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

[Nolan Darilek]

All valid points, and while I agree in spirit, I'm not sure that I have 
the patience or tact to worry about things like PR or perception. Are 
they necessary? Perhaps, but my hope is that we don't have to keep 
fighting these same fights from square one each time a new platform 
emerges. After nearly 3.5 years I feel like I can finally back off of 
Android a bit; we have decent web accessibility and the ability to do 
text review, and things are steadily improving. I've been asking myself 
for the past few days if I'm ready to start this fight from scratch 
again, and if sentiment is that I can't call out Canonical for being 
shiny in its pursuit of Unity and other pretty tech while having an 
accessibility team of 1-2, then the answer likely is no. I don't have it 
in me to do a few more years of time only to have the next shiny hotness 
surface in 2016 and be just as inaccessible.

So yeah, maybe I'm the silly one for emailing this list and saying that 
I'm not the right person for this. But whether or not I take up the 
cause, it is one that needs to be taken up. Ubuntu and Linux have 
succeeded all the more because for-profit companies like Canonical and 
Redhat advance the state of the art. For them to do so and not 
prioritize accessibility is irresponsible stewardship at best, and it 
saddens me to look to non-free operating systems because those *have* to 
be more accessible to keep government or educational contracts. I'd hope 
that free software in general, and a company that builds Linux for human 
beings in particular, would strive to improve accessibility without 
having the threat of contract compliance hanging over their heads.


On 01/05/2013 07:13 AM, Christopher Chaltain wrote:
> 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.,
>