Re: An Open Letter to Oracle on the Topic Of Accessibility

[Samuel Thibault <samuel thibault ens-lyon org>]

Jason White, le Mon 22 Feb 2010 16:27:53 +1100, a écrit :
> The decision process doesn't have the same top-down control structure
> that a proprietary operating system vendor can exercise.

Mmm, Even free software projects do have such top-down control
structures.  For instance in Debian you're not supposed to leave an
architecture apart when you package an application, and critical bugs on
them are release-critical and will get your package out if you don't fix
them.

> Another way of saying this is that the more application developers
> have to think about "accessibility" as a discrete, separate phenomenon that
> needs to be taken into account, the more accessibility is likely to lose,
> despite constant "education" efforts and repair strategies to deal with the
> deluge of regressions.

I think there are a couple of things that could be done.

- in glade, some automatic tests could be done: for instance, if a
  button doesn't have _any_ text attached to it, glade could warn the
  developper.
- like in the Debian case with architectures, accessibility regressions
  should be marked as release critical.  Yes, only regressions.  Debian
  doesn't require an application to work on all architectures, but it
  cares about regressions, which means that things only improve, except
  for new packages.  However, if in gnome an application is superseded
  by another, it should also be release critical that the newer is at
  least as accessible.  In all cases, the
  http://library.gnome.org/devel/accessibility-devel-guide/nightly/
  URL should be reminded.  I believe it's a way to get in people mind
  that it is a "must do", not only a "should do".

Samuel