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On Wednesday 07 December 2005 00:43, Gary Cramblitt wrote:
> Mark Bucciarelli and I attended a meeting 29 Nov in Boston,
> Massachusetts. =C2=A0 The meeting was sponsored by the Disabilities Law
> Center (DLC), Massachusetts Office on Disability (MOD), and the
> Disability Policy Consortium.
=2E..
> 6. =C2=A0I was only allowed to speak for about 2 minutes, in which I stat=
ed
> that Mark and I were volunteer developers representing the e.V.

Excellent little-speech :)


> 4. =C2=A0Disabled government employees are concerned that a) they are goi=
ng
> to need extensive training in using the new software (one blind person
> stated that he required 6 months of training with MS Office and JAWS),
> b) if a variety of software is used within the MA government, their
> ability to move jobs from one agency to another would be impaired,=20

The communication from MA has always been[1] that the focussing on a=20
standard file format instead of a standard application means that people=20
can use whatever software fits them best.
If KOffice is waaay better in a11y then a disabled person can use that=20
instead of openoffice at any time.
I understand the normal fears that IT does not want to support all ODF=20
apps out there, but if the disabled want to complain about anything, its=20
that they can't choose the app that works best for them in all=20
circumstances.
With MSOffice <12 going away, this argument is will give everyone (but MS)=
=20
a win-win situation.

> c)=20
> since most disabled people in MA use Windows, their ability to get a MA
> government job will similarly be impaired,=20

Are you saying that KOffice (and thus Qt4) accessibility stuff does not=20
work on Windows?
If not, then I don't follow this argument.

> d) the current state of a11y=20
> in ODF software is horrible and just won't do, and e) promises are
> being made to fix this, but they don't have confidence those promises
> will be fulfilled.


> I was also disturbed by #4, #5 and #6 above. =C2=A0In essence, this is the
> pro- "software monoculture" argument. =C2=A0If everybody in the world uses
> the same software and it never changes, then users with disabilities
> are much better off. =C2=A0It was particularly distressing to me to hear
> these comments coming from the MOD and MRC people, who will be writing
> the software a11y standards.

I'm wondering if they have been introduced to the thought process that is=20
actually being enabled by open standards.
That anyone can talk to each other with the software of his/her choice.
In other words; having 1 perfect application for blind people is all the=20
government needs to meet the demand since the user can now communicate=20
with all of the government via ODF.

Can you comment on that?  This idea may need more push from our side=20
otherwise.


> IMHO, this "software monoculture" argument could be the greatest
> obstacle to adoption of ODF and open source software in MA, second only
> to the dirty politics.

Agreed.


> In addition, Leon wants to perform usability testing of KOffice.

I'd love to cooperate with him on that!  Maybe he should talk to=20
openUsability.org since I have an agreement with them to do KOffice=20
usability testing soon as well :)
Which is a good thing since any feedback ou.o gives in an informal manner=20
can be directly incorporated by the developers due to the shortened=20
lines.  Next to that it helps that I know both trades (coding+usability)

> He=20
> wants us to supply him with the "best" version of KOffice we can manage
> to put together and also provide someone who can "hand hold" while they
> do the testing.  That person would not have to be physically present,
> but they must be reachable by phone or email and knowledgeable.  He
> wants to do this testing very soon (around end of year).  This is also
> an opportunity for KOffice to get some valuable and detailed testing
> results.

That would always be the latest stable (1.4.2) for the simple fact that I=20
really don't want their first impression to be an unstable svn-trunk=20
version.
Its easier to say "Ah, yes, we fixed that!" then it is to explain its a=20
developers version.
This is another reason to push Ou.o to do any testing since they know us=20
and I know I can say what works and what does not yet work in trunk.

> He also wants to perform accessibility testing of KOffice.  I'm trying
> to talk him out of this one, since I've already written a detailed
> accessibility report myself.
Perhaps you can convince him to postpone that to the 1.5 final release=20
instead.  Which in turn gives us a good incentive to do more work.

Again, thanks a lot for putting your expertise and time into this!=20

1) The actual message was that MA does not want to force all of MA to=20
switch at ones but to be practical and push in place file-converters and=20
upgrade paths that fit the various departments best. This either implies=20
or concludes into my point above.
=2D-=20
Thomas Zander

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