Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was "Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone"]

Christopher Chaltain chaltain at gmail.com
Sat Jan 5 13:13:04 UTC 2013


Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. 
I'm not sure if you're referring to Ubuntu for the phone as a shiny 
thing or not, but if you are or that's what you're implying then I'd 
suggest refraining from that in your push to get more resources 
committed to Ubuntu's accessibility. Shiny things in this context refer 
to frivolous waste of times, and I don't think Canonical trying to get 
Ubuntu into the phone space is a shiny thing in this sense. Remember, 
Canonical is a privately owned company that is still trying to become 
profitable. Having Ubuntu run on more and more platforms, phones, TV's, 
tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, servers, clouds and so on is part 
of the strategy to create enough revenue streams for Canonical to become 
profitable. Note that I don't know that Canonical is actively working to 
have Ubuntu run on all of those platforms or not; I'm just basing this 
assumption on public comments from Canonical.

I think you make a lot of good points below, and I think this is a 
laudable effort, I just don't think you serve your goals by implying 
that something as significant as having Ubuntu run on smart phones is 
somehow frivolous or trivial.

Note I also changed the subject line since this discussion seems to be 
much broader than just the Ubuntu Phone OS announcement.

On 01/04/2013 10:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote:
> Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones:
>
> http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/
>
> My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under
> Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to
> bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one
> would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use
> our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to
> work on these types of issues.
>
> If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly,
> I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for
> Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely
> tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the
> Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't
> know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes
> it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too
> wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues.
> I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just
> because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of
> respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes
> to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of
> resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will
> quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux
> for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other
> distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for
> Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less
> accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my
> VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and
> is sad when accessibility developers ask me why I don't just abandon
> Linux for the far more accessible Windows.,

-- 
Christopher (CJ)
chaltain at Gmail



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