Balancing accessibility and software freedom [LWN.net]

August 4, 2010

This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has recently turned its attention to accessibility. The organization appointed Chris Hofstader as director of access technology in May, published a statement addressing accessibility, and started an accessibility list to discuss accessibility work. Now the organization is faced with the question of how to bridge the gap between free software and accessibility without an interim solution.

Despite decades of hard work, the unfortunate reality is that free software does not meet the needs of all users. In particular, free software is still well behind proprietary software in providing tools for developers and users who require assistive technologies. Some technology, like the Orca screen reader has come along well, but users that depend on speech recognition software find themselves without a reliable alternative. This isn't new information, but a recent conversation on the GNU Accessibility list raised an interesting question: What should the Free Software Foundation (FSF) tell users that rely on assistive technologies that do not exist as free software?

One might expect that the answer would be to rely on proprietary software when necessary, and until the free software bridges the gap. Where the FSF is concerned, however, that doesn't appear to be an option. The discussion began with a post from Hofstader asking for volunteers to work on assistive technologies (AT), documentation, testing, and so on. This prompted a response from Eric S. Johansson, who said he'd "raise his hand" but with some caveats:

I believe strongly that the tools first approach you and others have spoken of misses the needs of the upper extremity disabled. their primary need is income. You can't have freedom of choice if you can't make money. For example, today, if I want to make money, I must use NaturallySpeaking. There is no choice and the speech recognition projects available today or the near future are not sufficient to replace NaturallySpeaking (I.e. they couldn't write this e-mail and they take way too much time to set up).

I would propose organizing the project to first satisfy the economic needs of the disabled community, so they can make money, they can be independent and as a result, be able to make choices about software freedom.

The issue at hand is whether it's acceptable to create bridging tools that would be free software but depend on proprietary tools, initially, like Dragon Naturally Speaking. Johansson's request does not seem entirely unreasonable. Free software speech recognition is not currently an option, and, for some users, the only way to use a computer effectively is with speech recognition software. It's not a question of opting to use proprietary software out of convenience, but necessity.

That, however, doesn't seem to be acceptable to the FSF. The issue, according to Hofstader, is that endorsing a temporary solution that includes proprietary software would "either postpone or entirely scrap the development of a libre engine that we can endorse." To protect users' freedom, Hofstader says that FSF/GNU cannot "take anything away" by using a temporary proprietary solution. According to Richard Stallman, it requires taking a long view rather than being concerned about the short-term inability of users to work with their computers.

In the long term, no software task inherently requires non-free software. In the short term, there are proprietary programs that do things that free software currently cannot do. There is no dispute about this fact. The question is what conclusions to draw from it.

To draw the conclusion that we should grant legitimacy to those proprietary programs tends to lead to more use and more development of proprietary programs. It may seem convenient in the short term, but in the long term it perpetuates the problem. It does this both directly and indirectly: directly by encouraging the use of specific non-free programs, and indirectly by pouring water on the fire of our movement to eliminate them.

Thus we must steel ourselves to refuse the sort of short-term "compassion" that makes injustice and dependence worse. Work carried out under GNU auspices must be consistent with our principles.

One wonders how a user's dependency on non-free software, when driven by a physical inability to use conventional input methods, could be worse. If denied the ability to work in conjunction with the FSF on the most pressing concerns, the alternative seems to be that accessibility development work will be carried on elsewhere. Johansson predicts that in the absence of a GNU-led project, a non-free alternative is still likely to emerge:

You failed on hurd because it didn't get done early enough to garner a significant mind share. I'm predicting, if you follow this path, you will fail because a hybrid or even a totally non-free approach will be developed first and lock-in user mind share. the end result will be users will be locked into less free software and there'll be no way for you to displace it...

This is reality. People are hurting and need help now. Not 15 years from now. Now! let's apply steady pressure and free them up a bit at a time and get them sold on the important freedoms the free software foundation represents. At the very end, you ride to the rescue with a good recognizer and they will be a complete solution in the shortest possible time. We will have a working solution in the shortest possible time minimizing the pain and suffering of disabled users. Seriously man, there are few better ways I can think of to spend a life.

