I don't have anything against projects specifically targetting blind end users, or any other niche for that matter, but I do think its better to have accessibility seamlessly integrated into mainstream products instead of trying to maintain a separate ecosystem of goods and services that cater only to a tiny minority... Sadly, many vendors only care about satisfying the lowest common denominator and little short of government sanctions will convince them accessibility is even worth considering, and even when vendors pay lip service to caring about accessibility, it can be hard to even find how to give them feedback, so even with the downsides(small development teams, extremely low bus factors, small user base to spread development costs across, etc.), it's easy to feel like "make our own" is the only option. Of course, one nice thing about the FOSS model is that one can simultaneously be building their own version of something while trying to push their contributions upstream... no idea how well any of the mentioned projects made any head way in that regard, and I'm sure there was some push back for those that tried, but there's at least the option to do both... I like the Adriane accessibility suite that comes as part of Knoppix, even if I only really use the console screen reader it comes with and its script for launching Fiefox+Orca without launching a full desktop, and those are the two main reasons my installed system is customized from a Knoppix install and not a Debian install... Shame Adriane never got upstreamed to Debian, or that when Knoppix had its own repository, I couldn't just add it to my sources.list and do a sudo apt-get install adriane on a vanilla Debian to get the benefits withou the baggage of Knoppix being primarily a live distro. And to some extent, I do think something needs to be mainstream to actually be viable for the disabled. I mean, the Orbit Graffiti sounds totally awesome and I'd order one immediately if I had the funds... but unless someone develops a tactile-visual display that would appeal to the mainstream and could make it's way into a flagship Android or iOS device, I think its going to be a very long time before a tactile display the average blind person can actually afford becomes a reality. _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list