually *serving* my customers.

Re:Surely there are...

[KarmaMB84]

Their issue isn't with free software. Their issue is that a government is mandating the use of a format for which no accessible software exists. Such a mandate is likely illegal under state and federal law.

Re:Surely there are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about "Free Software"? GP didn't specify what they should be coding (open or closed), just that those disabled people who CAN code but do nothing but whinge should be doing something about it.

Re:Surely there are...

[Ingolfke]

Don't understand how to use it? RTFM.

I think you meant RTFMB (message boards) & RTFS (source) and then WTFM (write), and then RTFM.

Re:Surely there are...

[pintomp3]

and those damn quadriplegics need to get off their ass and start making wheelchairs too!

Re:Surely there are...

[oliderid]

It's like saying that if you haven't a car adapted to your handicap, because gas powered cars aren't allowed anymore, only electic ones are... You should stop complaining...Study engineering and make your own one!

They are simply reminding leaders that they are pushing a bit too quickly the migration to the open standard. There aren't any commercial/non commercial solutions for them (yet). This is a legitimate claim. is it too difficult to understand for your copyleft GPLized brain?

Re:Surely there are...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the hardest thing about eating vegetables... the wheelchairs.

Re:Surely there are...

[DragonWriter]

Their issue is that a government is mandating the use of a format for which no accessible software exists. Such a mandate is likely illegal under state and federal law.

Except that that isn't true. A government has issued as mandate, not yet in effect, for the use of a particular format, and has as part of its preparation for implementing that mandate, called for an adapter to allow the software suite that the complainers here point to as the gold standard to allow that software to fully use that format, and at least on such plug-in has already been announced that will be delivered to the State government involved for evaluation, feedback, and further work before being publicly released.

There is no rational reason to fear ODF based on accessibility concerns. There is a real reason to fear that wide adoption of it as a standard by large organizations like, say, US states might weaken the power of "lock-in" by proprietary format that Microsoft enjoys.

Never please everybody

[TheRecklessWanderer]

You will never please everybody. If you try, you will end up pleasing nobody. If you don't like something, then don't use it. That's the Canadian way!

Re:Never please everybody

[Gorshkov]

I thought the Canadain way was to use it, and then apologise to the developer for wanting a feature that obviously wasn't necessary, or he would have already written it?

It's *open,* dagnabbit.

[Rob T Firefly]

None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies

Is this not the point of having an open format? Anyone anywhere is free to write an app or plugin - heck, build a set-top box even - that can easily handle the needs of the disabled or anyone else to use the format. As with most if not all features of anything open-source, if the need is there the solution is within reach.

Re:It's *open,* dagnabbit.

[Blakey Rat]

It's not, but it's a real weakness of the open source community.

Of course anybody can build a word processor with excellent accessibility support, but, uh... nobody in the open source community *has* done it. And since accessibility isn't one of those "fun" tasks in programming, it's very likely that nobody ever will-- at least not until some major corporation sponsors it and takes the helm.

Re:It's *open,* dagnabbit.

[Ginger Unicorn]

The point is that any group that has sufficient interest in this happening can raise the funds and create the software they want. MS Office isnt given away - disabled people had to pay to have a new version of Office with accessibility features in, and by all accounts they really had to hassle microsoft to do it. All you need is a government or charity to sponsor some modifications to KOffice or openoffice, of which Google with their "summer of code" thing could be a likely propostion, and it will get done.

The thing about "the open source community" is that it consists of anyone in the world that wants a peice of software that suits their needs and is prepared to make it happen. It isnt just a bunch of hackers coding for kicks, or big blue chip companies with vested interests.

Hence the name... disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's why they're called disabled. They can't do everything a NORMAL person can. QQ more nub.

ODF Compatibility with Word

[kravlor]

We'll see how fast I'm beaten to the punch, but...

Why not use an ODF-compatible version of Word? That way, all the existing Word-compatible accessibility features will still be there. Especially with MS support for the standard, this doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Re:ODF Compatibility with Word

[zcat_NZ]

And thus you cut right to the heart of the problem.

One issue is that there is only ONE office application currently well supported by Screen Reader software. Microsoft has crushed all competing office software through some highly unethical and often illegal leveraging of their OS monopoly. Accessability software already has a relatively small market, and thus it is not economically viable for any accessability company to support anyone else's office suite. The OSS community is working on it and making fairly swift progress, but even when we get there most blind users will be reluctant to move away from the software (both screen reader and office suite) that they're already familiar with.

And so Microsoft, having got themselves into such a position, refuse to add support for Open Document format. Let's place the blame squarely where it belongs. Microsoft could add opendocument support to office in a matter of weeks if they really wanted to.

Interpretation

[Shrithe]

I sympathize, but that's not a reason to not adopt open standards, that's a reason to develop better software. Microsoft is going to try to paint it the other way though, and I worry the press will but into that interpretation overall.

Re:Interpretation

[Shrithe]

I meant, of course, buy into.

Re:Interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is a reason not to mandate software that uses those standards until the software has adequate accesibility.

Misunderstanding

[Nerdfest]

Perhaps I'm missing the boat on this one, but isn't accessibility an application issue? ODF is just a content format, and it's conceivable that one could create an app that would make is usable by blind people (as an example).

As I said, perhaps I missed the point.

Re:Misunderstanding

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes, you did miss the point. ODF supporting applications are weak on accessability compared to MS applications. If you adopt ODF which isn't supported by MS, you lock out some disabled users.

Re:Misunderstanding

[owlstead]

You probably hit the problem spot on, but since there were many earlier posts stating the same thing, you also missed the boat :)

ODF is not the issue....

[Ckwop]

This has nothing to do with OpenDocument as I can create any program that can read and write the format. In fact, if Winske was such inclined he could write a program to do this himself. Try doing that with Microsoft's format!

It's vitally important that disabled people are able to use computers. Computers allow them to connect with people in a way where they're truly equal. As a light hearted aside, a disabled guy from Romania who I met when I was there just a few months ago was able to totally own me in Unreal Tournment! To paraphrase a famous gun nut: God created man, colt^H^H^H^Htechnology made them equal.

If anything, OpenDocument will allow much more deeply integrated software for disabled folks. I think once this starts to become a reality, disabled people will really enjoy the format.

Simon

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[radarjd]

If anything, OpenDocument will allow much more deeply integrated software for disabled folks. I think once this starts to become a reality, disabled people will really enjoy the format.

That is a great thing about open source: Without question it allows it, but does the software actually exist now? I think it's appalling the number of people in the comments telling this man (or his organization) to write it himself! We're talking about a state government here, which has a legal and philosophical responsibility to enable all of its citizens to participate. The state of Massachusetts has to consider the difficulty that some of its citizens may encounter.

The word plug-in probably goes a long way to satisfying this particular organization's concerns. It may be merely a matter of educating the organization on how to use the Word plug-in to export on ODF. But for goodness sakes, get off your "write-it-yourself" horse, and look at reality. Everyone can't write software. We can't exclude people from governing, or the services of government because of that. Accessibility software is a good thing, and necessary for the penetration of free software into government. If you believe that's a good thing, you should have an interest in coding it yourself.

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Try doing that with Microsoft's format!

No need, they've already done it for him. In exchange for this service he gives them a little money. Its Win-Win. Now if someone else wants to provide the same quality service for free, I'm sure he'd be happy to accept it.

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[Tim C]

Technically, you're correct - there's nothing in ODF that prevents accessibility features from being added to the tools that manipulate it.

However, that's cold comfort to someone who needs them now, only to find that none currently exist. The fact of the matter is that a move to ODF will mean a loss of accessibility features, until and unless those features are made available.

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[fossa]

The state of Massachusetts has to consider the difficulty that some of its citizens may encounter.

Do none of its citizens encounter difficulty with the MS Word format? I certainly do. In the short term, yes there will be problems with any big change. But I am certain that in the long term an open document format will be superior to any closed format. I do hope that software will quickly become available to meet the needs of those with disabilities (which probably includes my future aged self).

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[Moofie]

"Everyone can't write software."

People who can write software may not have the expertise to design software that caters to different sets of abilities. So, yes, there does need to be some cooperation between the disabled community (proceeding from the ridiculous assumption that there's anything like a homogenous set of needs) and the software development community.

I don't really see anybody arguing that this discussion shouldn't happen. It simply HASN'T happened, and in the mean time, there's another alternative (the ODF plugin for Word that theoretically exists).

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[Anonymous Coward]

No need, they've already done it for him.

Have they?

Do they have a version somewhere where the entire application can be controlled from a mouse with no buttons (like, say, one of those foot paddle things you could wiggle around with your last working muscles)? In a language other than English?

I guess you could pay microsoft to make you one. If you were rich enough for microsoft's attention span. Or, you could hire a small team for a few hundred man-hours and hand them the ODF spec, and get back a product that will do what you need it to do, how you need it to do, probably without going over-budget on a government grant if you got the right guys.

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[I'm Don Giovanni]

ODF is the issue, at least indirectly.
If state entities mandate the use of a particular format, and all software supporting said format lacks accessibility features for the disabled, then the state is in effect mandating the use of software that lacks accessibility. MA might want to make sure that they aren't in violation of the Federal Disabilities Act by mandating software unfriendly to the disabled.

Re:ODF is not the issue....

[jrumney]

In exchange for this service he gives them a little money.

I expect it is the other way around. Microsoft has almost certainly provided some incentive for this FUD announcement, and the others that came out from some Massachusetts disability organization a couple of months back.

Disabled Rights

[gid13]

1. Wouldn't Microsoft likely implement ODF and then all their amazing accessibility stuff would be right there and ready to go? I always thought of MS as the "make ours able to open their stuff, keep changing our stuff so they can't open it, and make ours the default" crowd.
2. If they don't, I'm all for disabled rights, but there is no damn way that I should be required to pay a company to read public documents so that a blind person can have equal access WHEN THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM IS THE COMPANY'S REFUSAL TO IMPLEMENT AN OPEN STANDARD!!! Talk about rewarding the wrong behaviour.

Re:Disabled Rights

[KarmaMB84]

If they implemented the open standard, you'd still pay them. The problem is the software implementing the open standard isn't implementing accessibility features. Until ODF vendors get their act together, MS is probably the only game in town for Office document creation without violating accessibility laws.

Re:Disabled Rights

[From A Far Away Land]

That's the crux of the issue isn't it? What is the cart and what is the horse? If Microsoft is the horse, then is the government putting itself before the horse by changing to an open standard that the horse could drink from if it's led there?

Which brings up the old saying, you can tell Microcoft how to get better, but you can't make them think. Or something like that.

Re:Disabled Rights

[KingMotley]

While I will probably get modded down to hell: 1) I'm not going to comment, as this is just FUD. 2) I fail to see how this is Microsoft's problem. Go yell at the Open source guys to make their stuff disability friendly. If word wasn't around, guess what? OpenOffice, etc STILL wouldn't be disability friendly. Lastly, Microsoft hasn't refused to implement an open standard. Word can read and write in all kinds of open standards just fine and has for years -- .TXT (Plain text, arguable the most standard of all), .RTF (Rich text format), .XML (eXtensable Markup Language), .HTML (HyperText Markup Language), and now they are implementing two *MORE* open standard document formats in Office 12. Office 12 will support PDF (Portable Document Format), and MOOX. Clearly the problem isn't what you are complaining about at all, it's that they haven't implemented the one standard YOU want.

Re:Disabled Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

So what?
What's wrong with paying a company that provides a product that fits your needs? ODF is *not* about free (as in beer) software, it is about interoperability, no matter if the software is commercial or open.

It's a file format.

[mypalmike]

It's like saying jpeg isn't accessible. If this guy feels "screwed again", he should do something about it. And I mean write some software, not complain and lobby.

Re:It's a file format.

[the_humeister]

He is doing something by complaining and lobbying. Nothing will happen if no one speaks up. Besides, not everyone has the skills to write accessibility plug-ins as you would seem to suggest.

Re:It's a file format.

[Hektor_Troy]

If this guy feels "screwed again", he should do something about it. And I mean write some software, not complain and lobby.

Why the [censored] is this insightfull? It is, if anything, retarded (no pun intended). Are you seriously suggesting, that NOBODY is allowed to make suggestions and/or comments about ANY software, unless they themselves are able to write a replacement for said software?

What the [censored] is wrong with lobbying about the lack of a feature (even if it is a bit misguided to complain about a document format, rather than a reader)? How the [censored] do you expect software developers to come up with neat things (like, say for instance, a nice way for OpenOffice etc. to work with screen writers) if people don't mention the fact, that it is missing? Ask the magic 8 ball?

Re:It's a file format.

[MConlon]

It's like saying jpeg isn't accessible. If this guy feels "screwed again", he should do something about it. And I mean write some software, not complain and lobby.

The guy's got MS. You're suggesting he's supposed to start programming? With what? Your magical new voice-to-C interface????

And paraplegics should build their own ramps, right?

Holy crap.

MJC

Re:It's a file format.

[mypalmike]

Are you seriously suggesting, that NOBODY is allowed to make suggestions and/or comments about ANY software, unless they themselves are able to write a replacement for said software?

What software are we talking about? ODF? Like I said, it's not a piece of software, it's a specification. They might as well be complaining about TCP packets not supporting disabled people.

What the [censored] is wrong with lobbying about the lack of a feature (even if it is a bit misguided to complain about a document format, rather than a reader)?

This is exactly my point. It's misguided to complain about an open format. The solution is to create software.

From the article: "The Disability Policy Consortium is prepared to file a lawsuit if the state doesn't follow through on that promise, Winske said. It is also considering legal action over the use of forms that are inaccessible to the blind on the state's Virtual Gateway health and social services Web site."

Their solution is lawsuits. Lawuits cost money. Why don't they spend their money paying a team to make software that solves their problem instead of paying lawyers to line their pockets?

How the [censored] do you expect software developers to come up with neat things (like, say for instance, a nice way for OpenOffice etc. to work with screen writers) if people don't mention the fact, that it is missing?

There's certainly no global shortage of software feature requests.

Re:It's a file format.

[Anonymous Coward]

HE doesn't need to write the application himself. The free market economy will take care of it. As far as I know, one can create closed-source products which read/write ODF; ODF doesn't specify that you need to license via GPL or anything like that. If there is a market for such an application, others will create it and charge appropriately for it. I would that expect that the end result will be BETTER applications catering specifically to the disabled, rather than the current approach of slapping an acessibility component on an application created for another type of user.

Re:It's a file format.

[mypalmike]

I've worked with two different programmers who used non-keyboard interfaces to program. One was indeed voice, and the other was a joystick he controlled with his mouth.

Re:It's a file format.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the [censored] is this insightfull?

Dude, if you want to say fuck, just say fuck.

Absurd...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Microsoft pay for this article? I think clearly someone (Microsoft or otherwise) will develop an import filter for Word such that it can open this format. Accessibility issues resolved inasmuch as sticking with a proprietary document format.

The entire point of OpenDocument is to seperate the application from it's storage format, yes? And as far as "accessibility" of a data storage format? Goodness.

These IT managers whom are allegedly represented by "Computerworld" should really know the difference between data and an interface...

Re:Absurd...

[cyber-vandal]

These IT managers whom are allegedly represented by "Computerworld" should really know the difference between data and an interface...

That would be nice, but until that wonderful day Dilbert will still exist.

