Here it is...Ubuntu Phone

[Nolan Darilek]

Thanks, Chris.

To be clear, my feelings about wanting to step back aren't due to your 
thoughts, or to those of any on this list. I'm sorry if my writing makes 
it appear otherwise, and I appreciate that you shared what you did.

I develop apps for Android. At the moment my big hobby project is 
accessible GPS navigation based on OpenStreetMap, and with a level of 
spoken detail similar to what would be found on pricier GPS solutions. 
I'd like to keep building this out, with the very long-term goal of 
using it in sailboat navigation.

Android is a cool platform, but I just grew tired of battling the JVM, 
Android's extensive customization of same, and all the assorted 
limitations thereof. I've also encountered unscientific and anecdotal 
evidence that native code generally runs faster and eats less battery 
than does the JVM.

I'd really hoped to port these apps to Ubuntu, to leave Android behind, 
and to develop on what I feel to be a superior platform. Never mind if 
the audience is smaller; I do this for the love of it. So it hurts deep 
down that this doesn't look possible, and that there's no clear and 
apparent way to encourage Canonical to step up its efforts.

Unity isn't trivial, and I never meant to imply that it was. But it's 
shiny, in the way that putting a nice paint job on a 
not-as-well-maintained car is shiny. And I don't see Canonical caring 
all that much about access, which is one of those areas in which the car 
isn't kept up. Canonical puts so much effort into encouraging developers 
and users to its platform. It hurts that the disabled community seems 
like an afterthought.

I remember being here with Android in '09. I'm just not sure that I'm 
ready to be here again so soon.


On 01/06/2013 09:52 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote:
> Whether you advocate for greater accessibility in Ubuntu or not is a 
> decision only you can make. I would not interpret the responses of two 
> or three people though to be "all this talk of diplomacy and catching 
> more flies with honey is what people want". First, two or three people 
> is not all of this talk or what people want, it's just the opinions of 
> two or three people on a relatively low traffic list. Don't blow it 
> out of proportion.
>
> For my part, the only point I made was that I don't consider Unity or 
> Ubuntu Phone to be trivial or flashy. I think these were hard efforts 
> involving quite a few people in an effort to make Ubuntu more popular, 
> running on more devices and in the hands of more people. I know people 
> have criticized Unity for being dumbed down, but I don't know what 
> that means, and I'm not sure why it's a bad thing to make Ubuntu more 
> popular and get it used by more people. Obviously, if you want to use 
> the argument that Canonical is spending resources on bright new shiny 
> things instead of accessibility then that will strike a chord with 
> some Ubuntu and Unity critics, but I'm not sure it'll sway the 
> decision makers at Canonical.
>
> I also wouldn't be too worried about what I or are other people think. 
> The goal here is to get Ubuntu more accessible in all of it's releases 
> and on all of the platforms where it's supported. If that means using 
> honey then that's what should be done, if it means using vinegar then 
> that's the way to go. I prefer honey myself, but I know there's a need 
> for vinegar too. If you're not comfortable being diplomatic, political 
> or tactful, but you want to fight for more accessibility in Ubuntu 
> then do what you're comfortable with.
>
> At my previous employer, I got into quite a few debates with another 
> blind person. I thought he was a bit hysterical at times and made 
> outlandish claims. We debated quite a bit on our internal mailing 
> list. I was surprised though when I found out how much he was 
> appreciated by those working on accessibility within the company. I 
> thought my more balanced and reasonable approach would have been more 
> appreciated, but I found out that in the accessibility community you 
> need the radicals, those calling out to man the barricades and the 
> squeaky wheels.
>
> For my part, I hope you take up the fight, and I hope you don't take 
> the fact that I'm a different person with a different approach as a 
> reason not to take up the fight yourself.
>
> On 01/06/2013 08:21 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote:
>> Great ideas and thoughts here, folks.
>>
>> To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which,
>> as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME
>> accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my
>> full-time operating system of choice.
>>
>> However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and
>> take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I can run Chrome and,
>> gods forbid, IE reasonably well. I have a level of choice that I don't
>> seem to under Linux, and there are other areas in which Windows is
>> excelling for me. I'm not saying that it's the best choice, or the right
>> choice for everyone. I'm just starting to give it a serious look,
>> because the latest state of having to reboot multiple times per day
>> under Ubuntu because accessibility is behaving oddly is starting to get
>> to me.
>>
>> I hope that this discussion leads to someone taking up this cause. I did
>> some soul-searching over the last two days, and am not the one to take
>> this up--if all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with
>> honey is what people want, that is. Having pushed and advocated and
>> developed for Android for the past few years, I'm burned out on the
>> access fight, and no longer have much diplomacy left in me. Best of 
>> luck.
>>
>>
>> On 01/05/2013 06:12 PM, Kyle wrote:
>>> The spam system is completely automated and Akismet has been known to
>>> mark quite a large number of false positives, so having a comment of
>>> any kind marked by Akismet as spam is not at all uncommon. Having said
>>> this, I'm not sure where the perception comes in that non-free
>>> operating systems provide a better accessibility experience, or how
>>> that perception will help further our cause. I have been using
>>> GNOME+Orca+free GNU/Linux operating systems exclusively since 2009,
>>> and I can't say that my experience with accessibility has been even
>>> close to unfavorable, and it has improved quite rapidly just over the
>>> past year, since I now have a level of access to qt applications that
>>> I never even dreamed possible just 2 years ago, and that level of qt
>>> accessibility far surpasses the level of qt accessibility on Apple
>>> computers and devices, not to mention the fact that Firefox can't be
>>> made to work with VoiceOver on a Mac, which is a state I find
>>> extremely sad, albeit typical, from a company who continually receives
>>> the highest praise for its lackluster accessibility performance. On
>>> the Microsoft side, accessibility is also taking backsteps, as Windows
>>> 8 is a nightmare, and is in fact seen by many Windows users, as a
>>> complete joke as relating to accessibility, as well as many other
>>> aspects of the OS.
>>>
>>> Does Canonical need to devote more resources to the expansion of the
>>> accessibility team and the improvement of the accessibility stac?
>>> Absolutely. Does accessibility need to be a primary concern for any OS
>>> or desktop or smart phone environment? No question. But the best way
>>> to make it known that this is a requirement is not by telling
>>> developers and companies that it's sad that their competitor does abc
>>> better when in fact, their competitor has bigger problems with xyz.
>>> Rather, the best way to raise awareness of what we need in an
>>> accessibility stack and a team of developers working on it is simply
>>> letting them know that accessibility is a major requirement for any OS
>>> or interface, letting them know what improvements are needed that
>>> would help us to be able to use the OS or interface better, and
>>> contributing to development of the codebase if possible, which is
>>> something that can *never* happen on a non-free operating system where
>>> even error reports fall on deaf ears.
>>> ~Kyle
>>> http://kyle.tk/
>>
>>
>