Future of accessibility under Ubuntu

[Bill Cox]

I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive
criticism, rather than pointless ranting.  I would like to raise a
red-flag at Canonical with this post.  Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the
visually impaired.  Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced
to switch future development to Debian branches.  Until now, Ubuntu has
had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other
distros, but 9.04 has trashed that.

If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may
be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire.  On every
blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users
switch away from Ubuntu.  I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04,
and I have to offer that same advice.  It's more than just removing
pulseaudio.  I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still
not functioning properly.  There are at least a dozen major problems,
and not all of them have work-arounds yet.  Clearly there was zero
testing of Orca for 9.04.

At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are
accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then
removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance
for the visually impaired would be a good step.  If Ubuntu wants to own
the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the
taking.  Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work
with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it.  Otherwise, I suspect
that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian.  There's some
sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited
by Ubuntu and several other great distros.  However, making Linux easy
to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on
Ubuntu.  Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build
on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu.

I hope this is taken as a call to action.  I don't mean to offend
anyone.

Bill