Sure ... Word ... not!

[Hektor_Troy]

Why should they be forced to use a proprietary product for a fully open standard, just because they're disabled? Shouldn't this be something that the OSS movement jumped on?

None of this "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" crap, but just jump in to it?

I know, I know ... scratch an itch, but wouldn't it be cool to actually help those, who need it - instead of just helping yourself?

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[qbwiz]

You first.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[Hektor_Troy]

I would, but there are a few problems, the least of which is my inability to program above kindergarten level.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[DerekLyons]

Why should they be forced to use a proprietary product for a fully open standard, just because they're disabled? Shouldn't this be something that the OSS movement jumped on?

And in the end, that's what bothers me about certain segments of the OSS movement and Open Office in particular. Their sole focus is on 'beating Microsoft' - useabilty, documentation, interoperabilty, etc... etc... are seen as benefits only as they apply to that goal.

If they don't, they are dismissed with an airy 'well, its open source, we don't have to fix it - because anyone can'.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) ODF is new
2) ODF applications are new
3) MS Office accessibility is no better than OO.o
4) Third-party application that are a LOT better are written for MS Office only
5) Writing a replacement takes time

I mean, the peeps who write the app for MSOffice could re-write for OO.o? MS could support ODF, yes?

If you are going to require OO.o to be as good for the disabled as the third-pary apps, why aren't you asking (nay, DEMANDING) that MS update MSOffice to proper accessibility?

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[Infernal Device]

I would, but there are a few problems, the least of which is my inability to program above kindergarten level.

Well, there are plenty of tutorials and all kinds of examples out there, so nothing is really holding you back from learning, except for the same things that hold programmers back from creating all these neat accessibility upgrades.

Time, money, interest ... life.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[bigpat]

Why should they be forced to use a proprietary product for a fully open standard, just because they're disabled? Shouldn't this be something that the OSS movement jumped on?

Since OSS developers are often designing, building, QA'ing features that they would like to see, then it doesn't naturally follow that they would build in accessibility features unless they were familiar with building such features. This speaks to the need to more closely tie developers and users (or potential users) in OSS projects not just for accessibility by for other specialized features.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[Secrity]

I thought that Open Office useability is pretty good. Is MS Office's documentation any better than Open Office's documentation, which one has better documentation for it's file formats? ODF is all about interoperability, and Open Office has done quite a good job in making itself compatible with MS Office. If anybody wants to make their products compatible with ODF or with Open Office, the document format specifications are well documented and stable. Open Office and some other ODF compatible programs are open source applications and they are quite accessible to vendors and programers that write accesibility software for disabled persons.

Re:Sure ... Word ... not!

[CodeBuster]

If they don't, they are dismissed with an airy 'well, its open source, we don't have to fix it - because anyone can'.

That is one of the tradeoffs with using source products. If you want new functionality then you must hire someone to create it for you, create it yourself, or beg the community to do it for you but you cannot expect people in the community to dance to your tune for nothing. If you want prompt turnaround on new features and you cannot wait for an interested party to get around to implementing it then you may be better off with a closed source software package where needs are more customer driven rather than what developers think is a cool or fun...Beggars can't be choosers as they sometimes say.

Story ignores the ODT converter

[Anonymous Coward]

This news story totally ignores the fact that Word can read and write ODT files with a converter. Microsoft refused to write such a converter, so others wrote it for them.

If Microsoft Word is good enough for the disabled folks today, Microsoft Word with the ODT converter is still good enough for them.

Adoption of ODT will be good for everyone in the whole world (except for Microsoft) in the long run. In the short run, there will be some annoyance with changing over to the new format, but I think the words "Screwed again" in TFA are a very harsh overstatement.

So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[pla]

at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft, whose 40-person Accessibility Technology Group is now widely praised by disabilities advocates."

Reality will not ever count as "disabled accessible". A few companies will see the profit motive of targetting a (excuse the pun) captive audience, and if you need such software, you should support those companies by buying their products.

But to complain about a standard, when you actually have a problem with needing to pay for the best implementation of that standard?

I seriously do not mean this as a troll, but c'mon - Just buy Windows and use MS Office. I have ZERO patience for people whining that they can't have it all - My sympathy for your problems vanishes at the point that accomodating you deprives me of something (in this case, a standard a long time coming, for which an "accessible" implementation already exists, just not a free one).

Re:So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[buddyglass]

I seriously do not mean this as a troll, but c'mon - Just buy Windows and use MS Office.

As long as you're okay with the existence of a sizeable demographic for whom Windows/Office is the absolute best OS+Editor combination...and for whom Linux+OpenOffice is completely unusable, then your suggestion makes perfect sense.

Most OSS advocates wouldn't be satisfied with that scenario.

Re:So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[pla]

Most OSS advocates wouldn't be satisfied with that scenario.

I agree, and would prefer otherwise. And over time, OSS will come to include such support... But that objection doesn't warrant complaints about the standard itself.


Or to put it another way... If Microsoft dropped accessibility support of the open standard, people could switch to using a different app that supports those same formats. If Microsoft dropped accessibility support of their current closed standards, do you just never upgrade your software again?


So, this seems (to me) like a case of lashing out at the guy offering to buy you a beer because he didn't also offer to pay your rent.

Re:So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[ray-auch]

I seriously do not mean this as a troll, but c'mon - Just buy Windows and use MS Office

Yep that's right, every corporation, every public body, every charity that has (or might have) a disabled employee... just buy MS windows and office.

Oh, you wanted a single standard solution across your org? - no problem, an MS enterprise license is sooo much cheaper per seat, why not just give it to everyone, no interop issues, and it is the de-facto standard you know (after all everyone with a disabled employee has to...).

Now just sign here on the contract please...

[nice one Bill]

Re:So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[buddyglass]

Sure. As many posters have pointed out, the problem isn't with the format but the applications. And most or all OSS word processors have poor accessibility. This guy's aim (ODF) is off, but he still has a valid point, which is that Microsoft devotes more time/resources to making its products accessible than does the OSS community. Your post made it seem as if that wasn't a problem. "If OSS solutions don't work for you, just use Word/Windows."

Re:So... Uh... Just use Windows?

[pla]

This guy's aim (ODF) is off, but he still has a valid point, which is that Microsoft devotes more time/resources to making its products accessible than does the OSS community. Your post made it seem as if that wasn't a problem.

My apologies... I didn't mean to imply that we couldn't do better. Just that...


If OSS solutions don't work for you, just use Word/Windows.

...People should just use what works.

(And you apparently did get my main point, that the FP may have the right idea but attacked the wrong target, so I won't reiterate that... Um... again).

So yes, I did mean that if OSS doesn't work, and Windows does, people should use Windows. But I do far prefer an open solution (not to mention a free one). Despite that preference, I wouldn't give up watching DVDs just because I unwisely bought a Sony player and have lately come to dislike their stance on DRM.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[Spy der Mann]

Instead of complaining this group should get involved!

Sure, why not! Do you have a programming suite that a blind man can use?

Apples and oranges

[Trails]

Because there's no innaccessible ODF-enabled apps (assuming that's even true, others above have pointed out that MS Word can/will be able to export to ODF), innaccessible apps does not imply innaccessible document format.

Part of the maturing process for OO.org et al. is improved accessibility and support for/integration with assistive technologies.

Granted, since there are very few trial/evaluation/testing versions of screen readers available, and most screen reader tutorial or reference material is anecdotal (eg articles) as opposed to authoritative (eg API documentation), implies that the screen reader providers have some work to do in helping the industry help them.

Case not closed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The case is not closed by any means.

We have yet to see that plugin that you speak of. We don't know how well it works, assuming it even works at all. Of course, it may fail horribly when it comes to handling this special case of documents.

To suggest that this plugin will work, even without it being publically available and tested, is naive. To think it will work flawlessly when it comes to handicapped-accessible documents is just plain stupid.

Re:Case not closed.

[Svartalf]

Yeah, riiight.

The only truly "handicapped accessable documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille. Anything else is a document that can be read by a screen reader hitting Word or Excel or by way of a screen enlarger app with anything else. In order for it to be "handicapped accessable", the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in their formatting- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to do a VERY good job of right now. Anything that MS is bitching about as far as capabilities goes wouldn't BE "handicapped accessable" in the first place- so it should be able to convert all just fine. Well as long as MS documented their filter interface correctly- and they'd piss off a few vendors that are important if they did something to impair that piece...

If it does that much, the screen readers can still hook into MS Office and work JUST FINE by way of import.

"Case Closed" pretty much describes it. And better yet, I've seen what schemas MS' OpenXML uses and what ODF uses- there really is nothing special about OpenXML that ODF doesn't already cover, except a lock-down of who can/can't read and use it and a lock-in of varying degrees by obfuscating the details of what's going on in the document formatting.

I don't buy your line. Not one bit.

Re:Case not closed.

[amber_of_luxor]

>The only truly "handicapped accesible documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille".

Documetns that use Moon Language are another type of "handicapped accessible document".

I'm not sure if documents written in American Sign Language qualify.

>... the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in formatting --- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to a good job of

I'll just point out that there are _NO_ device drivers that allow OpenOffice.org to print to a Braille Printer.

With MSOffice, one can install Duxburry Braille Translator, and conver the Word Document to Braille format. That is a second advantage tht MSO has over OOo.

xan

jonathon

Re:Case not closed.

[Svartalf]

That still doesn't change the statement that if it can read ODF's it meets the critera for access- because anything that is "crucial" from MSOffice that isn't supportable by ODF, would fail the accessability tests. It'd not work for a braille printer since they largely only print the braille and no raised lineart.

Oh, and you didn't read my post very well. I didn't say OpenOffice could hook into a braille printer, only that MSOffice being able read and properly write ODF met the needed criteria. We all KNOW MSOffice hooks into that stuff (Or, rather, Windows does in most cases, and in the ones that aren't covered by a generic Windows driver, it's something that has been hacked into the application...).

obvious solution

[gEvil (beta)]

I'm suprised nobody's mentioned the obvious solution to this problem. We just need to make an ODF import/export plugin for The Gimp.

screen readers, magnifiers should support ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how much needs to change in OpenOffice. The "screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies" need to change to support ODF, right?

ODF documents should be more accessible in the long run, as the format is open, and programs can be written to allow viewing/editing files, without needing to beg microsoft to add some hooks or obtain a license to the proprietary format.

Re:screen readers, magnifiers should support ODF

[ray-auch]

"should be more accessible in the long run"

ain't going to cut it if you are an organisation planning a migration now.

Equivalently accessible functionality is going to have to be there right at the point you take a disabled employee's MS software away.

Otherwise what are you going to do ? Say "in the long run we'll have something that'll let you do your job again, meantime could you take a few years vacation" ?

I can hear the lawyers laughing (all the way to the bank) already.

No, I'll tell you what you are going to do, you are going to leave those MS systems right where they are until the OSS alternative works as well for your disabled users. Anything else is financial/legal/political suicide.

Re:screen readers, magnifiers should support ODF

[DragonWriter]

ain't going to cut it if you are an organisation planning a migration now.

If your planning the migration now, yes, in fact, the future availability of such a capability can be a critical component of the plan, and indeed acquiring that capability for your software of choice can be a part of the implementation. Big purchasers pay to have the features they need developed for major projects, after all. (And sometimes, they can just announce they want functionality, and it can happen for free.) Sure, if you are already implementing it now without having planned for accessibility, there is an issue, but that's not the case with the Massachussetts ODF mandate.

Equivalently accessible functionality is going to have to be there right at the point you take a disabled employee's MS software away.

This would be true, but it is entirely irrelevant to the actual case at issue. The State of Massachussetts has announced no plans to take anyone's Microsoft software away; indeed, they have solicited information on plug-ins for Microsoft Office to use ODF, and that call resulted in the almost immediate announcement by the OpenDocument Fellowship that they had completed an ODF plug-in for any version of Office from '97 on which will be provided to the state for evaluation, comment, and further cooperative development before public release. The idea that the conversion to the OpenDocument format in Massachussetts is somehow going to result in a conversion to non-accessible software is pure, unadulterated FUD which I would be surprised to find originated anywhere other than Redmond.

Otherwise what are you going to do ? Say "in the long run we'll have something that'll let you do your job again, meantime could you take a few years vacation" ?

I think what they are going to say is something like: "We're standardizing on OpenDocument Format for document retention; the appropriate plug-ins have been deployed to your desktop systems and the appropriate settings have been made by IT personnel to have your Microsoft Office programs default to saving in that format. You should continue to work as previously. If you have any questions, contact the IT Help Desk."

Isn't Open better?

[robertjw]

The reason Microsoft had to be dragged kicking and screaming was more related to the fact that they are a proprietary format than anything else. With an open format any foundation that helps disabled people could fund their own document reader. The app(s) could be updated and supported as needed and owned by the institutions that created them, rather than relying on a company like Microsoft to continue support and updates for screen readers, magnifiers, etc...

Accessibility and file format.

[Anonymous Coward]

What does accessibility has to do with the file format?
Nothing.

It is up to the applications to have better accessibility not file format.

Paid or Fool?

[Tom]

He's either being paid or he is a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about.

A document format doesn't have accessibility issues. If he worries about that, he's barking up the wrong tree. And if he praises MS so much for their work in that area, he should be happy that there is already an ODF plugin for Word.

That, and the fact that even if he were right, I couldn't agree to keeping everyone in the middle ages because a minority is left behind. We don't abolish television because it's less accessible to blind people than radio used to be, do we?

Re:Paid or Fool?

[HBI]

Some common sense on Slashdot. It's impossible!

Harsh

[Anonymous Coward]

Survival of the fittest...

Right! Where is John Winske's code then?

[Anonymous Coward]

So having no understanding of or interest in coding themselves,some laypeople are trying to dictate what developers write? Gee, who would have expected that?

Re:Right! Where is John Winske's code then?

[ray-auch]

"Gee, who would have expected that?"

Anyone who read section 508.

Unlike laypeople, disabled folks are often not able to fix their own accessibility problems, so they have to ask you to do it.

Eventually they got bored of asking you and asked the politicians to make you do it. Which the politicians did.

Now they get to _tell_ you to do it.

Welcome to programming in the real world.

Could be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't this strengthen Microsoft's push to keep people on Word? I mean something like this, combined with a few of the disability laws would be a huge blockade to any government agency that expects to do it for public documents, even with a plug-in available it is probably not going to be sufficient of an arguement.

not format dependent

[brenddie]

This is not the fault of the format. ODF represents a way of storing the information and not a way of input of such information. It should be transparent if a document was writen by hand or speech recognition for example, the resulting document should be the same.

Would somebody please RTFA

[planetmn]

It's pretty apparent that, once again, Slashdot has taken an article completely out of context.

The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled. This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format, nor about whether open formats are better than closed.

He is merely stating that making the decision based on currently available technology does not support his group. From the article:
Winske said he likes the concept of open-source technology and hopes that OpenDocument will one day be accessible. "I have no problem with it," he said. "The Mozilla Project and Firefox have proved that if people build a better mousetrap, people will use it. It's a matter of making that mousetrap accessible."

