On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Charles Crawford wrote: > Having said this and at the risk of incurring concerns from those who are > highly dedicated to Linux, I really have to point out that objective and > observed behavior of a program tells the story stripped of conjecture and > what might happen in the sweet bye and bye. > > If there are applications running on Linux in the X environment and those > applications do not run on the console, then there is a reason for > that. Attacking the reason is just as important in the Linux world as it > is in the Windows world. Discrimination and lack of employment are just as > ugly irrespective of what OS is involved. > > So, our chances are much higher in Linux to correct issues before they > become entrenched as they are in Windows. If we don't aggressively move to > do that, then we only will have ourselves to blame for having relied upon > wishful thinking rather than consumer involvement to secure our futures. Charley: I take your point. But, you need to take the next step in your very excellent reasoning. You are still missing the most salient point, namely that's it's the license, not the OS, that makes the difference. It rather reminds me of the 1992 Clinton campaign, where every Clinton office had a big sign which read: "It's the economy, stupid." I will avoid the perjorative, because it's unfortunate in all versions of this otherwise excellent construct. So, I say again, "It's the license, sweetie." Let me go to cases. Unix has many inaccessible applications, especially in the Xwindows area. Motif is but one example. There are many other examples. It will, as I pointed out yesterday, always be possible to write inaccessible applications. I pointed out it is even possible to write inaccessibly for character based interfaces. Yet, I don't believe you're frightened by ASCII art encumbered applications, right? That spectre isn't frightening because we understand the remedy. So, I say now, understand the remedy available to us with GPL licensed gui applications. It's really not much different than clearing out encumbering ASCII art from character screens. The salient point is that we have both the needed information and the legal license to do so. This radically alters our future. No longer do we marshall resources to demand someone "fix it" for us. That would be a mos;t uninformed and unfortunate approach in the GPL arena. We would be looked at as uninformed and ignorant people were we to try such a silly approach, because the remedy for our woes is in our hands. Simply get some engineers on the task and fix it to our specs, on our timeframe, and to our liking. Then, submit the fix back into the package distribution so everyone can enjoy the benefits. We have a responsibility in GPL. We cannot stand, hat in hand, asking for inclusion. We are required to pitch in and make it so. I can tell you that AFB has not learned this lesson yet. I don't know about NFB, or CNIB, or RNIB. But, perhaps you can help guide ACB, as I believe you have already begun to. > > Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. > > -- charlie Crawford. > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- Janina Sajka, Director Technology Research and Development Governmental Relations Group American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175 Chair, Accessibility SIG Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF) http://www.openebook.org
