FOSS community, disabled users must learn to communicate (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

NewsForge reports that the FOSS community and disabled users have a serious communication problem. "An example of the need for better communication between the FOSS community and disability advocates emerged last year, when government officials in Massachusetts announced their intention to transition to the use of OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument). FOSS supporters celebrated the announcement, noting that the switch would reduce public expenditures, guarantee perpetual access to data, and end discrimination. FOSS supporters, however, were unprepared for criticism from organizations that fight discrimination against the disabled, such as the Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) and the Bay State Council for the Blind (BSCB)."

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FOSS community, disabled users must learn to communicate (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 20, 2006 18:42 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

Oh, I entirely agree with the criticisms for the disabled. That is, in my opinion, an inexcusable deficit, since Open Source's greatest strength is the ability to support users outside of the "mainstream". I would argue that Open Source is also poor on its support of minorities on the fringe - people who could be a major asset to the world and/or who could benefit significantly from technology but can't because the barriers (language, conceptual modelling, access, whatever) are simply too great.

"Open Source cannot solve the world's problems". True. And bricks won't build a house. But having the right sort of bricks for the individual and their intent will allow a person to build their own house, and to me, THAT is what Open Source is all about.

We need real standards and guidelines

Posted Mar 20, 2006 19:35 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

Just e-mailed the DPC, suggesting that they propose a set of guidelines and/or standards that coders could test their software against - not just for blind users, but for ANY disabled user. This would eliminate any future argument, for starters, but would also give coders something more concrete than guesswork and a vague notion of maybe some of the more visible disabilities.

I haven't the foggiest if they'll actually do any such thing, or indeed what kind of effort would be made to follow any such guidelines or standards. However, if this issue is to be resolved at all, it'll be resolved by knowing the real user requirements from real users who can identify the real itch and tell the programmers when it has been really scratched. Anything else is imaginary or - at best - complex.

FOSS community, disabled users must learn to communicate (NewsForge)

Posted Mar 20, 2006 23:07 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

ODF has been in the works (starting as the document format of OOo 1.1) for a number of years now. Strangely enough noone bothred commenting on any disabilities issues.

Such outcires came in a strange coincidance only immdiately after the strange threat the Microsoft won't support ODF.

Frankly, I fail to see how a standard can have such problems. A certain software that implements it (OOo, kword or whatever), maybe. But the document format itself?

oh, and, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060319121128416 might be relevant.

Shills or Puppets

Posted Mar 21, 2006 17:40 UTC (Tue) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

I seem to recall that a number of the complaints raised in the Massachusetts ODF debacle were shown to be coming from shills or puppets.

A search of Groklaw on Peter Korn's name should give a pretty good corpus of reading material on the topic.

As many have pointed out ODF is a document format ... and is therefore accessibility agnostic. It is the implementation of applications which support the format that must be considered in the context of accessibility. I'm sure that this is evident to anyone with half a brain who considers the issues for half a moment.

However, we can understand that people are over-simplifying and equating ODF with free software (because one is perceived as an enabling technology for the other). The more astute observer will surmise that accessibility support features for free (FOSS) applications could be a lucrative business opportunity. (Note that the accessibility software for proprietary software is not free ... in fact it's quite expensive and those costs are not subsidized by the major mainstream software vendors --- Microsoft essentially does nothing substantive to provide adequate accessibility, for example).

Even after considering these factors we can still see that there is a disconnect and that there is work to be done. Questions arise: what to do? who should do it? who will pay for it?

At a certain point I'm going to be very unpopular by arguing that: each group of affected people (blind, deaf, etc) should each describe what they need (what to do), that wherever possible those be the same people to do it (why should do it) or that they find and hire people to do it on their behalf and under their direction, and that they pay for it themselves or via existing subsidies and initiatives (who will pay for it).

I don't accept, at face value, that the alleged advocates in this story were representative of people with disabilities in general. To put it bluntly free software gives them the right to make applications as accessible as they wish in whatever means they wish. However, that freedom comes with the responsibility to do so.

Basically it comes down to: put up or shut up. If you don't want to be considered "crippled" then do something about it. Free software is obviously far less "crippling" than being wholly dependent on support from a mega-corporation which has, historically, posed very real and very expensive accessibility barriers.

Saying "change is bad" is, quite frankly, casting a blind eye to its inevitability and if suggestions by the free software community to invest in some change now for the purpose of controlling one's own destiny for the rest of eternity falls about deaf ears, if that's the case then it's the blind and the deaf who will suffer thereby.

(Ironically I don't think that the physically blind and deaf are the ones who aren't seeing this clearly nor listening --- as I said at the outset I think it's some shills and puppets who are simply taking this as an opportunity to call attention to their own pet political and economic agenda. Just because some of them may be "people with disabilities" still doesn't mean make them representives for all, it doesn't give them a mandate).

JimD