-dave

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[higuita]

but what i dont understand is HOW ODF isnt disable friendly?! its just a zip, inside there is a file with all the text with little or no formating, its very simple to ANY program to open that "zip", extract the text and screen read it, zoom it, sent it to a braile machine whatever they want... yes, probably there arent many programs now (KDE is probably the best for disabled in linux right now) but there is nothing that slow down the support, quite the oposite... in .doc, the apps have to guess or pay for extracting what they need, must relay on MsWord to build the document, have a close API, etc

between ODF and DOC, ODF is alot simpler to work with!!

all this story is just like saying "lets not build a standard railroad, better keep the several incompatible track sizes because the more used train use that"... it doesnt matter that those trains would in time also be converted to the standard railroad size, nor that only AFTER the railroad is set will start to be build new trains for then... so of course BEFORE there are little trains

again, ODF is set to resolve compatibility problems, not disabled support, that is a application problem

if they want to complain about anything, they should ask for ODF support in Msoffice and in all other apps, they are one of the groups where a standard document format is most helpfull and the faster the .doc is irrelevant, the better for them

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[swillden]

The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled.

Right. I think everyone here is clear on that.

This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format

Wrong. Because Word can read the format, and there are good accessibility tools for Word, there are good accessibility tools for OpenDocument. In other words, the complaint is moot, which is an important point.

nor about whether open formats are better than closed.

I'd disagree here as well. The problem is that most of the applications that support this new open format don't currently have good accessibility support on Windows. There are a few reasons for that. First, it's a new format, so lots of the ancillary components aren't available yet. Second, most of the development effort on these applications takes place on non-Windows platforms, which provide good accessibility support at the desktop environment level, so applications don't have to.

However, the open format makes it much easier for accessibility components to be developed than it would be to build the same things for a closed format. So the fact that an open format is better is valid, and there's every reason to expect that we'll see a market for ODF-compliant applications that focus on the needs of the disabled, and that it will be larger and healthier than the market for similar apps that use proprietary formats.

So the fact that open is better than closed *is* relevant, it's just that the benefit comes in the longer term.

He is merely stating that making the decision based on currently available technology does not support his group.

And the point is that he is *wrong*.

With present technology, the disabled have two primary options to read ODF documents:

1. If they use Windows, they must also use Microsoft Office, and the ODF plugin.
2. If they use OS X, Linux, Solaris, *BSD, etc., they can use OpenOffice (NeoOffice for Mac), or KOffice, with the accessibility features provided by the environment.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[planetmn]

but what i dont understand is HOW ODF isnt disable friendly?!

And you must not have read the article, nor my post. Again, he doesn't say that ODF isn't disable friendly, he says the current applications that support ODF aren't disable friendly. Big difference. In other words, he doesn't mind a plug-in for word, and he wouldn't mind using ODF in OSS applications, provided that those applications were disable friendly.

-dave

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[planetmn]

Wrong. Because Word can read the format, and there are good accessibility tools for Word, there are good accessibility tools for OpenDocument. In other words, the complaint is moot, which is an important point.

An unreleased to the public, and possibly non-existant at the time of writing plug-in that may or may not work with Word's accessability features does not mean that his complaint is moot. If the plug-in does work with Word's accessibility features and is available to those that need it, then that would make it a solution to his problem. But it would not make the complaint "moot".

However, the open format makes it much easier for accessibility components to be developed than it would be to build the same things for a closed format. So the fact that an open format is better is valid, and there's every reason to expect that we'll see a market for ODF-compliant applications that focus on the needs of the disabled, and that it will be larger and healthier than the market for similar apps that use proprietary formats.

You are trying to argue that something that may (and probably will) come about in the future is better than something that is available now. Presently a disabled person can read a DOC using MS Word according to the gentleman. And also according to him, there is no way for him to currently read the ODF file. Again, if OSS provides a way for him to read the ODF, then great, it's another solution to his problem.

With present technology, the disabled have two primary options to read ODF documents:
If they use Windows, they must also use Microsoft Office, and the ODF plugin.
If they use OS X, Linux, Solaris, *BSD, etc., they can use OpenOffice (NeoOffice for Mac), or KOffice, with the accessibility features provided by the environment.

As I stated above, that plug-in is not currently available to the public, and is unknown (at least to me) if it has been tested for compatibility with the accessability features in Word. In regards to your second way, you may be right, I don't know anything about those office suites nor the accessibility features provided by those environments and may be a solution to his problem.

-dave

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[marcosdumay]

Maybe I have read it on a weard way, but that is exactly what I undestand by the headline. Well, the name "Massachusetts" is missing, but it is almost superfulous by now.

And the news continues being absurd.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[swillden]

As I stated above, that plug-in is not currently available to the public, and is unknown (at least to me) if it has been tested for compatibility with the accessability features in Word.

According to the OpenDocument Foundation, it has been tested for compatibility with the accessibility features in Office.

See the Groklaw article.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. I understand that he's the frontman for a minority that has challenges that most of us don't have, and thus it's his job to kick a fuss to state the needs of that minority.

HOWEVER

a) before we start talking about the rights of the few, I'd like people to consider the right of the many who can't afford Word and Excel. Seems to me that that should come first (yeah, I know, the law protects the former, not the latter...).

b) the gentleman mentions the way microsoft had to be dragged kicking and screaming to "support" accessibility and now has a staff of 40 that does a great job, blah, blah, blah. Funny enough then that accessibility to Office is provided by third parties. So I wonder just how much time this guy spends working with accessible software compared to talking to the nice and helpful PR people at Microsoft.

c) while not being disabled myself, I have difficulties with the idea that the best way for, say, blind people to use Word and Excel documents is something derived from a *GUI*. It seems to me that ODF, being open, would give the chance to accessible software makers to design and sell something that's actually *designed* to be used by people who can't see (or with difficulty). Which would potentially be much, *much* better for the users. Seems however that Mr Winske is too short-termist to see that.

d) MA considering moving to ODF is not about "better software". It's about storing state documents in a format that its citizens, and ALL its citizens, can access now and still access in a few years time. Demanding that alternative BETTER software be provided to minorities as a prerequisite to implementing a solution to a global problem is a non-starter. If he had been in charge of Y2K, companies would have went bankrupt waiting for new software to please the users enough to ditch the old COBOL code...

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[ElleyKitten]

The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled. This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format,

No, it has everything to do with whether or not MS Word can or cannot read the software. Microsoft's accessibility is currently much better than other software (excluding Apple's) so the blind who use MS Word want to continue to use MS Word. If MS Word can read ODF, then Massachusetts' decision to use ODF will have no effect on them.

Sure, OOo and every other software maker should make their products as accessible as possible, but that has nothing to do with Massachusettes, and with a plugin for MS Word already and plugins for the rest of MS Office on the way there isn't actually any basis to complain to Massachusetts about accessibility.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[drew]

ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled.
This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format.

If Word can read the format, than it is "ODF compatible software", thus making ODF compatible software just as friendly to the disabled as the current status quo. Given that, I would say that this article has quite a bit to do with whether or not Word can read the format.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty apparent that, once again, Slashdot has taken an article completely out of context.

The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled. This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format, nor about whether open formats are better than closed.

Dave--and I mean this in the kindest way possible--you are fucking idiot. The gentleman in the article recognizes Word as being friendly to the disabled. Therefore, if Word can read the format, then there is compatible software that is friendly to the disabled. The discussion then has everything to do with whether or not Word can read the format.

Re:Would somebody please RTFA

[higuita]

i understand but he should have asked for ODF support in apps that are disabled friendly instead of pointing that ODF enable apps arent disabled friendly... there is a big difference, on the first he is supporting the new format (that he should as being open, more disabled friendly apps can be build using it), on the last he is indirectly saying that ODF is bad, so people should use it (i understand that this wasnt what he meant to say, but it was that the idea that prevail in the end)

This is ignorant...

[DragonWriter]

...in such a twisted way it makes me wonder if Microsoft money isn't behind it somehow (perhaps in a "we'll make a sizable donation to your organization as long as you speak out against OpenDocument for us" way); OpenDocument format has nothing to do with accessibility (which is an application issue almost entirely orthogonal to document format), and it seems odd that someone would even be aware enough of the OpenDocument standardization effort without recognizing that, especially someone active in the area of accessibility.

Smells like deliberate, faux consumer-interest, FUD.

That being said, given mandates like the ADA, if people want OSS to take an bigger role on the desktop, accessibility and cooperation with assistive technology is a big area where more needs to be done. Sure, it may not be as much interest to developers, but given mandates like the ADA, it may be essential for many large decision-makers in deciding whether or not to adopt a particular solution.

Re:This is ignorant...

[overshoot]

That being said, given mandates like the ADA, if people want OSS to take an bigger role on the desktop, accessibility and cooperation with assistive technology is a big area where more needs to be done. Sure, it may not be as much interest to developers, but given mandates like the ADA, it may be essential for many large decision-makers in deciding whether or ot to adopt a particular solution.

That's not a problem that can be solved in baby steps, because Microsoft platforms don't support assistive technology. OpenOffice on Solaris or Linux, by contrast, has excellent assistive support because those platforms have provisions at the platform level that all applications can use readily without expensive reverse-engineering on a per-version basis by third parties.

In other words, as long as MSWindows is off the table, so are all but the most popular applications.

Re:This is ignorant...

[UdoKeir]

Yeah, they've also taken a jab at Adobe for the PDF format. Looks like Adobe corrected them (along with some spelling errors).

http://www.dpcma.org/opensource/adobe_doc.html

And they've recently sponsored a Microsoft show and tell. I wonder who's funding that?

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/articl e.php?story=20060313134026217

They're looking more and more like MS shills.

Re:This is ignorant...

[Trelane]

MOD PARENT UP! This is right on the money

prodded and dragged

[digitaldc]

instantly remembered how Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" to make its software accessible

That's nothing, you should see the tantrum when you try to ask them to unbundle their media player and internet browser to make that software inaccessible.

Fear of an Open planet.

[khasim]

Is this not the point of having an open format?

Yes.

But there are advantages for proprietary companies in having a closed format. Particularly if it is in use on 90% of the workstations out there.

Anyone anywhere is free to write an app or plugin - heck, build a set-top box even - that can easily handle the needs of the disabled or anyone else to use the format.

Yes. And that's the "problem".

If anyone can do it, then once someone does do it, there won't be much of a market for those other companies.

As with most if not all features of anything open-source, if the need is there the solution is within reach.

Yep. But it doesn't generate the same revenues that proprietary products do.

So, having a universal format that is licensed is good for their profitability (provided the license isn't too expensive).

But having an Open format that is Free to anyone to write to means that their market may be replaced by a Free (as in speech, as in beer) app that does everything their current apps do, but does it better.

Example: Some blind guy wants to edit a document that was sent to him.

Right now he needs MS Office.

Two years from now, he'll run an app that doesn't even display the document. Straight from file to speech and from speech to file. The speech recognition won't be tied to the MS Word (or even OpenOffice.org). It will be a distinct app. That means less effort on the part of the programmers. And being a distinct app means that it won't be tied to variations in the word processing program that the current ones have to interact with.

Simplicity and modularity. All of a sudden, the market for apps for the blind is taken over by Open Source and Open formats.

And it spreads to other markets.

Re:Fear of an Open planet.

[Rob T Firefly]

Yes. And that's the "problem".

If anyone can do it, then once someone does do it, there won't be much of a market for those other companies.

This is all a good thing, is it not? Otherwise it's like grumbling about your horse-drawn-carriage company going out of business when motorcars take over.

I couldn't program my way out of a lunchbox, but for the sake of illustration let's say I could, and I wrote a supreme ODF-capable app that worked as above. It or something very much like it ends up Open-Source, as even if I get greedy and go the commercial route, anything that useful quickly seems to sprout FOSS clones and alternatives. This would allow the blind community to enjoy free apps to access a free document format, just as the non-blind can do with things like OpenOffice. There's less of a monopoly (always a good thing,) and the success of things like Linux, GIMP, OpenOffice, and all the other FOSS projects that continue to stand the test of time have proven that they are contributing to the world in good ways.

I can't see any drawbacks to this model, but then I don't own any Microsoft stock.

Re:Fear of an Open planet.

[amber_of_luxor]

>But it does not generate the same revenue that the proprietary products do.

Look at how things for the dsabled are purchased.

Party A creates a product.
Party B bugs the product.
Prty C pays for the product.
Party D is the person who aquires the product.

The end user -- Party D --- has _no_ control in what is selected.
The organiztion that buys the product --- Party B --- has neither quality, nor financial contstraints in selecting what they buy.
The organization that pays for the product --- Party C --- has no concerns about the usability, or quality of the product.

The manufacturer --- Party A --- can make more money by suppiorting one product, from one company, than supporting a number of products from a number of companies. There is _no_ profit incentive to support anything other than the company that they deem to own the market.

From all that, you can see that there is zero incentive for anybody to create a FLOSS product.

Uou can see that the entire issue about ODF & a11y is a means to ensure vendor lockin, by the Party A, in conjunction with the company that they deem to own the market.

The issue is economics. The disabled are being sacrificed on the altar of Profit, and Corporate Greed.

Amber

Wind Under Thy Wings

Mod parent!

[mypalmike]

I think you meant : "you can't hold your cake & eat it", this guy has muscular distrophy !

If I had mod points, I would definitely use one here. I'm just not sure if it would be +1 or -1.

More Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like MS has bussed in another load of trolls.

Someone should explain the difference between a file format specification and a program to them. The OpenDoc file spec doesn't describe the user interface of any programs that read and write the file format at all. They just specify the file format. Being physically handicapped shouldn't prevent people from understanding basics like that.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

[Zaphod2016]

Having read through the first 30 comments, it looks pretty clear to all that this is a misunderstanding.

However, I expect I will see more "misunderstandings" as the mighty Vista continues to gather bad press. Is this intentional misinformation? Stupid people being too noisy? A typical case of "slow news day causes unnecessary problems"?

I will suggest that all pro-open format bloggers take a half an hour to write a short post explaining the difference between application and format. I suggest writing as clearly and non-geek as possible. Remember: if it cannot be understood by those great unwashed masses, it serves no purpose besides preaching to the choir.

In my experience, in the post-Google world, the best way to combat bad information is with VOLUMES and VOLUMES of good information.

Re:DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

[KarmaMB84]

They're saying that there is no disabled-friendly software supporting ODF. ODF can be the most open format in the history of humanity, but if there's no accessible software, it may as well be the most closed as far as the disabled are concerned.

Re:DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

[Zaphod2016]

Understood. But as others have mentioned, the *whole point* of this "open format" schtick is that Joe-hacker can go code something themselves- for free -rather than pay $70 for some bloatware or waiting 4 years for MS to get on the ball.

Re:DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

[mattwarden]

In my experience, in the post-Google world, the best way to combat bad information is with VOLUMES and VOLUMES of good information.

You must be new here.

Stockholm Syndrome

[overshoot]

Note: the issue, on examination, is that MSWindows doesn't support assistive technology, and thus the disabled count on companies which add assistive support on a per-application basis.

Well, DUH! -- under those terms the disabled remain hostages to the market-share leader.

Saying, "We love Microsoft because they have the best assistive technology [1], and therefore oppose anything that Microsoft doesn't support" becomes a roundabout way to establish Microsoft as a de jure monopoly. In the logical extreme, laws like the ADA give Microsoft the power of law by the use of its human shields in the disabled community.

And, yes, those are horribly mixed metaphors. Sue me.