Instead, Johansson urges the FSF to accept a "compassionate exception" that would allow interim solutions. However, the FSF seems unwilling to consider such a measure. As a result, Johansson seems to have abandoned the discussion and GNU Accessibility list as a whole.

The good news is that the FSF isn't the only organization working on accessibility in general or voice recognition in particular. The GNOME Project has been particularly active working on accessibility, though it has been affected by Oracle layoffs recently. GNOME's Orca has made tremendous strides as a screen reader, and is work is going on with KDE to use Orca with Qt applications so Orca can be used on either desktop.

Those who wish to help with efforts to develop a free speech recognition program should see the VoxForge project, which seeks to collect transcribed speech for use developing free and open source speech recognition engines. There's also the Simon Listens project to create an open source speech recognition program.

A hard-line approach of all or nothing is not going to appeal to or help users who depend on assistive technologies, regardless of the licensing they're under. Given the response from the FSF on this issue it would appear that it is not going to be the right organization to lead the charge for accessibility. The insistence of licensing purity while disregarding the immediate needs of the target audience for the accessibility initiative does not bode well for the FSF's leadership in this area.

Index entries for this article
GuestArticles	Brockmeier, Joe

to post comments

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 3:47 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (7 responses)

Marketing and mind share has long been the FSF's (and RMS') biggest problem. I'm quite sure that the term "Open Source" is used more often due to the absofreakinglutely idiotic decision to use the highly ambiguous and largely meaningless term "Free". When you have to footnote every conversion on the top to not only describe the term's meaning but also make sure the audience didn't assume you meant the more obvious definition, you have a very large self-inflicted problem.

Likewise, project names like GNU (or the "proper pronunciation of "GNOME") are just ugly and unattractive. Nobody likes guttural sounding words, at least not in English-speaking cultures.

The desire to force people to prefix that guttural name before the rolls-off-the-tongue "Linux" moniker is just worse. Not only do you make the name uglier, you make it longer! People use names like "Vista" not "Microsoft Windows Vista". People at lazy typists and speakers (again, especially in English cultures). If GNU had a less hideous name, RMS might even have managed to get people to that instead of Linux. There's just no chance in hell of getting people to say "GNU/Linux" in common usage,
Ever.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 6:02 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Nobody likes guttural sounding words, at least not in English-speaking cultures.

Your prejudice is showing.

English, of course, is descended from the West Germanic languages, and pretty much all Americans (including the Native Americans) have a guttural language in their descent.

I like the sound of Chutzpah especially.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 12:56 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

"Gnaag" sounds guttural and unpleasant. "GNOME" and "GNU" don't, at least not to my English-speaking audio subsystem. Slightly jarring and pretentious, since the syllable-initial cluster /gn/ violates the contemporary phonotactic constraints of Modern English just about everywhere, but not unpleasant. The "making the name longer" bit, on the other hand, is a very good point.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 15:27 UTC (Thu) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm quite sure that the term "Open Source" is used more often due to the absofreakinglutely idiotic decision to use the highly ambiguous and largely meaningless term "Free".

Whereas "open" is completely unambiguous, right?

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 20:51 UTC (Thu) by Fats (guest, #14882) [Link] (3 responses)

I am maybe just a simple non-native English speaking foreigner but to me 'open source software' is much less ambiguous than 'free software'. Sure, the marketing people have probably misappropriated every word in the universe; like the word 'open' in the UNIX/POSIX world is.

greets,
Staf.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 6, 2010 9:10 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (2 responses)

Thing is, I look at the phrase "open source software" and I go "Well, how open is open? What can I do with the source?" - quite simply, it needs almost as much explanation as "free software", and much more than "software libre".

