Re: Gnome and support for the visually impaired

[Peter Korn <Peter Korn Sun COM>]

Hi David,

Dave Lister wrote:
> The following have emailed Mass. regarding the lack of support in Open 
Source for the blind or visually impaired. Do you have any information to the 
contrary. If so do you mind informing them of such.
>
> jerry berrier townisp com strzal charter net , grboucher mva net ,
> ACannon EASTERSEALSMA org , lillian612 verizon net , mgorse alum wpi edu ,
> dpc_ma yahoo com , marydubois comcast net , c3souls verizon net,
> rdfann earthlink net , myraross comcast net , Jan Doremus state ma us ,
> rbaran hcc mass edu , Martha Zeolla state ma us , Meryl Sommer state ma us ,
> david springtimesoftware com , Elizabeth Landry state ma us ,
> duffy lareau verizon net
>
> http://tinyurl.com/don3n
> 
http://www.mass.gov/portal/site/massgovportal/menuitem.59254d74c0e831c14db4a11030468a0c/?pageID=itdterminal&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Policies%2c+Standards+%26+Legal&L2=Open+Standards&L3=Open+Formats&sid=Aitd&b=terminalcontent&f=policies_standards_etrm_35_responses_allresponses&csid=Aitd
>

I've read through the public comments, and it is clear that many people are 
interpreting the desire & decision of the Massachusettes CIO's office to move 
to the OpenDocument file format as a decision to move to an open source desktop.

OpenDocument came from the OASIS standards body.  Committee members included 
folks like Corel who make WordPerfect, as well as Sun and IBM.  It is 
interesting to note that Microsoft is a member of OASIS, but even after being 
asked multiple times to join the OpenDocument committee (by, I believe at 
least one disability organization), it refused to take part.

There are already multiple products that can read and write OpenDocument 
format that run on Windows, including Sun's commercial offering StarOffice 8 
(shipping as of the start of this week), and several open source applications. 
 Given Corel's participation in the OpenDocument standard, and their public 
comments on the CIO proposal, it is a good bet that WordPerfect for Windows 
will soon support OpenDocument as well.


Employees and citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusettes will have 
multiple, accessible choices for an office suite that can read and write 
OpenDocument format by the time the standard is slated to go into effect in 
January 2007.  Whether any specific application+AT combination will be less, 
equally, or more efficient and productive for any specific individual when 
compared to their current AT with Microsoft Office remains to be seen - and 
is, I believe, the key question.  We have 15 months - and a lot of work and 
scripting can happen in that time.  And I would note that at least one class 
of disabilities - severe physical disabilities - is arguably already better 
served with non-Windows offerings: StarOffice/OpenOffice.org + the GNOME 
On-Screen Keyboard provides significantly greater efficiency and productivity 
for a vast number of office tasks as compared to anything on Microsoft Windows.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team

P.S. I wonder if affected individuals and disability organizations are 
lobbying Microsoft to support OpenDocument - that would certainly ensure that 
existing AT solutions that work with MS Office remain an option.