Now that Microsoft has turned lack of assistive technology into a powerful weapon against having to compete on the merits, would anyone care to guess how long it will be before MS offers platform support for assistive technology? Get used to the plantation, folk, cause'n yo suit Massah jes' fine wheah yo is.

[1] Well, actually it isn't theirs. But we tend to overlook that part and give them credit anyway.

Re:Stockholm Syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say that Windows doesn't support assistive technologies, which version of Windows are you talking about?

If you are a developer, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/at/ to see all about APIs that allow you to interface with things like screen readers and other assistive technologies.

dom

Re:Stockholm Syndrome

[cnettel]

No, there are quite a lof of standard interfaces. In fact, if you just use dialog boxes and get things like your tab order right, most tools will grab it right away. If you have a custom layout engine and/or custom widgets (like a word processor that does its own menu/toolbar rendering), you of course need to implement those interfaces, no matter if it's Word or OpenOffice. Then, some of the leading tools DO also perform special things with MS Office, to improve the end result. That's been the easiest way to find a differentiator against competing products.

Please enlighten me on why accessibility in XWindows or in the total OSS environment of your choice is any different/better here. If you just do random rendering calls to the screen, a screen reader has NO WAY to pick it up properly. Any platform that supports that will also require the applications to provide an alternate representation of that data.

Re:Stockholm Syndrome

[Trelane]

Please enlighten me on why accessibility in XWindows or in the total OSS environment of your choice is any different/better here.

Why should I? Peter Korn does it much better than I ever could.

Guess who *breaks* compatibility each release...

[OmniGeek]

I recall reading some comments on this issue recently, where folks developing accessibility software to work with MS Office mentioned the need to reverse-engineer their interfaces every time MS releases a new version, 'cause the connections to that closed-source monster must be kludged and cobbled.

Now, it should be obvious to the average code monkey that doing accessibility plug-ins ONCE, with OPEN access to the source code, so they can be properly integrated with the office suite (after which one need only do updates for each new release, with the benefits of full integration and full access to the code changes), is a MUCH better option than having to kludge compatibility from a standing start with minimal integration for every release. Long term, an Open Source office suite is clearly superior for this purpose, assuming that it does its primary job well -- a condition clearly met by several FOSS office suites. With ODF in play, the situation just gets better.

Disability activists and the FOSS community are natural allies; we need only recognize this and start to act that way. Perhaps there's some FUD from a Malevolent Source involved in the publishing of this article?

They are

[everphilski]

FTA:

None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies -- at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft, whose 40-person Accessibility Technology Group is now widely praised by disabilities advocates.

In case somebody didn't get it...

[Spy der Mann]

my point is that the disabled users need a hired support group of programmers to do the programming and revising for them. Since Open Source is mostly about volunteering, finding volunteers who will program (for FREE) to help disabled users is gonna be quite difficult.

I guess this is where companies/orgs like Apache, Mozilla, RedHat, Google, OSTG can give us a hand.

Re:It's *open,* dagnabbit. - mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

The original point is legitimate -- it's hard to say we should use a format because it is more widely computer-accessible (ie the file format) if the several implementations you can use to create that file format do not currently support human accessibility. I sympathize with the folks who are saying "hey, wait a second!"

But the opportunity here is boundless, specifically because the format is open. You can write a whole separate human-computer document manipulation interface specifically designed for people who need it (or prefer it), instead of trying to bolt accessibility on top of an existing interface designed for visual mouse-and-keyboard interaction on a certain size screen.

This is the same trick other XML variants want to perform -- like XHTML for example: separate the document structure from its presentation, and let the user agent present the document as appropriate. With XHTML and CSS you even specify different presentation styles for different media, to give your hints about the way a document is supposed to be perceived, but the end result is really up to the user agent (and by extension the user).

Same thing with web service APIs -- Amazon.com has its own interface for searching books but you can use the APIs and make your own better interface for a particular target audience. The same data is underneath, and you can customize its presentation to suit your user. Such a simple concept...

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you're not going to like it.

emacspeak + ed + make + gcc

U.S. Government requires accessible software

[Ripsaw]

A U.S. law requires that most software used by the U.S. Government be accessible. (http://www.section508.gov/ has the details.) A government-focused, open-source group may want to develop these capabilities, rather than expecting the disabled people themselves to do so.

Re:U.S. Government requires accessible software

[Richy_T]

Disabled people may want to develop these capabilities rather than expecting a "government-focused, open-source group" to fall from the skies.

After all, isn't it all about disabled people not being seen as being depenent in the first place?

Rich

Dumbasses...

[DoctorDyna]

"None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers."

Um, owned?

Sounds to me like sombody needs to start dictating a little C++ into their little speech recognition program. Sorry for being insensitive, but come on, how fucking nit witted do you have to be, they outright SAY "lack of programs supporting ODF."

Re:Surely there are...those who can't

[callingalloldhippies]

/. has always been a bit self centered re: open source but you have to have at least a tad of empathy for those of us who CAN'T write code. A recently diagnosed major medical issue left me with a right hand which no longer works, vision which is deteriorating rapidly, and an over-whelming need to research the poor medical advice which led to the mis-diagnosos that could have saved me 4 years of un-necessary pain
and treatment which complicated the issue.

I have bad-mouthed XP since it's inception but have, Now, come to appreciate MS's handicap accessibility options which are allowing me to utilize GOOGLE to do the research necessary to find REAL answers. Even going so far as to have MS read the page to me when I simply can't do it myself

Holy generalizations

[everphilski]

... of course there are some disabled people who can write code, but does that mean they should quit their day jobs just to write open source solutions that open source developers managed to overlook?

There is a solution. They should keep using Microsoft Office with the ODF plugin until the Open Source community finds it valuable to write the proper accessibility options into Linux.

Re:Holy generalizations

[Billosaur]

... of course there are some disabled people who can write code, but does that mean they should quit their day jobs just to write open source solutions that open source developers managed to overlook?

I think many a disabled person would feel luck to have a day job, let alone one that allowed them to write code for technologies they need.

There is a solution. They should keep using Microsoft Office with the ODF plugin until the Open Source community finds it valuable to write the proper accessibility options into Linux.

And as usual, the simplest solution is the best solution. I don't think the disabled community is expecting the ODF Alliance to kow-tow to them, but is just trying to encourage the OSS movement to develop the same capabilties that they now enjoy with Microsoft products. It's not impossible, it's just not being done fast enough in the eyes of the disabled.

MS Office is better

[cerelib]

Their complaint is not about the document specification, it is about the fact that the major software that supports the OpenDocument formats does not have adequate accessibility. If major markets, like state governments, are going to switch to a certain format then disabled people have every right to voice their complaints.

I find it funny that many people seem to be pointing at the fact that Microsoft Office will have an ODF plugin and that those disabled people should just use that. This only affirms the fact that Microsoft Office is a superior product to all of its competitors, or at least the open source ones supporting OpenDocument. I am sure all the /.ers will be bashing on Microsoft again for their supposed lack of innovation and good products by the end of the day.

Re:MS Office is better

[Anonymous Coward]

Circular reasoning:

0) MS didn't have disability tech
(now, quick, forget step 0)
1) MS has disability tech added by third parties
2) Since this is a niche market, the most popular platform is the only one supported
3) New format comes along, not supported by MS
4) No disability tech available for the new format
5) MS handles new format
6) New format now has disability tech

Then you say that pointing out 5 and 6 means that MS is superior?

Skipped 1,2 and 3, didn't we?

Re:MS Office is better

[Bogtha]

This only affirms the fact that Microsoft Office is a superior product to all of its competitors

No, it affirms the fact that Microsoft Offce, when coupled with additional third-party software, is a superior product to all of its competitors for this particular niche market.

Accessibility is one of the few things that Microsoft does well. It shouldn't be any surprise that Office is ahead in this respect. But generalising this to claim that it proves Office is superior in the general case is is stupid. The particular requirements to succeed in this niche are far enough removed that the improvements in accessibility really don't improve the quality of the software for the general case.

Re:MS Office is better

[Kelson]

Wait, superiority in one aspect automatically translates to overall superiority?

What happened to nuanced approaches like:

• Microsoft Office is better for A, B, and C.
• OpenOffice is better for D, E, and F.
• Both are adequate for G, H, and I.

...then assigning weights to various capabilities/purposes depending on individual needs, and determining which one works best for each organization?

Nah, that would make too much sense.

Re:MS Office is better

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure all the /.ers will be bashing on Microsoft again for their supposed lack of innovation and good products by the end of the day.

I do not intend to wait for the end of the day.

They do not innovate. Any good products that escape from their gravitational field are an accident. They protect the monopoly. Period.

Re:MS Office is better

[booch]

This just in -- $300 product is better than free competitor!

Um, yeah. Of course it is. It's been around a lot longer, and it's had a ton more money put into it. Why would you expect anything different? But it's relatively very expensive, and nobody but Microsoft has much control over it.

There aren't a lot of people jumping from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice because OpenOffice is a lot better. They're moving because it's a lot cheaper, and it lets them control their own destiny.

The OpenDocument format is very much about allowing users to control their destiny, by allowing anyone to easily access the content of their files without being beholden to any one company. (And that will likely lead to positive results in the competitive market, driving down prices.)

I'm greatly in favor of OpenDocument. But I actually like Word and Excel, and whenever I have an employer paying for my copy, I'm happy to use it. I'm very interested in the ODF plugin for Microsoft Office. I'd much rather have a standards-compliant format that's easy for me to manipulate with a wide variety of tools. That's what ODF is about.

As far as disabled people's access, they are right to complain about OpenOffice and the other ODF apps. But like anyone else complaining about Open Source software, they need to contribute to help fix the situation. In the meantime, I don't see any harm in them continuing to use Microsoft Office. It's still a better situation than using MS Office without ODF. And eventually, the Open Source programs will improve their accessibility.

Re:MS Office is better

[BobPaul]

I find it funny that many people seem to be pointing at the fact that Microsoft Office will have an ODF plugin and that those disabled people should just use that. This only affirms the fact that Microsoft Office is a superior product to all of its competitors

I don't every think anyone said OO.o, Abiword or it's ilk were better. MS Office is by far the better product. However, as someone who doesn't have an accessibility issues and doesn't use much from office other than MS Word and PowerPoint and really doesn't use any advanced features from either, OO.o is more than Good Enough (TM) and my pocket book thanks the FOSS community.

don't screw this one up

[penguin-collective]

That view is frustratingly short-sighted. Microsoft Office is a tool developed for people with no disabilities; accessibility will never be a primary consideration. Using Microsoft Office with a screen reader or a magnifier is at best a crutch.

Much better interaction styles are possible for the disabled. In the past, they haven't been commercially viable because Microsoft Office formats have dominated the market With open document formats, there would finally be new companies entering the market with high quality tools specifically for people with disability.

Let's not even dwell on the fact that the disabled have experienced first hand how frustrating it is to be at the mercy of Microsoft; do you really think that other groups aren't equally frustrated with Microsoft's predominance but lack the lobbying power to get Microsoft to hire a 40 person crew to address their needs? And what happens with the next paradigm shift? GUIs will have transparency, high resolution visualization, and other features, and it will take many years for accessibility tools to catch up--do you want to continue to be at the mercy of a single company to meet your needs in perpetuity?

Adoption of open document formats is a huge win for the disabled, without any downside. You can even continue to use Microsoft Word, since there will be plug-ins. But you may want to work with the OOo people to improve accessibility there. And you will see ODF apps aimed at people with disabilities soon after the format becomes reasonably widely adopted. Please, don't screw this one up, for your own sake and the sake of everybody else.

Yeah well...

[Anonymous Coward]

"rather than expecting the disabled people themselves to do so."

I can't see that happening...

ummm ..... this is news HOW?

[Gorshkov]

This is absolutly a non-story .... with the plugin for Word/Office/whatever, the ability of ODF applications to work with assistance devices will be - by defination - *exeactly* as good as what it currently is in word.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[mengel]

There's at least emacspeak which provides your full emacs environment audibly, including code developent (with aural code formatting!) web browsing with aural style sheets, etc.

And the code that does this, and AsTeR, which is a package that speaks LaTeX (including complicated formulas) was done by T.V. Raman, who is blind himself, and has been using and developing open source code for quite some time.

There may be an emacs mode already done for OpenDoc format, perhaps someone who follows emacs more closely can say.

Okay...

[Svartalf]

(Yes, I know I'm feeding the troll...)

Is SoftMaker a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is IBM a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is Sun Microsystems a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is Corel a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?

That'd be a list of the main players in the "Office Suite" game left that either already support OpenDocument or are in full development of the same. Guess you're just a trollin'- either because you're a fanboy or an employee of some kind for MS...

"Disabled Activists" = Corporate Activists

[RexRhino]

Lets face it, only a huge corporation can afford the vast amounts of capital and manpower in order to make sure all their products work flawlessly for disabled people.

The so-called activists for the disabled, who push for laws that make "disabled access" manditory, are funded by companies that charge a lot of money to provide those kinds of services, or large corporations like Microsoft who see it as a way to harm competition, or contractors who can charge lots of money adding elevators and such into buildings.

These laws and regulations have nothing to do with helping the disabled, because everyone knows that it would cost way less money to provide everyone in a wheelchair with one that can climb stairs for free, than it would cost to put an elevator in every place of buisness. It would be way cheaper and easier to develop a screen reader or similiar technology that can read all websites and documents properly, regardless of their design, than to develop every website, product, or document to work with a screen reader.

These kind of "activism" against the OpenDocument format is about driving out of buisness small companies, free software, and those that compete with a handful of big corporations.

Re:"Disabled Activists" = Corporate Activists

[hclyff]

It's always "the man keeps us [the poor/black people/atheists/religious/geeks/free software developers/Mac users/small businesses/republicans/democrats/communists/anarch ists/pet owners] down", ain't it? Seriously, what is better, some tools helping the disabled use computer, or no tools at all? Do you suggest that they should have aid at all, because it isn't the best our society could do?

"Oh, I'm sorry you can't have a wheelchair, companies are making money selling those..."

Re:"Disabled Activists" = Corporate Activists

[swillden]

Lets face it, only a huge corporation can afford the vast amounts of capital and manpower in order to make sure all their products work flawlessly for disabled people.

Alternatively, with open source apps, disabled people can make sure the apps work flawlessly themselves. One of the best programmers I knew, years ago, was completely blind, and I'm sure there are plenty of other very capable people with disabilities. In addition, I'm sure there are plenty of non-disabled geeks who would be willing to help address the issue -- after all, the GNOME and KDE teams have done a pretty good job of it.

Corporations aren't the only way to get things done. It's good to have them in the mix, too, of course, because they tend to be much better at some things, and more options and more competition ultimately benefits the users, but to say that the only way this can be done is with corporate backing is... well, it's a lot like saying that operating systems are so big and complex that only corporations can build them.

Re:"Disabled Activists" = Corporate Activists

[prizog]

I don't think this is true. First, stair climbing wheelchairs are a recent invention -- AFAICT, they still don't work. Second, there are plenty of people who can walk or crutch but can't easily climb stairs. Third, elevators aren't the only thing needed for wheelchair accessibility. Hallways need to be wide enough, bathrooms need to be large enough, etc. There's no silver bullet.

Now, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be better to have accessibility hooks in the OS and toolkits than to have to retrofit screen readers. But most toolkits do have those hooks, and most programmers never use them. I know that I should, but I don't. I've never learned how, and if I had, I wouldn't be able to test them, since I don't have screen reader software. As far as I know, there is no Free Software for general screen reading.