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 9, 2010 12:37 UTC (Mon) by Fats (guest, #14882) [Link]

I'm from Belgium and the other part of my country speaks French. To me the term "software libre" just means "software you may do whatever you want with" or "software without any strings attached". So it would better fit for BSD style open source than for GPL licensed software.
To me, it does not even have to mean that source code is included.

greets,
Staf.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 12, 2010 6:28 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

True. The specific meaning of open, is subject to interpretation.

But atleast it makes it clear that it is talking about the sourcecode being open -- i.e. oposite of closed, which is definitely the right direction.

Whereas "Free Software" runs the risk of being thought of primarily as in 'for zero cost', and doesn't indicate that it's got anything to do with sourcecode at all.

Thus, imho, both terms are possible to misunderstand, and need some explanation to make clear exactly what is meant. But it's a lot easier to go REALLY wrong with "Free software".

Especially since "zero cost" is the default interpretation most people will choose if presented with "Free [product]" where product is something that often costs money.

"Free icecream" "Free beer" "Free game" "Free entry"

True, the same people choose a better interpretation if free is used in connection with something that isn't seen as a "product" that normally costs money. They do get the right idea if you say "Free elections" or talk about having a "Free press" (not the same as "Free Newspaper")

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 5:36 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (13 responses)

Interestingly, T V Raman, the blind author of EmacSpeak, posts in the same thread that Stallman raised the same objection over a decade ago to the use of a proprietary text-to-speech program with EmacSpeak; Raman to this day uses a proprietary tool. RMS is equally dismissive to Raman. I think RMS has lost it. He thinks the success of Linux is the success of GNU, and his grip on reality is tenuous now.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 5:53 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (12 responses)

I think Stallman is a good guy, but his logic is far from fallible.

How would most of the GNU tools been originally written if the authors did not depend on proprietary tools to run the computer and host the source code on their file systems?

Before Linux came along was Stallman using a totally Free Software operating system kernel? Did not he himself depend on proprietary tools to create free software tools at one point or another!? Was GCC's first compiler hand built from assembly?

If Free software is not usable then it's worthless! Is it better to be worthless or is it better to depend on proprietary software until a free software solution is created?

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 9:01 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (11 responses)

GNU was developed initially on computers running proprietary software. At the time, there were no computers that could be used without proprietary software, so writing GNU would have been simply impossible otherwise.

Stallman described this exception as: it can be OK to use a proprietary program for the purpose of writing a free replacement for that program.

(This is mentioned in at least one of the essays on gnu.org/philosophy but I can't remember which one(s) right now)

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 11:53 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (10 responses)

So, in this case, RMS's argument is that using non-free stuff is OK if it's something that *he* would need to use. But if it's something that he wouldn't need to use (e.g. accessibility software), then it's suddenly unacceptable, even if a free replacement does not exist.

I don't expect this sort of irrationality from RMS normally.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 13:00 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]

You're being unfair. RMS believes that it's acceptable to use non-free programs strictly to study how they work in order to replace them. That would apply to Naturally Speaking as well as any other program. Using a non-free program for any other purpose is always unacceptable to him.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 15:51 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (8 responses)

That's not the case at all.

For example, he was looking into a speech-to-text program in the early 90s because he developed hand problems that prevented him from typing. He was coding GCC at the time, but he decided that he *couldn't* use a proprietary speech-to-text program to allow him to continue writing GCC. He could only use a proprietary speech-to-text program for the purpose of writing a free speech-to-text program.

I.e. he'd use a piece of non-free software only if his use would *directly* liberate others from depending on *that specific* piece of non-free software.

So the exception he accepts is much narrower than what you criticised.

(To finish the anecdote, since he wanted to work on GCC rather than starting a speech-to-text project, he got help from others, including Guy L. Steele, who would type with him over their shoulder dictating code to them.)

RMS own handicap

Posted Aug 5, 2010 18:36 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

I had forgotten this. Yes, of course, RMS is a candidate for use of a speech-to-text program. For years he hired interns from MIT who he essentially used as transcription software. He was very literal in his speech to them, didn't expect them to do anything but type exactly what he said.

Later on his hands recovered to the point that he can type on some keyboards, but not really comfortably.

