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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."
As was mentioned in a recent /. article, they can always use word and (soon) be able to export their documents to ODF format.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
As someone without a working soul, I have felt very accommodated by Microsoft's team.
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.
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
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.
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
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
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.
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
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.
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.
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.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.