Also, I was at the MA hearing for ODF, and the disabled people there really did care about being able to use the software. It wasn't corporate shills, it was MA employees. It's pretty hard to get a job if you're disabled -- even if you're perfectly able to do the work. A whole lot of disabled people work for the state, which is much less discriminatory than most private employers.

Anyway, I do think that screen reading is an area where free software could improve. Sure, it will take a bunch of work -- but no more than any other set of features (and maybe less, since it could be just some disabled programmer scraching an itch).

Re:"Disabled Activists" = Corporate Activists

[jejones]

Not to pick on the parent poster, but for those interested...

gnopernicus
the GNOME Accessibility Project
britty (sorry, couldn't find a web site for it)
speechd-el for emacs users
the KDE Accessibility Project (to be ecumenical)
the Mozilla Accessibility Project

Found the first four on Ubuntu using synaptic and searching for "blind" and "gnopernicus" (OK, I remembered the name on that one); about a minute's worth of Googling turned up the URLs.

Now...that's not to say that those are perfect or meet everyone's needs; I wouldn't know, because I've never used them.

From TFA, it looks like the generic GIMP UI rant all over again; "[fill in blank] sucks, but I won't bother to tell you in particular what needs fixing." That's a great way to get the "code it yourself, then" response, but not particularly useful as far as getting what one wants.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[sfjoe]

Instead of complaining this group should get involved! That's what Open Source is all about: participating. Instead of whining about it they should help to make it happen.

They ARE involved. They've kicked off a dialogue and raised the awareness level of the issue of accessibility in open-sourced apps. Writing code isn't the only way to participate in the open source movement.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[Kadin2048]

Actually I knew a blind guy once who programmed just fine, using a Braille terminal and some sort of very basic text editor. Just like any other programmer using a text shell, except the output was through the braille terminal instead of a VDT. IIRC he had some sort of non-QWERTY keyboard also, but I never inquired as to how it worked.

He always maintained that screen-readers were a huge step down, and were being pushed onto sight-impaired people because they were a lot cheaper than full-size (40 or 80 column) Braille terminals.

When you think about it, basically any command-line application is much better suited to use by a sight-imparied person than a GUIed app, because it can be more easily transformed into a serial data stream (which can be read or felt linearly). So really, Linux ought to be the platform of choice for accessibility, since you can use it in so many more ways: if you don't want to use a GUI, no GUI for you. You don't ever have to use a graphical control panel to change a system setting, check email, even search the internet, etc.

(Unless of course people send you raster PDFs as email attachments, but not like a screenreader is really going to help you much with those, either.)

Your Wrong

[mynickname]

I'm both a linux and windows user. And I frequently find that the one advantage that windows has above linux is it's accessibility. All the controls are standardized.

What to click the button? Hit space.

For every program running in windows rest assured that if you cannot use a mouse there is another way to do it, in a graphical enviroment.

Don't cry when you find linux isn't up to par, we need to fix these kinds of problems.

Please don't FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Their issue is that a government is mandating the use of a format for which no accessible software exists.

Word can save documents as ODF, thanks to a 3rd party plug-in. Word is (allegedly) the software that supports all their disability software. Therefore, that statement is incorrect. Moreover, Massachusetts, at least, put plans to allow for the use of Word (and other software) even when it was NOT able to save as ODF, in the interests of accessibility.

Please do not regurgitate the Microsoft FUD. This issue has been raised repeatedly on this forum.

Moreover, because ODF is open, anyone with any need can write or hire others to write accessible software that uses the ODF format. IBM, for one, has pledged developer time to work on this issue.

Disabled?

[just_another_sean]

Hey I don't like MS as much as the next slasdot user but disabled? Windows ME aside isn't that a little harsh?

Oh wait, maybe I should go RTFA first...

"OpenDocument" is not comparable to "Word"

[mopslik]

OpenDocument : .DOC :: OpenOffice : MSOffice

Simple as that. The "disabled advocates" are clamouring for application functionality but are shooting down the document format in their confusion.

Re:"OpenDocument" is not comparable to "Word"

[tomstdenis]

Yes, "confusion".

This is pure rhetoric.

Besides, it's an open format. Suppose Openoffice lacks screen reader support. Someone can and may just write a compatible application for the task reading ODF as it's ... open...

The argument is a non-starter for that reason alone.

Tom

Good job... being a prick, that is.

[TheNoxx]

I'm sorry, did I just hear you right? Disabled people should do everything for themselves? Now, independence and respect is something the unfortunate can be fairly sensitive about, but let's not try and intuit social programs and responsibility by our greedy little selves, mmm? What would you have them do, build all of their wheelchair ramps too? Or shit, how about the wheelchairs themselves? Surely they can handle some factory work.

Jerk-off...

Re:Good job... being a prick, that is.

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you have them do, build all of their wheelchair ramps too? Or shit, how about the wheelchairs themselves?
No, but they can *BUY* them. Others have already pointed out that ODF is a standard not an app, and opensource software is different in that it is demand driven and niche driven. Either there is enough demand to justify developers doing it, or the developer has an itch to fill a niche. Obviously, disabled accessibility hasn't yet fit those two areas....soooo....PAY SOMEONE TO DO IT. Others are under no obligation to cater to your needs. This isn't to say that the disabled should hire developers directly, but surely there are associations that represent these people that could....or...if the government starts adopting OSS stuff and has to write the accesibility themselves or pay others to do it. Point is, I shouldn't need to donate money/time for your wheelchair (outside of taxes), you can BUY one and your NEED to BUY one creates DEMAND which in turn makes it beneficial to provide such a solution. As others have pointed out, MS provides this already so there is no room to bitch anyways.

The bigger point is that ODF is a fucking document standard and it does nothing to deny accesibility to disabled persons. The software that uses it may not be accomodating, so use Office until someone finds a need or is motivated to put it into OO or kword.

Re:Good job... being a prick, that is.

[Kilz]

Disabled doesnt equate to helpless in a lot of cases. Simply complaining isnt a solution, nether is constantly paying, over, and over.

Missing the Point

[Yobgod Ababua]

Yes, the article is (properly) critquing the applications that currently support ODF, but it is still (improperly) casting that as a shortcoming of ODF itself. It's like saying that "gif images" are somehow flawed because of limitations in Microsoft Photo Editor or Photoshop.

The whole point to having a well documented, open FORMAT, is that any APPLICATION (proprietary, open, free, expensive, shoddy, polished, whatever) can implement that format and interoperate with all other applications that do so, and be guaranteed to be able to continue to interoperate for as long as they want.

Yes, MS Office is still in many ways a superior product to "alternative" office software, but it's (currently) superior accessibility features have no (zero!) relation to the fitness of the ODF format, postscript, PDF, plain text, or any other format. What _does_ have an effect is that MS likes to make it's formats labyrinthine and preferably legally encumbered, which means that if you save all your data in an MS format, you tend to be limited to using MS applications (for as long as they let you) to access that data. With a well specified international STANDARD FORMAT like ODF now is, consumers (disabled or not) get to choose whatever applications they want.

The point to people pointing at the MS Office plugin is really that adding support for a new format is not difficult to do. If we want the features of MS Office it's an argument that MS needs to add native support for _all_ current international office document standards to Office, not that somehow those standards are defective because MS refuses to use them. Note that Office still doesn't have native PDF (another international standard in common use) support either.

Re:Missing the Point

[Anonymous Coward]

>The whole point to having a well documented, open FORMAT, is that any
>APPLICATION (proprietary, open, free, expensive, shoddy, polished,
>whatever) can implement that format and interoperate with all other
>applications that do so, and be guaranteed to be able to continue to
>interoperate for as long as they want.

Actually the point is that *PEOPLE* can communicate and interoperate via the format *USING* applications. The trouble is most office application (including hosting Operating System) assume all users can operate a limited set of controls (keyboard,mouse,screen). If users want/need alternative interfaces then they have to use adaptive technology that bodges them on. What can be done to improve this situation? Create OSs and thus programs that natively support a much wider range of interfaces.

>Yes, MS Office is still in many ways a superior product to "alternative"
> office software,

Well actually for accessibility it is mostly 3rd party tools by developers who have had to work out how to hook in.

Steve Lee
fullmeasure.co.uk
www.oats.org

Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

This reeks of Microsoft FUD, a concentrated, cynical, contrived and exploitative variety.

A grant would be gratefully recieved and get the features completed, so instead of moaning they should contribute their Monopoly rents to oo.org hackers. They are already paying for those features from MSFT so it's in their long term interest to have support in oo.org. What's to lose?

Re:So... Uh... Just use Macintosh?

[buckhead_buddy]

pla wrote under the subject So... Uh... Just use Windows?:

A few companies will see the profit motive of targetting a (excuse the pun) captive audience, and if you need such software, you should support those companies by buying their products.

One of those companies is Apple. There's a technology built in to every copy of Tiger called VoiceOver that is a pretty good screen reader both for the blind, limited visibility users, and users helping them. (It's activated by command-f5, but you may need to hold down the function key on notebooks also). Most people don't even realize that it's there though if they didn't go through the tutorial in the Tiger installer. You probably will need to refer to a tutorial to figure out how to work it since the GUI is so dominant for sighted users, but the cost of the technology is simply part of the Mac "premium".

In Apple's marketing documents, it seems pretty clear that they don't see supporting VoiceOver as a burden. They see it as opening up new markets in government and big company purchases that must support blind and limited sight users without question. The additional developer "burden" is pretty small when using Cocoa for development. VoiceOver makes pretty good guesses just from the arrangement and nesting of standard gui elements even if developers choose to do nothing. But enhancing is pretty trivial even for more advanced needs.

I don't think there is a word processor on the Mac that supports ODF at the moment, but I suspect that will come rather quickly (as a plugin or a new app). The screen reader support is pretty good already. If you're willing to pay the Mac premium it seems like a pretty good choice for a screen reader to use or just to play around with if you're trying to understand what sort of compromises you need to make as an application author to support this market.

No, you misunderstand...

[msauve]

only if they want it free (as in beer) need they write it themselves.

They are of course also free (as in speech) to pay someone else to do it for them. They do not have any right to demand that others do it, or pay to have it done, for them.

Re:No, you misunderstand...

[Anonymous Coward]

In America you have the right to demand anything. But that's not what these people are doing, they're saying they won't use your product if you don't include X. You have the right to expect people to use your product, just as you have the right to demand the government build a weather machine, but you really shouldn't expect anyone else to follow along.

His wrong what?

[Anonymous Coward]

(n/t)

MS Office is better-Fruits for all.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The particular requirements to succeed in this niche are far enough removed that the improvements in accessibility really don't improve the quality of the software for the general case."

Obviously someone who doesn't build websites for a living, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say, not disabled.

Re:MS Office is better-Fruits for all.

[Bogtha]

Actually, if you read my comment history, you will find that not only am I obviously a professional web developer, but I believe that making a website accessible usually increases its quality in other factors as well.

The mistake you are making is assuming that what holds true for one medium (the web) also holds true for another medium (office suites). They are different in many ways. The most obvious difference in this case is that the accessibility improvements aren't going to improve the general case because the improvements in question increase interoperability with assistive technologies, which the average user won't be using.

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Until ODF vendors get their act together, MS is probably the only game in town for Office document creation without violating accessibility laws."

It isn't the ODF vendors that need to get their act together, but those self-same compnies that wrote the assistive technologies that you need to buy to get MS Office to do what is needed for accessibility laws.

That they haven't is THEIR problem - maybe they don't want to help, they just want as much money as possible for the least ammount of work....

Some accessibility is already in there...

[Serious Simon]

OOo developers have definitely worked on accessibility. But there is still ample room for improvement. See: http://ui.openoffice.org/accessibility/

this is crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

so, open document is the problem. oops, no it's the apps that...

hell, there's freakin braille on drive up ATM machines. it's fuckin crazy.

You're All Missing the Point

[jcscott]

The issue of ODF equal access, or potential lack thereof, is another episode in a long history of unequal access for people with disabilities. John Winske is not being influenced by Microsoft FUD, but by his personal experience having to wait and eventually settle for less when it comes to equal access to anything in the community. Shops, busses, schools, voting machines -- all of these show the promise of equal access but never quite meet the promise, even years later. Come on, voting machines don't even come close to being accessible. Governments have adopted PDF is a standard, but haven't made good use of the existing access capabilities of the format, such as they are. Where is the equal access Internet, required under the ADA no less? Most browsers (if not all) have yet to recognize the full suite of accessibility protocols, such as they are. And just because software is Open Source, there's no guarantee that it will be accessible. Look at any Linux distro or Apple's feable access technology for the Mac.

I know John Winske well. He loves technology. If he had the skills to write his own access solutions, he would. There's a valuable market for it. JAWS is a very expensive piece of add-on, adaptive software. Instead, he along with the rest of the disabiliy community have to rely on the courts to secure whatever level of accessibility we can get. That could change if the mindset is to build in access from the start.

Re:You're All Missing the Point

[Secrity]

Instead, he along with the rest of the disabiliy community have to rely on the courts to secure whatever level of accessibility we can get. That could change if the mindset is to build in access from the start.
Perhaps it would have been more productive if the disability community would have started a dialog with Open Source project leaders and developers about building in access from the start rather than just filing misguided lawsuits. This lawsuit is not going to improve accessibility as FOSS project leaders and programmers have no reason to respond favorably to John Winske's legal demands. You are quite correct in saying "just because software is Open Source, there's no guarantee that it will be accessible". You would also be correct in saying that just because softwware is Open Source there's no guarantee that it will be avialable in the Russian language or that it will support Hebrew.

So, where do I get it?

[ebyrob]

Where can I get onna dem der plug-ins? I just did a quick google and I don't see any download links.

Sorry but "we've developed... (but won't offer any downloads)" and "we don't see a problem with compatibility..." don't sit well in an open community. Especially considering how much trouble I've had getting my girlfriend's Office files imported and exported from OpenOffice. Groklaw wants me to believe there's some brand new technology one guy wrote in a year, in a vacuum, that beats the pants off what is currently available in the community?

Color me skeptic.

Openoffice less accessible than Word? How?

[RomulusNR]

What exactly are the ways in which Openoffice:

* is less accessible than MS Word
* is less accessible than any other software
* is incompatible with available screen readers

And:

* Why not focus development to an open-source screen reader that is compatible with both leading proprietary and leading open-source software?

FUD, misinformed, or true?

[burnin1965]

"None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies -- at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft, whose 40-person Accessibility Technology Group is now widely praised by disabilities advocates"

I'm curious. I am not disabled but I've noticed many system wide accessibility features in linux in the various installs I've performed and a google of the web shows significant commitment and development to achieve accessibility in linux.

I'd like to hear some specifics on what is wrong with the current state of accessibility in linux and what is wrong with the current commitment.

The current argument is accessibility in ODF capable linux applications. Some of the accessibility projects are designed from the OS level up so I find it hard to believe there is no support in the applications when it is provided by the OS, so what is specifically wrong with what is there?

