Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealthand taste!

Anthony Sales tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk
Thu Dec 4 16:19:18 GMT 2008


Thanks for all of the feedback I have received so far on Vibuntu. I am
probably going to open a huge can of worms, but here goes...

The issue of whether there should be a special version of Ubuntu or a single
Ubuntu which incorporates all of the necessary accessibility features is a
complex and controversial issue. There have always been two conflicting
theories regarding accessibility: one is that an operating system should be
accessible to absolutely everybody no matter what their language or
disability might be, the other school of thought is that there should be
separate tools optimised for the target group involved. This is not easy to
answer, in an ideal world I would like to think that a single system could be
devised that was flexible enough to be universally accessible, but in
practice as the empirical evidence shows this is difficult to achieve and as
far as I know no-one has yet managed to produce such a system. (e.g. I
recently had to convert some multimedia software to work on an Arabic
language system and was horrified to find that the Arabic language goes from
right to left...)One of the dangers of producing a single universal system is
that by its very nature it must make compromises if it is to be truly
accessible to all, such that it will meet everyone's needs to some extent,
but no-ones completely. Therefore in recent years I have leaned more and more
towards specialist software written for a specific target group i.e. the
visually impaired. As long as this software is compatible with other generic
software such that communication and the transfer of information between the
different systems is possible I can see no reason to reject this approach. I
have never heard a visually impaired person complain because they can access
the same information but in a different way, but they rightly complain like
hell if they cannot get access to the information at all, or without great
effort on their part. But I would still like the specialised VI version to be
usable by sighted people through a GUI interface, so that pupils at school or
different family members could all use the same computer.

Although I think Ubuntu is absolutely brilliant if you are sighted, the fact
that several people have independently started to create their own
specialised remixes for the visually impaired is evidence enough that the
mainstream distro is not yet accessible or easy enough to use if you are
visually impaired unless you have quite a high level of IT skills to begin
with. The vast majority of visually impaired people are not hackers and don't
want to be. They just want to browse the internet, send e-mails and write
reports etc. My fantasy distro would be one that started speaking either
during or just after boot up and then allowed you to use all of the GUI apps
(including admin apps) without any tweaking, and provided magnification
either instantly or at least at the press of a button. There should be clear
instructions provided right out of the box so even a beginner with a bit of
common sense could learn how to use the system independently, without having
to trawl through forums and mailing lists etc.

I think that trying to optimise the main version of Ubuntu for VI users would
be too much of a sacrifice or change to make. It would require getting rid of
the default orange colour scheme and desktop background for something with
better contrast and larger easier to read fonts. It would require a speech
engine and/or magnification to start up without having to press any keys etc,
it would require including apps that are not in the main edition and probably
removing some to make room for necessary packages. For all of these reasons I
really do believe that in at least the short term a specialised version of
Ubuntu is necessary. The whole point of Linux is freedom, and we shouldn't be
afraid of letting people split into special interest groups. Ubuntu already
supports this approach by releasing Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edbuntu, Server
Editions, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio etc. I think it would be great if Ubuntu
themselves released a special version optimised for VI users, but I feel that
their priority at the moment is getting Ubuntu onto as many computers as
possible and rightly so. They have done wonders for the popularity of Linux
and I would not criticise any of their policies. They have far more expertise
and resources that I or probably any other of the individual developers
interested in specialised VI versions do, but the bottom line is do they
consider the VI community a significant enough group to devote a whole
version to. I wish they would, then I wouldn't have to spend hours fiddling
around to get something I think is fit for purpose. Sometimes you just have
to get off your arse and do something yourself if you want it done properly.

I also agree that it would make more sense for the developers who have been
working on this independently to collaborate in future, but again they may
have different priorities, approaches and languages which can make working
together impractical. I would of course be honoured if Ubuntu wanted to
incorporate any of the changes I make into the main version but I would
rather keep trying to solve the problems myself in parallel rather that
expect or wait for other people to do it for me. I don't want to upset
anyone, I am happy to contribute to other projects or even the main distro,
and accept help, advice and suggestions from other people. We are all on the
same side with similar goals, there are just different ways to achieve this.
The fact is that Ubuntu, nor any other Linux distro (or windows or Mac for
that matter) is yet fully accessible to a wide spectrum of VI users. I have
read about Blind Linux but that fact it was in CZ meant I didn't think it
would be accessible to a mono-lingual English Neanderthal like myself. I hope
I haven't offended anyone or stepped on anyones toes <braces himself for a
barrage of abuse and death-threats> I am still open to persuasion, feel free
to send me convincing arguments why everything should go into the main
distro, why different parties should be collaborating more effectively and
hwy the US government won't admit the existance of UFO's etc.;)

Tony Sales (aka drbongo)

-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Luke
Yelavich
Sent: 04 December 2008 00:06
To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of
wealthand taste!

On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 11:20:21AM PST, Anthony Sales wrote:
> Greetings earthlings!
>  
> My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development 
> Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I 
> have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a 
> customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) 
> which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early 
> days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could 
> collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties 
> rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly).

Then I invite you to let me know what you are changing in your version of
Ubuntu, so we can include it in the main Ubuntu release. I personally believe
that it is much better to do as much as can be done in the main ubuntu
release, so that people who don't have access to the net, or the resources
that we have here, such as the orca list et al, can benefit.

I pondered making a separate version of Ubuntu for this reason a while ago,
but was convinced to put my changes into Ubuntu proper.

Feel free to contact me off-list to discuss what you are doing, and how best
we can integrate your changes into Ubuntu proper.

Regards
Luke Yelavich
Ubuntu Accessibility Team Leader.

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