It seems he knows what he's giving up.

RMS own handicap

Posted Aug 8, 2010 20:09 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Wow. OK, so as usual RMS is speaking of things he's done himself... even if this is so extreme that expecting anyone else to do it verges on the delusional, he has at least tried it on his own.

(It's amazing that he *does* expect anyone else to listen to him when he suggests that they should do as he did in this area, though.)

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 6, 2010 7:19 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (5 responses)

Good for Stallman. Meanwhile, a lot of people who need accessibility software don't have friends like Guy Steele, or the ability (quoting Bruce above) to hire interns to "essentially use as transcription software".

The one word RMS uses more frequently than any other, in connection with "free software", is "ethical". Telling a blind user that he should not, in a free-market commercial transaction, purchase a binary-only program that will help him work and communicate with others, does not strike me as in the least ethical.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 6, 2010 14:18 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (4 responses)

RMS didn't say that. He only said that GNU shouldn't endorse or assist the use of nonfree software, even for blind users.

He might say what you suggest, or he might have better thought out position, such as acknowledging that society's lack of provisions for people with disabilities is also a social problem, or the way copyright law blocks blind users from helping themselves is a social problem, and using nonfree software might be bad but it could be the lesser of two bad things. I don't know.

And if he said that GNU should endorse nonfree screenreader software, would the moaners be silent?

When GNU was doing nothing, no one complained. When they start a push to help blind users, they get moaned at for not endorsing nonfree software (as if that should suprise anyone!). Some people just like complaining about other people's work.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 9, 2010 9:44 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (3 responses)

>RMS didn't say that. He only said that GNU shouldn't endorse or assist the use of nonfree software, even for blind users.

This is my interpretation too.

I think many people forget that the FSF and the GNU project are just organizations with a purpose: the advance of Free Software. They are not the only projects and organizations out there, and sure Richard Stallman does not speak for everybody, nor does he pretend to.

I often see comments that seem to imply that we should expect some kind of "moral" guidance from the FSF. That's just silly. The FSF has a set of principles to guide *themselves*. You can share them completely, in part, or not at all, but one should not "outsource" it's own moral behavior. In particular, the fact that the FSF doesn't endorse the use of a proprietary tool doesn't mean that people can't use them if that's what they think it's best for them.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 9, 2010 10:35 UTC (Mon) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (2 responses)

Really, this is not a matter of opinion. Stallman wants to ban proprietary software, and he would if he could. This is laid out in The GNU Manifesto: "Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned." And similar language elsewhere. In fact, in the very same thread under discussion here, he says "Proprietary software is digital colonization, unjust and evil. Our goal is therefore to eliminate proprietary software."

If it is silly to expect moral guidance from the FSF (and I agree it is), it is silly for RMS to rant about ethics as he does in most of his writings (good example here). RMS declaring proprietary software evil doesn't make it so, but try telling him that.

So, when you say,

>the fact that the FSF doesn't endorse the use of a proprietary tool doesn't mean that people can't use them if that's what they think it's best for them

it doesn't mean that to you and me: but RMS does consider it unethical (and indeed, being a willing accessory to evil.)

Actually, the entire GNU movement, it seems to me now (though it may not have been obvious 30 years ago), was based on a misdiagnosis. RMS's original problem was being unable to change the control program for a printer: but the problem was not the closed-source program, but the opaque interface. If the printer standards had been open and documented, RMS could have written his own driver program.

Likewise, if makers of nonstandard devices the world over suddenly decided to open-source their opaque and unintelligible drivers, we would not be much better off. If they opened their device documentation and specifications, we would be better off.

OpenBSD understands that open standards in hardware are the most important thing for users. RMS, despite his original motivation that illustrates this point, still doesn't seem to get it.

(And if proprietary text-speech programs were "banned", or if blind computer users are dissuaded from them because they are "unjust" and "evil", it is hard to say who would be better off. Certainly not the blind users! Even if it is an evil, allowing such a tool to plug into an otherwise free platform surely is a lesser evil than forcing such users to all-proprietary solutions? No, not to RMS. Not only is such software "evil" but there are no shades: it is all irredeemably evil regardless of quantity or context.)