I also find it interesting that Windows accessibility required "kicking and screaming" to get 40 developers inside a multi-billion dollar corporation and yet the FOSS community appears to have a significant number of accessibility developers and the kicking and screaming just started. Is the whining justified or did Winske get an earful from the local MS rep?

http://larswiki.atrc.utoronto.ca/wiki/LinuxUnixAcc essibilitySoftware#OperatingSystemEnhancements

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/

http://accessibility.kde.org/

Re:FUD, misinformed, or true?

[Trelane]

I'd like to hear some specifics on what is wrong with the current state of accessibility in linux and what is wrong with the current commitment.

Then you should read the article I pointed to by Korn above. There are certain classes of disability which Linux doesn't (yet) accomodate well. They're relatively uncommon, IIRC, but they exist notwithstanding.

Regardless, Microsoft being held up as the shining example of accesibility support is ludicrous in the extreme.

Drumroll, Please!!!!

[955301]

I am now going to attempt the unthinkable!

Ahem...

Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming"...

So, uh, how exactly did the members of the Disability Policy Consortium pull that off?

*ducks*

Pointer to info

[Todd Knarr]

Perhaps someone needs to point Mr. Winske at Peter Korn's blog entry covering the subject of accessibility in OpenOffice.org. It covers the strong and weak points on both the Windows and Unix platforms.

Quit the day job?

[phorm]

Just for reference, many people who write or support OS software also have regular "day jobs" or other work. Should they then be expected to take their own time, unpaid, and create the software for those that can't?

This isn't always the case, but quite often the reasons that OS developers (or developers in general) get rather snitty is because you have 1000000 people who all have 1000000 features they want included. Moreover, as somebody who oftimes develops software myself, I'm not even sure where I would start in making my applications handicap-friendly (and in this case, we're talking about a format, which has very little to do with application friendliness/accessibility). One of the facts of life is - though I feel rather harsh to say it - that you are expected to do for yourself even with a handicap. If you want software that's handicap-friendly, perhaps the best way would be to get a large number of people with handicap to pitch in (either with time, money, or otherwise) to have it made. As in other industries, you pay for special features, even for disability-based ones... or do you think that a car that's been adjusted for handicap use costs the same as one for people without a handicap?

Yes, it sucks when a disability prevents you from doing something. But at least today you do have the option in most cases to gather together with people having a similar problem (in this case, lack of disability support) and put your resources together for a solution. Survival of the fittest was actually not that long ago the general rule of thumb, so really I'd be counting my blessings for what I can do rather than becoming irate that somebody else hasn't made me a special program to access my email...

Oh, and p.s.... before you flame me back. I've been both temporarily disabled, and due to the injury that caused said disability there are some various things I can't do normally anymore... so in some ways I do know what it's like

ODF for the disabled

[bwanagary]

Ignorance abounds ...
It's like saying the Chevron gasoline isn't as acommodating to the disabled community as is Mobil gasoline.

Shame on us as the tech-savvy for not making a better effort to educate the average personal computer user! Too many people still have no idea how it works - they just use it, as it if worked by magic! And, actually, they don't CARE how it works! This is just one misinformed and undofrtunate soul who is determined to display his ignorance to the world. I can't see microsoft buying him off to say such things. He's just ignorant of the facts.

did bill...

[Anonymous Coward]

...break an ankle?

But that doesn't necessarily matter

[brokeninside]

Right now, all we know is that Microsoft Office has some great accessibility tools for disabled people and that a filter exists to allow some parts of Office to import/export ODF files.

But what we don't know is how well the accessibility features of MS Office interact with data that is in ODF format. For example, Microsoft Word probably understands sections when a Word formatted document is opened. A screen reader might say ``section one: blah, blah, blah'' and later ``section two: blah, blah, blah.'' But this screen reader might be unaware that the bold, oversized text from an imported ODF document signifies a new section.

Re:But that doesn't necessarily matter

[Trails]

Agreed, but that isn't a problem with the format. Unless the format is focused on visual appearance as opposed to semantic structure (the document version of bold, font, linebreak tags in HMTL), the problem lies in the applications.

Put it another way; if an application were to be released tomorrow that used ODF and integrated well with assistive tech's, the problem would be resolved, n'est-ce pas?

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[lazarusdishwasher]

They ARE involved. They've kicked off a dialogue and raised the awareness level of the issue of accessibility in open-sourced apps. Writing code isn't the only way to participate in the open source movement.

I realize that awareness is an important issue but, which costs more hiring a programmer to implement the standard or the lawsuit he intends to file if the goverment does not keep it's promise.

One of the advantages of a capitalist economy is that if you see a need, in this case an office suite with a screen reader that supports odf, you can make a product that fills the need and sell it for a profit.

Or if he dosen't like the idea of making money because of the disability, and the Disabilty Policy Consortium is a non profit organization he could inform people that the blind need a screen reader for odf documents and if they contribute money to a fund to make the prouct they can get a tax deduction.

Re-read your last line.

[khasim]

I can't see any drawbacks to this model, but then I don't own any Microsoft stock.

Bingo!

Such a situation would help the blind.

But it would not help the stockholders of any other company.

Once it is done, it is done. There really isn't all the much functionality that the various apps need. Word processing hasn't changed much since MS Word 95. Which is part of the reason why Microsoft is having troubles convincing people to upgrade. If a voice-only app can read you any document (ODF formatted), then what functionality is left for reading that document to you?

The same with writing it. Once the various voice-recognition / homonym issues have been solved, who would BUY any other company's app?

And because those are technological problems, they will be solved. Eventually.

Re:Re-read your last line.

[Rob T Firefly]

So the fact that nobody will get rich off it is a problem to you? I consider that a good point to the model, possibly the best.

I suppose in that case it's a matter of philosophy or politics, neither of which are ever a good idea to debate over the Internet about, so I'll say I disagree with you and leave it at that.

Re:Re-read your last line.

[Anonymous Coward]

And because those are technological problems, they will be solved. Eventually.

Probably, but there are unsolvable problems. Check out the halting problem. This issue will probably get into heuristics judging by context and having to run a parser on what portion of the sentence has been uttered, and it's likely that anything approaching thoroughness will be extremely slow.

The benefit is that human speech tends to come in relatively predictable segments that aren't too long, so if you're careful about what data you keep, you should be able to create a reasonably fast implementation, even if the algorithm seems like it should be highly polynomial or worse.

Don't blame Wincke

[NatteringNabob]

Blame ComputerWorld, Carol Silva, and Slashdot for poor headline writing. Wincke says, in the very last paragraph of the article, that he has *NO* problem with FOSS or ODF. His complaint is that the third party accessibility tools don't support {Open|Star}Office. So, in otherwords, Wincke would have no problem at all with ODF *as long as it was supported by Microsoft* whose Office applications are supported by third party products.

A suspicious person would suspect that the Microsoft PR department fed ComputerWorld and Ms. Silva a deliberately misleading article about ODF in order to inacurrately frame the issue, but I'm sure nothing like that would ever occur to a fine, public spirited company like Microsoft.

Is that me or this news has been writen before

[Akoma The Immortal]

This!?!?

And I read something about progress been made in an earlier story, sometime beetween that date and today, I cant find the link.
Talk about been not included in the developement process.

A friend of mine ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is a black lesbian in a wheelchair and gets by just fine with her unicorn stick, Mac OS X voice recognition and a copy of iWork. She's studying to be a brain surgeon.

Won't someone think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please?

Case *IS* closed

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, only if the plugin works as advertised.

The thing is, that the ODF is about *choice*. The choice to choose software that fits your needs, and still be able to interchange your documents with others as well as your software for other software if your needs change. At the moment, Microsoft seems to have the best software on offer for disabled people. Yes, that forces them to buy a copy of the software. How is that different than the situation we have now?
The companies providing the aids could also focus their efforts on other programs, like OpenOffice.org. If the do so, those may become a more viable choice for these users. I have another set of requirements when I select the software I want to work with, so I may choose to use OpenOffice.org or KOffice. While I acknowledge that there is a need for tools for the disabled and the integration of these, I don't think they could claim it as a right to have them available for every piece of software. That is not to say that Open Source is not for the disabled. There are developments in that area too, and KDE is for instance working with GNome to make sure that they are interoperable in this respect. However, I do think that one can not make any demands on these pieces of software to address these issues. Just like you can not just demand any other feature *you* may need. You are free to add it yourself though, or pay or otherwise convince someone else to do so.

You're missing the point folks...

[vik]

Screen readers tend to read text-based consoles. Geeks can think ncurses here.

So, show me an ODF-capable editor that runs on a text-mode console.

DO NOT even think of telling me to unzip the ODF and hand-edit the XML. People with GUIs don't have to do this, why should I?

I've said it before, and I'll keep on saying it: The world needs a console-based ODF editing program.

Vik :v)

Re:You're missing the point folks...

[Ash-Fox]

LaTeX is the key.

Re:You're missing the point folks...

[vik]

There's an ODF option to LaTeX ?

Vik :v)

Let them tell MSFT to support ODF.

[mikelieman]

Simple enough. Stop bitching at the open people and Demand that MSFT play well with others.

Homophones

[tepples]

Handling for text readers, magnifiers, etc. is ... not something you build into the file format itself.

Unless you want difficult words, foreign words, trademarks, homophonic words, etc. in the document to be properly pronounced when it is read aloud.

Re:Homophones

[Bastian]

(Disclaimer - I really don't have a clue what I'm talking about here, but I'm going to talk anyway.)

Wouldn't that best be handled with a system-wide database of notes on how to pronounce these things, sort of like the system-wide spellchecking dictionary in OS X (and maybe others, not sure on that one)? Personally, I'd rather have to tell my computer how to pronounce a word once and have it work for everything than have to go through the hassle for every app that I use frequently. I would think that doing it at the document level would be the absolute worst solution. I'm really not interested in having to repeat the pronunciation of SCSI every time I use the acronym in a new document.

Re:Homophones

[Jepler]

And Microsoft Word does? When you type "he took a bow", does Microsoft silently add a possibly-incorrect annotation that you can't see, or does Clippy pop up and ask you how to pronounce the word you just typed? Also, it looks like you mean "homonym" or "homograph", not "homophonic".

Re:Homophones

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that best be handled with a system-wide database of notes on how to pronounce these things, sort of like the system-wide spellchecking dictionary in OS X

Unfortunately it can't be, the system can't be that smart.

The typical example (and it's an example that's showing its age) is the word SNAG. Should it be spoken as Sensitive New Age Guy, or as the Snag. Is the movie called Adaption pronounced Adap-tay-shun or Adapt-shun? In all cases there's a requirement for a non-obvious pronounciation. HTML has the ABBR/ACRONYM tags for this purpose.

Given any word or acronym it's impossible to know how to pronounce it all the time without some context and some more information. Software can make a guess but it should support assistance from the file format.

This is a separate issue to the one of an annoying bit of software that insists on saying SCSI every time. The definition is a seperate thing to how it's pronounced, and presumably hearing Skuzzy after the first occurence would be appropriate.

Re:Homophones

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the movie called Adaption pronounced Adap-tay-shun or Adapt-shun?

Um... that's just a misspelling. It's Adaptation. No ambiguity in pronunciation at all.

(Is adaption even a real word?)

Re:Homophones

[Bert64]

While HTML may support ABBR/ACRONYM tags, who uses them?
More importantly, when someone is typing text into a word processor how often do they mark acronyms as such?

So When Will Accessibility APIs become accessible?

[N1XIM]

The problem, the way that I see it, is that a lot of people out there are making a lot of money off of people whom need accessibility by providing the promise of accessibility, but not actually providing the quality itself.
What do I mean by this? Look at the following quote:

Freedom Scientific supports Office, Notes and Corel's WordPerfect Office with its market-leading Job Access With Speech screen reader, said Eric Damery, vice president of software product management at the company.
Supporting applications in its screen reader -- typically referred to by its acronym, JAWS -- is "a big undertaking," Damery said. He added that the demand for OpenDocument-compatible office software "has not been that great."

Think about it for a minute now, why does this need to be difficult? The answer is that it doesn't.
If actual accessibility were being provided it would be application independent, not tied to a specific software application or application vendor. This is indeed the real meat of the problem.
So what do we need then? How about accessibility support built into the underlying APIs that applications on any particular platform or environment (I really don't care which, all have their merits and problems) can quickly, cheaply, and easily be made accessible by coders whom don't understand all of the nit-picky things about accessibility that a differently abled (I know it sounds PC, but it is closer to the truth, trust me) user would quickly notice.
In short, users should not have to wait until application vendors and programmers have millions of dollars and man-hours available to spend making their program play nicely with one specific so-called accessibility interface (which won't help users using some other interface) just to be able to use software the rest of us can easily make use of.
As is often said about websites: Accessibility needs to be designed in from the ground up--a lesson which should apply to all computer-related systems.
I already apply accessibility practices to all of my work (in the web sphere), so I know it isn't that difficult. So really now, whom in the API-level programming world is ready to stop complaining and take this issue on in a truly complete an meaningful manner?

The reason why

[everphilski]

I'm not even sure where I would start in making my applications handicap-friendly

The reason why it is important in this case is because communications with the government, et cetera, must be done in a manner that is accessable to everyone. So if KOffice/Star Office/OpenOffice don't support accessibility, guess what - they missed their shot at the revolution. Public computers will be stuck using Microsoft Office with the ODF plugin, since that will be the only thing that meets *all* government requirements. Their loss.

Where are these filters?

[tepples]

I stated that MS Word WAS a OpenDocument reader.

Microsoft Office Word is not an OpenDocument reader until it ships with the ODF filters out of the box or at least until the filters are made available to the general public.

Re:Guess who *breaks* compatibility each release..

[Anonymous Coward]

You have quite an idealized view of the OSS world. Most likely what would happen is somebody would come up with some way to do accessibility. These changes would not get integrated into the product for whatever reason, so everybody who wanted to use those features would have to apply the patches to their sources.

Eventually the patchset would become popular enough to be a fork of the main distribution. A couple years later, though, people would realize that the architecture wasn't really designed properly.

The interface would be recreated in a completely incompatible manner, requiring assistance vendors to redesign their products (screen readers, magnifiers, etc.) to work with the 2.0 version. Of course most people are still using the 1.0 version, so there isn't much reason to redesign their product, and the 1.0 version must still be maintained.

That is essentially how Apache went from a set of patches to NCSA httpd, to Apache 1.0, to Apache 2.0.

dom

Really divisive link text doesn't help..

[Anonymous Coward]

the discussion appears to have drifted off majorly because of poor link text "accessibility of the OpenDocument format" to the original article. The article says nothing about the accessibility of the format, but the software available to read it. Ironic that in itself this breaks W3C guidelines on accessible hyperlinks (being meaningful in and of themselves).

And the discussion about OSS being held to a higher standard isn't true, its being held to the same standard everyone else is, that of Disability Discrimination which wasn't law when MS went from DOS to Windows. It is law now.

If the reply "They can always use word." is worthy of a score of 5, someone needs to look up the meaning of the word "informative". That reply is inflammatory, although I'm sure I'll be called a troll.

Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Word can access ODF with that plugin we read about just the other day?
So why not use the Word tools + plugin?

Sorry, we now return you to your regularly scheduled trollfest :)

Space Flight Halted - Space Shuttle Lacks Ramp

[sweetnjguy29]

...for disabled astronauts.

Don't these handicap rights nazis understand that they can't be on the bleeding edge of everything?

Installing word pronunciations?

[tepples]

Personally, I'd rather have to tell my computer how to pronounce a word once

How is the word "bow" pronounced?

