GNOME accessibility developers concerned about Oracle's commitment

There are concerns in the GNOME accessibility development community about what the Oracle takeover of Sun means for the efforts led by Sun's Accessibility Project Office (APO). Orca project lead Willie Walker has been laid off and is looking for work, possibly in areas that will not allow him to continue contributing to Orca. In addition, assistive technology specialist Joanmarie Diggs has published an open letter to Oracle concerning the future of the APO and its work. "Last week, Oracle laid off two more members of Sun's already-decimated APO. One of those let go happened to be both the Orca project lead and the GNOME Accessibility project lead, Willie Walker. I truly hope this was an oversight on Oracle's part, and one that will be rectified very soon. Because if it is not, and if no other company steps forward to continue this work, the accessibility of the GNOME desktop will become the open source equivalent of an unfunded mandate, doomed ultimately to fail."

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