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 10, 2010 17:41 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

You're inventing stuff again. For example:

And if proprietary text-speech programs were "banned" [...]

You're extrapolating what you think RMS would call for, and you've gotten it wrong. RMS has said that if a law could be passed tomorrow to ban proprietary software, he would be against it. His reasoning is based on the idea that laws that don't express the will of the people are unjustified, and because there are freedom of expression considerations. First public opinion has to be changed, and then society could consider a law banning proprietary software, or banning just the sale of proprietary software.

You've also a factual mistake here:

the problem was not the closed-source program, but the opaque interface. If the printer standards had been open and documented, RMS could have written his own driver program.

Nope, it wasn't about drivers or APIs or documentation. They previously had a printer that ran free software, and they added a feature to the printer to send out a message when it was jammed. Then they got a new printer and wanted to add this feature to the printer, but couldn't because they didn't have the source code.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 11, 2010 7:04 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link]

The word "banned" was not mine: it was taken from the GNU manifesto and I quoted it in adequate context, I believe. A literal-minded person could argue that RMS is not himself calling for a ban, only saying it would be nice if the ban occurred. And he wrote, as of a couple of weeks ago, "Our goal is therefore to eliminate proprietary software." Of course proprietary software can theoretically be eliminated via free-market competition, but surely not even RMS believes that that is a practical possibility.

Can you supply a link to RMS's stance as you describe it? It sounds inconsistent with his reiterated "good versus evil" view. Slavery was evil: if public opinion supported slavery, would RMS have been opposed to banning it? I think not.

I stand corrected about the printer, but that makes it even more irrelevant. It is usually impossible to change the software (firmware) on a device like a printer. The realistic situation today would be that the printer can communicate a paper jam, and the proprietary Windows driver can read the communication, but the interface is not documented properly and therefore that functionality is missing on a Linux system.

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 5:51 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (8 responses)

Remember that RMS developed the GNU system on a very proprietary Sun. I think he'd be receptive to the idea of handicapped users on Dragon who did their own development of a Free speech recognition system. And of course they can do so today, using Windows. But that's not what is being asked of RMS. What Mr. Johansson seems to be requesting is to put mostly passive users on Dragon and Free Software, and then transition them to a bleeding-edge Free speech recognition system when it's ready. That won't work. They won't tolerate the functional loss. We would have to have a system as good as Dragon before they'd be willing to move over. For them this isn't just an app, it's a vital prosthesis.

So, what we really need is for normally abled users to develop a system as good as Dragon first, and we get the user community only after that happens.

What an uphill battle. But I think it would only work the way RMS says it should work.

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 9:09 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (5 responses)

Here's an RMS quote which backs up your first two sentences:

Unix was (and is) proprietary software, and the GNU Project's philosophy said that we should not use proprietary software. But, applying the same reasoning that leads to the conclusion that violence in self defense is justified, I concluded that it was legitimate to use a proprietary package when that was crucial for developing a free replacement that would help others stop using the proprietary package. But, even if this was a justifiable evil, it was still an evil. [...]

From The GNU Project (about half-way down, "Donated computers").

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 10:02 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]

The Reddit AMA that RMS recently completed has the same line:
"It is ok to use a nonfree program for the purpose of developing its free replacement " (sic.) in RMS' response to Question 22.

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 11:56 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

You'll note that this restricts the space of software *for users that are not also software developers* for a relatively long time. Most users are not software developers, and really aren't going to agree with RMS that they should avoid using proprietary software (without which they can't use their machine) unless they are software developers developing a replacement.

This sort of software-development-focused morality simply does not work for anyone else, and is not going to convince them (and I say that as a software developer and Free Software advocate).

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 15:12 UTC (Thu) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link]

> Most users are not software developers, and really aren't going to agree with RMS that they should avoid using proprietary software (without which they can't use their machine) unless they are software developers developing a replacement.

