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Accessibility In Linux Is Good (But Could Be Much Better)
An anonymous reader sends this report from opensource.com: GNU/Linux distributions provide great advantages over proprietary alternatives for people with disabilities. All the accessibility tools included in Linux are open source, meaning their code is readily available if you want to examine or improve it, and cost nothing. Hardware devices, of course, are still going to cost money. Additionally, accessibility software on other platforms generally contain licensing constraints on the user. ... When it comes to accessibility, Linux is not without issues. ... The number of developers who specifically work on accessibility tools is quite small. For example, there is only one Orca developer, two AT-SPI developers, and a single GTK developer. ... Developers who do not depend on assistive technologies tend to forget—or don't know—that a disabled person might want to use their application, read their web page, and so on. ... The problem is not necessarily that developers do not care. Rather, it's is that accessibility is highly specialized and requires someone with knowledge in the area, regardless of platform.
Just because it's open source doesn't mean it's great. I'd classify accessibility for blind/less sighted users to be non-existent (with the exception of a few applications). Every iteration of X Windows since X11 has been worse and worse with its implementation, and if things go wrong it is nearly impossible to get around. A few applications that implement the full GTK stack /properly/ are passable, but those that use Gnome's or KDE's tools don't pass text back to a speech engine at all.
Console is fine, but as soon as you try and use a tool that uses ncurses or any other menuing application you are SOL.
Firefox hasn't worked well with a screen reader in about 5 years. Never was able to get Chrome fully installed.
However, the adoption of Linux within workplaces can certainly be constrained by, for example, ADA requirements. The lack of proper accessibility may ultimately prevent certain businesses or organizations from implementing Linux when it would otherwise be most preferable, simply because it does not satisfy their need for compliance. I'm sure you can see the potential ripple effects from that kind of restriction and how it might impact even those developers who do take accessibility needs into consideration.
>> Instead, it's some guy blindly pursuing some nerdy "open source is the best!" dialogue like it was 2003.
Duh - the author's disabled. It's taken him 12 years just to resolve the driver issues on his adaptive devices to write and submit the article from his Linux desktop.
The reality is, most OSS developers aren't making a product.
They're working with a piece of software as a hobby. If it was a product you'd likely be legally required to implement these features.
Which is one of the many many reasons OSS doesn't always get taken seriously in business -- because the attitude of "just RTFM", or "figure it out for yourself" generally means "some guy bodged together something and can't understand why you won't give up commercially supported software to use it".
As long as the attitude of "I don't care if you need this feature" exists, the corresponding attitude of "why would I run software written by unaccountable, whiny punks?" will continue.
You don't have a product. You have a collection of parts left as an exercise for the reader.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Also, from the article:
Unlike proprietary alternatives, Fedora (and other Linux distros with the Gnome desktop) includes accessibility tools out of the box, such as:
Screen reader: A text-to-speech system to read what's on the screen
Magnifier: Helps users with visual impairments who need larger text and images
High-contrast mode: Helps users who have trouble seeing text unless contrast is corrected, such as white text on a black background, or vice versa
Mouse keys: Controls the mouse using the number pad
Sticky keys: Helps users who have trouble pressing multiple keys at once, and users who have use of only one hand
Bounce keys: To ignore rapidly pressed keys or if a key is accidentally held down
On screen keyboard: Helps users who cannot type at all, but who can use a mouse
Visual alerts: Replace system sounds with visual cues
Um... unlike what proprietary systems? He surely can't be talking about Windows, because it has every single one of these features, and has had most of them since Windows 95 two decades ago!
It's great that Linux/Gnome now also includes these features, but the author doesn't really help his cause by misrepresenting (I'm being kind in my choice of words here) the competition's features.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Actually, your view is a bit dated, as 80 percent of Linux contributions are paid by corporations. The days of Linux being a hobbyist product are long behind us.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Unlike proprietary alternatives...Linux distros with the Gnome desktop...includes accessibility tools out of the box, such as:
Screen reader A text-to-speech system to read what's on the screen
Magnifier Helps users with visual impairments who need larger text and images
High-contrast mode Helps users who have trouble seeing text unless contrast is corrected, such as white text on a black background, or vice versa
Mouse keys Controls the mouse using the number pad
Sticky keys Helps users who have trouble pressing multiple keys at once, and users who have use of only one hand
Bounce keys To ignore rapidly pressed keys or if a key is accidentally held down
On screen keyboard Helps users who cannot type at all, but who can use a mouse Visual alerts Replace system sounds with visual cues
Accessibility in Linux is good (but could be much better)
Compare:
While this article is aimed at Windows 95 much of the information on Accessibility Options also applies to Windows 3.x and Windows 98.
Making Windows 95 Accessible