Re: Forming an Accessibility Steering Committee

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Everyone:

It is great to see such supportive interest in creating an Accessibility
Steering Committee.  Thanks!  In just one day, 15 people have responded
expressing an interest in being involved.  These include the following
people:

   Willie Walker (William Walker Sun COM)
   David Bolter (dtb gnome org)
   Jacob Schmude (j schmude gmail com)
   Peter Korn (Peter Korn Sun COM)
   Mike Pedersen (Michael Pedersen Sun COM)
   Li Yuan (Li Yuan Sun COM)
   Joanmarie Diggs (joanmarie diggs gmail com)
   Jeff Cai (Jeff Cai Sun COM)
   Steve Lee (steve fullmeasure co uk)
   Eitan Isaacson (eitan ascender com)
   Janina Sajka (janina rednote net)
   Bill Haneman (gnome billhaneman ie)
   Ian Pascoe (ianpascoe btinternet com)
   Kenny Hitt (kenny hittsjunk net)
   David Csercsics (aarg shaw ca)

This seems a good mix of experienced GNOME a11y developers, and users.
I assume a few more interested people may continue to have an interest
in joining, so I imagine this list is not final.  Please let us know if
there is anybody I overlooked or if there are any additional people with
an interest in being involved.

Willie, thanks for your pointers to "where things are right now".  Very
helpful.  And let me say that you have been doing a great job as a
leader in the GNOME a11y community.  Creating this committee is not
intended to slight your work at all, but to help provide a framework for
the GNOME Foundation and a11y communities to work better together.
GNOME a11y is a huge area of responsibility and there is probably room
for more leaders.  Also, thanks for volunteering to lead the committee.
You seem a logical choice, but lets first see if we can get an a11y
committee off the ground before we figure out who is the leader.

I would appreciate it if everybody who volunteered to be a part of the
committee could answer the following questions.

1) How would you like the committee to interact?  Via discussions on
   this mailing list or via meetings?  If you think we should have
   meetings, how often would you prefer to meet, and would you prefer
   IRC or phone?

   If we decide to have a phone meeting, I can arrange a dial-in
   conference number we can use.

2) What would you like to see the Committee be responsible for doing?
   I would prefer specific and achievable things rather than vague
   generalizations.

3) What do you see that is blocking progress (or hindering acceptance)
   of GNOME a11y.  What do you think could be done to improve things?

4) Assuming that we can identify a list of tasks in the answers to the
   above questions, would you be willing to invest time in the Committee
   to chip in and take on tasks to make progress in these areas?

   For example, if we decide there is a need to create a list of "hot"
   bugs that need attention, would you be willing to help review bugs
   to determine what bugs should be in that list.  Or if we were to
   decide that the different distros would benefit from sharing QA
   resources, would you be willing to take on the task of figuring out
   who to contact to determine how this could be organized, etc.

Brian