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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."
From the article:
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:
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.
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.
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!
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
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.
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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
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...
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.
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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?
... scratch an itch, but wouldn't it be cool to actually help those, who need it - instead of just helping yourself?
None of this "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" crap, but just jump in to it?
I know, I know
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
...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.
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.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.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.
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.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
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.
/.ers will be bashing on Microsoft again for their supposed lack of innovation and good products by the end of the day.
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
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.
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?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
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:
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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)!
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