For me this comes, as usual, down to the question of whether free software is a means to an end (or perhaps to several) or whether it is an end in itself. And whether people are quite honest about which it is. I can quite understand it being an end in itself for people who like that sort of thing (I do myself), but then wanting to impose it on others as a duty is like asking them to pay for your pleasures.

On the other hand, if you see free software as a means to some end (and I do see it as a useful tool for several noble purposes) you sometimes have to ask the question of whether it is worth insisting on it in a particular situation, or whether there are better means of advancing your aims.

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 16:02 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

Not really.

Most software developers faced with a software problem will not have the time to code up a fix, or don't know the language used, or don't know the library APIs. I'm a software developer, but when my web browser crashes, or if I need to open an .xyz file in GIMP and it doesn't work, I don't starting looking at source code.

What I'm saying is, the exception is limited to a small subset of software developers. It's not a general exception saying that users can ignore the ethical limits if they're software developers.

In fact, it's not really related to being a developer (anyone can become a developer, or hire a developer), it's more related to having the intention to make a general solution for everyone for the problem you are faced with.

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 8, 2010 20:15 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, I agree with the intent-to-make-a-general-solution stuff... but this often seems to be used as an excuse to condemn people who dare use non-free $whatever, e.g. RMS's response to Raman. And that is quite different, and much worse. (e.g. what does RMS think Raman should do? Drop emacspeak and everything else he's doing in favour of spending huge amounts of time on text-to-speech stuff instead, just so he can talk to RMS without getting condemned? Yeah, that's gonna fly.)

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 5, 2010 10:31 UTC (Thu) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link] (1 responses)

> What Mr. Johansson seems to be requesting is to put mostly passive users on Dragon and Free Software, and then transition them to a bleeding-edge Free speech recognition system when it's ready.
So you are saying RMS is saying that it is better to stay on full proprietary than to pull proprietary bits into a free stack, in order to avoid making ambiguous statements?

Unworkable request

Posted Aug 6, 2010 7:49 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link]

RMS is not saying "it is better to stay on full proprietary". But many users have no choice. If he will not allow proprietary bits in a free stack to make that stack usable by blind (or otherwise disabled) users, and if no other free or partially-free choices exist, then those users will be forced to use an entirely-proprietary platform (which very likely is built on Windows). Therefore they are less likely to switch to a free set-up when it becomes available. That is not RMS's stated goal, but it is the practical result of his dogmatism.

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 7:51 UTC (Thu) by grahame (guest, #5823) [Link]

Why would anyone be worried about the approval of the FSF? If they're being ridiculous and won't approve a shim between proprietary accessibility software and free applications, it has no practical impact. Just don't let them dissuade you and go ahead and write it.

Personally I'm amused every time Stallman / the FSF appear and try to assert control and leadership over GNOME. They have an interesting point of view, but the FSF seems to directly produce very little code so what practical influence can it have?

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 5, 2010 15:41 UTC (Thu) by wingo (guest, #26929) [Link]

It was Hofstader that came to GNU and wanted to make an initiative, not the FSF who tapped him. He seems to be getting some positive work done on a historically neglected part of GNU, and managed to get support from Richard.

In that context the conclusion of this article completely disregards the steps being taken from the bottom up in GNU. But what can you expect with an article that misreads a press release, claiming that the FSF has somehow made heavy-handed, blundering appointment...

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 8, 2010 18:16 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]

http://lwn.net/Articles/398693/

Balancing accessibility and software freedom

Posted Aug 24, 2010 16:54 UTC (Tue) by bumpygreen (guest, #69746) [Link]

Everyone is trying to get to the same destination, its the means to get there, the level of comfort, and the price that keeps us bargaining. Now that we have a whole bunch of sound servers why don't we try to do computers right and build applications commanded by voice as opposed to keyed entry with visual response. Its quite inefficient to juggle keyboard and mouse, ear piece and mic, wands, tablets and all the other input devices out there. Its probably time to simplify communicating with man made devices, and technology is now inexpensive enough that its possible.