I'd rather have to tell my computer how to pronounce a word once and have it work for everything

If a document used a given foreign word or acronym, would you want to have to have to ask everybody who reads the document to install the word's pronunciation into his or her own user account's dictionary before the screen reader will pronounce the word correctly? That smacks of "Please resize your browser and set its default font" from the early days of Netscape. Imagine doing this for linguists' descriptions of constructions in minority languages that they're documenting.

I'm really not interested in having to repeat the pronunciation of SCSI every time I use the acronym in a new document.

Then the word processor would insert the pronunciation from your own dictionary into the document when saving it.

Re:Installing word pronunciations?

[FLEB]

If a document used a given foreign word or acronym, would you want to have to have to ask everybody who reads the document to install the word's pronunciation into his or her own user account's dictionary before the screen reader will pronounce the word correctly?

You'd probably have more luck doing that than expecting every person who writes something to go back and reader-annotate their documents.

Re:Installing word pronunciations?

[tepples]

You'd probably have more luck [requiring each reader to install pronunciations] than expecting every person who writes something to go back and reader-annotate their documents.

Even for documents published by the government that are expected to be read by tens of thousands of blind citizens? Wikipedia says Massachusetts' population is over 6 million, and if the proportions match those of the U.S. general population (about 0.5 percent), 30,000 of those are legally blind. Even then, how do you express such pronunciations in a file so that users can install them to the dictionary? And once you've distributed this file along with the ODF document, isn't that the same amount of effort as annotating the document to begin with? And how does your solution work with users who do not have permission to modify the central pronunciation dictionary on a given machine?

Re:Installing word pronunciations?

[mrchaotica]

How is the word "bow" pronounced?

The more important question is, does the MS Word format handle this kind of situation anyway? 'Cause if it doesn't, it's not a valid argument against ODF!

Re:Installing word pronunciations?

[Bastian]

Still don't know what I'm talking about, but I think I'm starting to get the idea now.

It seems the optimal solution would be to include several levels of storage for pronunciation information. There could be a system-wide store of this data, which would contain all the defaults - this wouldn't generally be modified, it would just be something that's included with the operating system to get everyone started.

This would be augmented by a second database for each user account. That way, people can augment the pronunciation notes with additions (or override the system default database) without screwing around with everyone else's database.

On top of that, you can store pronunciation notes in the document. It would really be pretty trivial to add - I assume the problem of how to represent this information is a solved problem, something a bit more advanced than saving a string of IPA in Unicode, but similar, so it's really just a matter of adding another tag or two to the ODF format. It's XML, so applications that don't already support the tag should gracefully ignore it; adding the tag wouldn't be disruptive for the most part.

The nice thing about this kind of set-up is that users don't need to install pronunciation markup into the dictionary on their computer any more than you have to store every style sheet for every CSS page you ever visit. It wouldn't be a seprate file, that's the whole point of adding it to the ODF specification. And you don't have to annotate common words or acronyms. Less-common languaes might be best handled by having the user install a language pack, but producing and distributing them shouldn't be too big of an issue; that's the kind of thing that open source really excels at.

Really, now that I've thought about it more carefully, this seems like a total no-brainer to me, and I wonder why it's not a standard thing yet. I'd love to have it; I can think of scads of cases where it would be really useful.

Re:Installing word pronunciations?

[Bert64]

If it doesn't know how to pronounce a word, it can take a best guess, or simply read out the letters...
There's no reason that someone blind wouldn't be able to spell, so they can quite easy extrapolate the meaning based on the letters involved, just like people who read the text have to.

MicroSoft: drugged enough?

[whitehatlurker]

TFA: "Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" to make its software accessible"

Okay, so MicroSoft must have developed some sort of aides for the handicapped, right?

TFA: "None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies -- at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft"

Okay, so the sticking point is working well with "assistive technologies", but what did MicroSoft do to achieve this? What products have they created to make MSOffice documents accessible to these "assistive technologies"?

TFA: "Freedom Scientific supports Office, Notes and Corel's WordPerfect Office with its market-leading Job Access With Speech screen reader"

Apparently nothing - there are third parties working on creating "assistive technologies". TFA explains that the ODF adoption is just too small to be included in the list of supported formats from Freedom Scientific.

So, other than having a large market share, what has MicroSoft done after being dragged so far? What has the "40-person Accessibility Technology Group" done to be "widely praised by disabilities advocates?"

Anyone here have some experience with this that can shed some light on what MicroSoft's accomplishments are/have been?

Homographs in TTS and homophones in STT

[tepples]

When you type "he took a bow", does Microsoft silently add a possibly-incorrect annotation that you can't see, or does Clippy pop up and ask you how to pronounce the word you just typed?

I don't know, as I haven't used the speaking version of Microsoft Office Word. It may be possible to add annotations that disambiguate homographs (thanks for the correction but see below) and provide pronunciations for uncommon or foreign words. If the program speaks the document as the user types it, the user can select the mispronounced word and add an annotation. If .doc supports such annotations but ODF does not, then Mr. Winske has a legitimate beef besides the metonymy of "ODF" as representing all ODF editors available as of today.

Now that I think about it, homophones are still an issue for dictation (speech to text) software, a common assistive technology, and a dictation engine could be made to use the same annotations for words that have already occurred in the document.

Re:Homographs in TTS and homophones in STT

[Fordiman]

actually, since OO.o already has both spelling and grammar checking, it's just a short hop to figure out which homograph is the correct one for common words.

But no, MS doesn't automatically figure out how to pronounce things, and I'm prettu sure there's no way to annotate in the way you're referring manually.

I'm confused.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Did anyone else read the article and see a bunch of different groups all working to esnure accessibility in current and future products? Seems like Sun, IBM, Mozilla, and MS all have groups working to make sure their products will (and, in MS's case already do) work smoothly with accessibility technology and the state is taking that into consideration. It ends with "and they'd better or we'll sue! And if they get that right, we'll find some other reason to sue."

Among other things, that meant a resource boost for IBM's Beijing labs in order to accelerate API work designed to make it easier for assistive technology vendors to support the company's Workplace office suite, he said.

Another IBM distinguished engineer is chairing a newly created OpenDocument accessibility subcommittee at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, which oversees the file format.

IBM also is accelerating development of a screen reader and a screen magnifier for Linux. And Sun is working on a combined open-source screen reader and magnifier called Orca.

But Weiss said he has reached a financially attractive agreement with IBM and the Mozilla Foundation to make their products work with ZoomText and hopes to start development work this summer.

Gutierrez said one of the reasons the state is exploring Office plug-ins is because Microsoft's products are "ahead on accessibility right now."

The Disability Policy Consortium is prepared to file a lawsuit if the state doesn't follow through on that promise, Winske said. It is also considering legal action over the use of forms that are inaccessible to the blind on the state's Virtual Gateway health and social services Web site.

Cart before the horse?

[tepples]

[The set of accessible ODF compatible apps as of now is] not a static group.

It's not a group at all, nor even a monoid ;-)

But seriously, the set cannot be empty at the time when Massachusetts adopts ODF, or Massachusetts will be in trouble with the feds.

It's only a matter of time before MS Office reads/writes ODF

As I understand it, the company developing an ODF file filter for Microsoft Office Word has no immediate plans to offer it for distribution it to the public.

more and more programs will support it over time

But will "over time" occur before this technology adoption goes into effect? If not, then Massachusetts is putting the cart before the horse and John Winske has a legitimate beef.

Re:Cart before the horse?

[ElleyKitten]

It's not a group at all, nor even a monoid ;-)

I'm not a math geek, what are you trying to say?

But seriously, the set cannot be empty at the time when Massachusetts adopts ODF, or Massachusetts will be in trouble with the feds.

The set isn't empty now, what makes you think it could be when Massachusetts adopts it?

As I understand it, the company developing an ODF file filter for Microsoft Office Word has no immediate plans to offer it for distribution it to the public.

They're not the only ones working on one. As I said, only a matter of time, and probably not that long of a time.

But will "over time" occur before this technology adoption goes into effect? If not, then Massachusetts is putting the cart before the horse and John Winske has a legitimate beef.

Massachusetts will probably wait until the plugins are finished and released to the public so ODF is usable in MS Office. Once that happens there's no reason for Massechusetts to not change to ODF.

It is a good point

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the good point.

  By adopting the opendocument format, and given that microsoft word will be able to open and save it, the situation is getting no worse for people with disabilities, and it is getting better for people without.

Of course, ideally it should get better for everyone, and it goes without saying that the more popular alternative office tools get (hopefully as a result of the formats they support properly becoming more popular), the more people who will contriube, and the more investment there will be into improving access for people with disabilities.

Martin

Re:MS Office is better - silly

[Anonymous Coward]

No, ODF means you dont need to rely on your suporting those who are disabled. Because ODF is a standard file format, ANY company can produce a reader for the ODF format, and it should work for ALL of your ODF wordprocessing files no matter which software your company uses..and your ODF problem is solved.

It seems more a matter of people still being locked in the old concept of thinking they need to have a reader for the software that others use. It is not the case, and ODF has given the disabled the oportunity to break those chains. Now it is a matter of software being made directly for the disabled to suit their needs - as long as it will save as ODF, the rest of your company wont notice the difference. Can they do this? The job is partially done.. there several choices of examples in GPL code which demonstrates how to read and save ODF documents.

Obvious questions.

[m6ack]

None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies.

Has anyone asked the obvious questions? Which screen readers, magnifiers, and other assistive technologies specifically, are we talking about? What does the author mean specifically by the words work well? What are the specific requirements to make OS applications supporting ODF as the native format work well for the disabled community?

This all sounds like just so much more FUD from an MS groupie. If the ODF plugin that we hear talk of "works well," then the disabled community is not impaired in the least! At the very least, they become that much further empowered with ODF to own the data that they create with their proprietary solution. The future with ODF for the disabled, is that they have a new ray of hope -- to have the promise of becoming fully freed from their expensive, proprietary solutions as the equivalent technology becoming available in the OS world is refined.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[sfjoe]

I realize that awareness is an important issue but, which costs more hiring a programmer to implement the standard or the lawsuit he intends to file if the goverment does not keep it's promise.

When factoring in your costs, don't forget the costs of lost productivity from disabled people who can't do business with the state of Massachusetts.
And for what it's worth, it looks like this issue will be resovled shortly. From the article:
"IBM's software accessibility team, for instance, put other projects on the back burner in November to make Massachusetts-related work its top priority..."

OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[r00t]

Seriously. There are better ways.

Pretend it was the other way around. Word processors had no GUI. They just talked to you, and you were supposed to talk to them. Then, being deaf and mute, you got some "assistive technology" that would do voice recognition on this so that it could display text for you. Your "assistive technology" crap provides a button bar, so you can click on a button to save a file. When you do so, the button press plays an audio file saying "computer menu file save" into the word processor.

Wouldn't that be stupid? Screen readers for the blind are just as bad.

The appropriate solution is a word processor made for the blind. It probably wouldn't have a GUI at all. It would probably reveal document structure more directly, as a tree to be navigated.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[techno-vampire]

Screen readers for the blind are just as bad.

I take it, then, that you have no experience with them. When I did tech support for a major ISP, our call center had a small number of computers reserved for blind techs only, so that nobody messed with the screen readers. They worked fine, and the techs that needed them were able to use their computers just as well as the rest of us. If a dialog came up, they were able to hear what it said, just like they could hear what they'd written, or the other responses from the computer. As long as nobody messed with the software, they were just as productive as anybody else, and handled just as many calls per day.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[r00t]

Why have the dialog pop up at all? That's just stupid. It's slower that way.

The whole concept of a GUI is fundamentally wrong for blind people. It imposes visual constraints on people who lack vision.

Save a few dollars: ditch the monitor entirely.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I understand why you ask - and I agree to some extent: why give a blind user the same user interface as a seeing user?

First, the question is wrong. Nobody is doing this. A screen reader is an aural/brail interface to the same functions a seeing co-worker can look at. In other words, the software already has multiple interfaces, and they are concurrent so that a knowledgable blind user can actually help the seeing as much as the other way round in a learning situation. Seeing users often seem blind when faced with menu options anyway.

Second, a user interface needs to tell a user the current state, any possible changes should be announced, and feedback should be given when a command is issued. If no feedback means OK, it is still a good user interface, as long as the user can really on that fact.

Third, point&click GUIs need not the only game in town. Here I agree with you, if one thinks about speed, everyone knows using keyboard combinations is a lot faster, and it would require less hardware resources to give an aural/brail representation if you didn't need to go through the GUI first.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[Bert64]

OpenDocument gives exactly this opportunity.
These groups, instead of wasting their time complaining that current opendocument supporting apps don't support these features, should be working on developing applications specifically for the disabled market which cater exactly to their needs in the most efficient way possible, instead of bolting on "accessibility" features to existing applications which are designed with visual use in mind.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[techno-vampire]

Why have the dialog pop up at all? That's just stupid. It's slower that way.

Because the programs weren't written for blind people anymore than Windows was. The screen reader doesn't change that, it just reads off whatever the program displays.

Yes, a GUI isn't exactly the right thing for the blind, but considering that almost every program in use today uses one, what are the blind supposed to do? Not use computers because the interface isn't convenient?

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[r00t]

Yes, the programs weren't written for blind people. Fix THAT instead of awkwardly bolting stuff onto apps that were written for sighted people.

OpenOffice isn't the only game in town for OpenDocument support anymore. There are several free GUI apps, a few planned commercial GUI apps, and lots of non-GUI tools that do automated processing of documents. Clearly, writing code to handle OpenDocument isn't too terribly difficult.

So the answer is: write a word processor for blind people. Write it ONLY for blind people.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[techno-vampire]

Writing a new, specialized word processor and getting all the needed features in it would take years. What are blind people supposed to do in the mean time? And once you've written a word procesor, you'll need a spread sheet, a database, etcetera, etectrea, etcetera. Isn't it easier just to make what we already have work with the screen readers we already have? What you don't seem to understand is that most blind people don't want special programs, they want a way to work with what's already there. Unlike you, they know that special programs just marginalize them even further.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[r00t]

A hack on top of a GUI program will never work as well as a program designed from the start to be used without a visual interface.

A hack on top of a GUI program will be slow to operate. Slowness marginalizes people. It's important to be able to keep up with others. Slowness is sure to be very frustrating as well.

Re:OpenOffice should not support the blind.

[techno-vampire]

In a perfect world, you'd probably be right. Alas, this isn't a perfect world, it never will be and what would work in a perfect world is irrrelevant. Just because using a screen reader in a GUI is slower than using a program designed for the blind would be is no reason not to use it until and unless such a program is, in fact, written. Currently, using a screen reader is considerably faster than sitting there with folded hands waiting until somebody designs, codes, debugs and distrubutes a perfect program for you. If you're so deturmined that all blind people should be able to use programs designed for them, why don't you write them?

Format != Application

[BobPaul]

However, I don't think that's the crux of the problem. People with disabilites are more concerned that ODF incorporate handling for text readers and such from the outset and not have to be bludgeoned into doing it later.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure it's not the format causing the problem but the applications. ODF doesn't support disibilities any better than DOC does. However, Microsoft Word supports disibility add-ins MUCH better than OpenOffice. Don't confuse the format with the application. The screen readers, etc interface with MS Word, not with the documents themselves.

If OpenOffice had better support for disibility programs, then fine. If MS Word had support for ODF, then also fine; people with disabilities could use MS Word and read/write ODF. If another office product came about with superb support for disibilities and also handled ODF natively, then also fine. The plugin handles ODF support for Word, which is in the "fine" category.

Re:Format != Application

[richlv]

However, disibility add-ins support Microsoft Word MUCH better than [they support] OpenOffice.

there, fixed.

What a load of bullshit.

[mrchaotica]

If it was so hard to add accessibility to the OS, how did Apple manage it so well, then?!

Re:What a load of bullshit.

[Fordiman]

I'm talking at a code level, not at a conceptual level (which is where Apple marketing always works).

Apple's accessibility features, like Microsoft's, are all at the application and common/dynamic/shared library level.

My above post was meant to show that the other places to put a library - OS and GUI/API - are not suitable if you want the library to be universally accessible, especially in an OSS environment where people don't want to be locked in to a given word processor, much less desktop environment.

Re:What a load of bullshit.

[mrchaotica]

Apple's accessibility features, like Microsoft's, are all at the application and common/dynamic/shared library level.

No they're not. The screen magnification is at the GUI level. Also, I'm not clear on the distinction you're making between the "common/dynamic/shared library level" and the "API level." As far as the user is concerned, the "desktop environment" and the "operating system" are the same thing, so those are the same thing too.

Re:What a load of bullshit.

[Fordiman]

*blinks*

You obviously don't understand, and there's a good chance that any explanation I give is going to be tossed away as an 'arbitrary distinction'. I'll let it go, but know that the memory space (ie: kernel/user) and disposition (desktop environment component or independent shared object) of a library versus its size, use and impact is very important from a programmer's and OS-writer's POV.

I'll just put it another way: Apple could do it because they didn't have to deal with a picky community. They could just force whatever version of whateve they felt was best down their users' throats. You can't DO that in the OSS community; you can't just shove TTS capability, for example, into KDE. The Gnome users will bitch and moan and pressure Gnome into doing the same, the KDE users will bitch and moan and say TTS package X is better than this Y crap, and why aren't they using that one.

You can, of course, get away with choosing a specific package at a distribution level - and this already happens (Ubuntu and Kubuntu both have very good internationalized TTS capabilities, implemented at the shared library level) - but that doesn't make it apply to all Linuxes.

Oh, and the Magnifier in Linux is both there, made as part of X.org, and has been around for ages (since '95, at least; it's one of the crappy little programs that you mess with just 'cos it's in /usr/X11R6/bin when you're a firey new linux hacker).

Re:What a load of bullshit.

[mrchaotica]

[K]now that the memory space (ie: kernel/user) and disposition (desktop environment component or independent shared object) of a library versus its size, use and impact is very important from a programmer's and OS-writer's POV.

On the other hand, none of that is important at all from the disabled user's point of view.

I'll just put it another way: Apple could do it because they didn't have to deal with a picky community.

This I can agree with. However, it is not the same argument as the one I originally called "bullshit." Before, you were arguing that accessibility shouldn't be built into any OS for technical reasons, whereas now you're arguing that it can't be built into a Free OS for social ones.

Re:What a load of bullshit.

[Fordiman]

No, I argued from point one that accessibility shouldn't be built into a free OS for sociotechnical reasons.

I fucking hate it when people don't pay attention.

Where's the Vendor lock in?

[BobPaul]

Saying "oh, disabled people can just stick to Word" leaves the disabled community in practically the same situation as before, except that now there's a higher chance that they'll encounter machines with some word-processor other than MS Word installed on it.

Bullocks. Utter bullocks. "A higher chance that they'll encounter machines with some word-processors other than MS word" doesn't matter. I've used MS word for years, and do you know how many screen readers and brail devices I had operational on my computer? NONE.

At our school we have a special computer lab for those who need the extra accessibility applications. Even though we have Word installed on the whole campus, those with special needs can't use 98% of the campus computers; the screen readers and brail hardware are not present. (This is necessary because the accesability apps don't work until the user is logged in, and we require students type a username and password on the rest of campus.)

Now, if we were to switch to OpenOffice, which I don't forsee, and we had that plugin for Word to allow ODF support we could have Office in the accessibility lab and OpenOffice everywhere else. That would be a significant cost savings. 15 or 20 copies of Word vs 300.

The same is true for businesses. Susie with special needs will need a copy of Word and the business will have to pay the extra cost. However, the rest of the staff can freely use OpenOffice or whatever the hell else. I don't see any vendor lock in.

Re:Where's the Vendor lock in?

[lysergic.acid]

First off, blindness isn't the only kind of disability out there. Secondly, you don't seem to have any clue as to what kind of accessibility features are included with Word. Just because you have never had to use these features, and thus have never looked for them, does not mean that they don't exist. Also, our society's general failure to take into account the needs of the disabled is not justification for the continuance of this problem.

Right now there are tons of features that make Word more usable for people with all sorts of disbilities. A lot of these features are used by people without handicaps as well. We don't realize that they provide vital accessibility improvements for the handicapped because they seem to accomplish tasks that are trivial for us. But for people with disabilities, these features indispensible. If you want to get a better idea of the kind of features that Microsoft offers for the disabled, then visit the Microsoft Accessibility website. Please educate yourself before spouting off ignorant uninformed nonsense.

Lastly, if you can't see the vendor lock-in (and other problems) created by the situations you described then you really need to think a bit harder (Hint: Imagine if you were handicapped). Your inability to empathize with others in a different situation from yours is really quite sad.

Re:Where's the Vendor lock in?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is there is no vendor lock in for the FILE FORMAT. In other words if you create on OpenDocument format file you can open that file in program XYZ or ABC or WORD. Whichever program offers you the features that you need.

Re:Where's the Vendor lock in?

[catman]

Interesting. So it has nothing to do with Office/OpenOfficeorg, actually, it's in the user interface of the operating system.

Someone (TM) should write up a comparison list showing the corresponding features in KDE/GNOME. At first glance most of the XP features have exact counterparts in KDE, at least. I have tried text to speech in KDE, but so far it's only available in a few languages.

Re:Where's the Vendor lock in?

[BobPaul]

Lastly, if you can't see the vendor lock-in (and other problems) created by the situations you described then you really need to think a bit harder (Hint: Imagine if you were handicapped). Your inability to empathize with others in a different situation from yours is really quite sad.

If I were handicapped and working for a business that only had OpenOffice I would bring it to the attention of my employer and they would either purchase Office for me. There are laws that protect against things like that.

Why don't they add accessibility support themselve

[Anonymous Coward]

... it's open source after all.

oh I forgot, they're worthless gimps LOL

Massachusetts Should Do It

[bill_mcgonigle]

Anyone anywhere is free to write an app or plugin - heck, build a set-top box even - that can easily handle the needs of the disabled or anyone else to use the format.

I'd like to see a cost comparison between contracting for a screenreader package for OOO, even with one of the big players on the market already and buying a copy of Office for every government PC in MA.

On second thought, I don't really need to see the breakdown.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[lazarusdishwasher]

My point was less about odf and accessibility and more about appropiate use of his funds.

As several people have pointed out anybody can code thier own odf reader, and since the article states that several groups are already working on the problem I am wondering why he needs to bring a lawsuit against the state when he could instead use the money to solve the problem buy hiring programers instead of lawyers.

It seems that every week there is a different group claiming the world is going to end and everybody has to stop what they are doing to fix whatever problem they have found. If groups can come up with the money to [lobby politicians, bring lawsuits, or make advertising campaigns] why can't they come up with the money to find a solution to fix the problem.

I have found that if you want people to change thier ways you have to have a good reason for the change and a drop in replacement to replace the problem.

Incentive = ability to change in future

[Ahnteis]

Their incentive is the ability to change to another word processor they like in the future without losing all their documents.

Microsoft is afraid of competition

[penguin-collective]

it is about the fact that the major software that supports the OpenDocument formats does not have adequate accessibility

MS Office supports ODF (through a plug-in), so the point is moot.

I find it funny that many people seem to be pointing at the fact that Microsoft Office will have an ODF plugin and that those disabled people should just use that. This only affirms the fact that Microsoft Office is a superior product to all of its competitors, or at least the open source ones supporting OpenDocument.

No, it only affirms that people believe it has superior accessibility right now. But even if Microsoft really were the overall best office suite in the market (not an unreasonable assertion), so what? That's the end result of a decade of vendor lock-in and monopolistic behavior. Microsoft Office is, for practical purposes, the best office suite because Microsoft has killed all the competitors through monopolistic practices.

Ask yourself this: why has Microsoft consistently refused to open up their format? If they were secure in the belief that their product is much better than everybody else's, then everybody would be buying and using it, even if other products had the ability to read and write it. But, instead, they have chosen a technically worse, incompatible "alternative" XML format for Office, patented it, and made it the dfeault.

In reality, Microsoft themselves keeps demonstrating that they know that their product has serious problems and that they fear they'd lose lots of market share in a competitive market because, while there may or may not be good competitors out there right now, once the format is open, there will be good competitors.

ODF to speech

[fritsd]

Well, how's this for a "low-tech solution"?

unzip -p mydocument.odt content.xml | sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g' | festival --tts

It's not that good for daily use, but hey I wrote it in 1 minute :-). Using it for .ods spreadsheets and .odp and .odg graphics is left as an exercise to the reader though :-(

You need the following programs installed: unzip, sed, festival, and a festvox diphone database for your language. On debian-like linuces (Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu) try

apt-get install unzip sed festival

I think this will install a male american voice database by default, which for english text should be OK.

Re:ODF to speech

[16K Ram Pack]

Nice.

I was about to say "so what exactly are the problems".

This would be a great thing for slashdotters to do. Approach this organisation and say "what do you need, accessibility-wise with ODF", and get them to detail how it impairs particular disabilities, solve them, and make the problem go away.

Accessibilty only from 3rd party add-ons

[SgtChaireBourne]

People with disabilites are concerned that the applications which currently support ODF do not support text readers and such to the same level that the Microsoft Office suite supports those devices. With assistive technology, they can access electronically-stored documents in MS Office proprietary format better than they can (currently) access electronically-stored documents in ODF format (without using the plug-in).

But wait; there's a flaw to that argument Microsoft doesn't want anyone to notice.

There's a second thing that MS doesn't want you to notice either: that all accessibilty tools are made by third parties in spite of MS. Documentation for MS APIs is incomplete, often inaccurate, and often missing. That's the crux of why both the EU and the DOJ have been finding MS not in compliance with court remedies handed out as punishement for breaking trade law.

The bite is that it would be much easier for the accessibility teams to develop software for MS' competitors, especially the Open Source ones. However, we see the Red Queen Principle at work here in that developing for MS is currently essential given it's market share, but so laborious and difficult to develop for that all resources are needed just to keep up, leaving little or now oppurtunity for expanding new markets.

And thus, they miss the entire point

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

With an open format (and especially with one supported by free software) "the disabled" can commission whomever they please to develop whatever access mechanisms they need. They can even commission someone to design and implement a word processor specifically for their needs. If funds are a problem, I'm sure they could recruit a charity or two.

"It doesn't have support for the disabled" is not an excuse to switch back to Microsoft or anyone else's proprietary system.

Surely openness is a good thing?

[Bert64]

The article comments that microsoft had to be heavily prodded and dragged to improve accessibility, they didn't really want to bother at all, and only did so because interested parties put pressure on them.

With OpenDocument, these pressure groups don't need to waste their time and money pressurising others, they can employ programmers to provide this accessibility themselves. They could modify existing applications, or even write their own applications from scratch with accessibility as the primary goal.

Doing it this way, the features they require will be written by people with the goal of making those features work as best they can, instead of an organisation that has to weigh up the pressure from the groups against the cost of implementation.

Missed Opportunity

[BrianWCarver]

The free software community is really blowing it if they don't recognize this as an opportunity. MS has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into making Office more accessible for disabled users. With an open format like ODF, any free software developer who sets his/her mind to it can start thinking of applications that could work with ODF documents in ways that would thrill the disabled community.

Why do that?

Because in the U.S. the disabled community has a loud and aggressive lobby. They have laws, like the ADA, that guarantee them non-discrimination. You want this group on your side. Because if they're on your side, then they just might turn on the other guys. And that could be ugly.

So imagine that there's plugins that make the OpenOffice.org suite the best darn thing that the disabled community has ever seen. Now imagine a sea of disabled activists outside of the Massachusetts Legislature demanding that ODF and OpenOffice.org be made available throughout the state, etc., etc.

No member of a legislature wants to explain why s/he is supporting software from the trillion dollar company instead of the software that the disabled community says makes their lives easier.

If the free software community thinks about how doing this is in their own self-interest, then they'll build that software.

Relevant groklaw links

[fritsd]

Here are some related stories I found on groklaw, about J.A.W.S, Freedom Scientific, and accessibility APIs: I remembered they had a discussion about exactly this topic on 26 October 2005

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c372840

http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050925165302314&title=See+the+interesting+set+ of+OPPOSING+comments%2C+result+of+disinformation+c ampaign%3F&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid =361787#c362023

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 321191#c373108

Disclaimer: I've never used JAWS, I'm not disabled, and I don't use Microsoft.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[16K Ram Pack]

I too worked with a blind programmer. I remember his concern that as software development was going towards GUI-based development, how this would affect him.

Re:Welcome to Open Source

[Kilz]

They ARE involved. They've kicked off a dialogue and raised the awareness level of the issue of accessibility in open-sourced apps. Writing code isn't the only way to participate in the open source movement.

A dialog is just another word for whine. Complaining is all we are seeing, no actions or ideas. Are you saying that disabled people cant write code? Anyway here is a FOSS solution, its a knoppix based distro for the visually impaired. http://oralux.org/

Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

He's more then welcome to contribute code to these projects to help make then more usable by the disabled faster.

Really seems to me that alot of the disabled (not all) suffer from a glorified form of laziness. Literally, "I have trouble doing this for myself, so everyone should just do it for me." And they get away with it because they are disabled. Most of the accessability claims are not valid anyway, only a matter of learning how to use them in another application. This would be the real problem, he might just have to learn to do something for himself after he's gotten used to it being done another way.

Guess what? That problem affects "pro" abled people as well.

I'm not saying there are not accessibility problems at all with these suites. But I am saying that alot of developers are not overly concerned if a blind, deaf, mute, paraphalegic midget in Zimbabwe can use all or any of the features of his application when it works for everyone else and there are features usable by the majority to get out of the pipe.

Right, that's their entire complaint

[brokeninside]

No application has been released that works with assistive technologies and, based on their past experience, this group is worried that it will take prohibitively long for such applications to be released.

Further, if present applications won't work with assistive technologies when reading/writing the ODF format, then it follows that it is the file format itself that is breaking existing solutions. If Word can presently be useful for people with certain disabilities except when using ODF documents and if ODF format is required, then requiring the file format is harming those people.

But, let's be clear, that is a big if. I don't know enough about MS Office internals and the way they handle imported documents with regards to assistive technologies. My point is only that this MAY be a valid complaint, not that it IS a valid complaint. And it is a complaint that I think ought to be seriously addressed and one that most of the posters here don't really understand because they're assuming that if Application X works in a particular way with format Y, then it will also work that same way with format Z. That's a bad assumption and one that has the possibility of making lives difficult for a fair number of people.