Re: [Accessibility] Call to Arms

[Fernando H. F. Botelho]

I think that is a good point. many potential volunteers might not value 
freedom as much as they should but we can combine that with other facts:

* 80% of the world's persons with disabilities are in developing countries;
* They are not just poor, they are the poorest of the poor in those 
countries;
* 9 out of every 10 kids with visual impairment in developing countries 
have no access to education;
* Unemployment levels are  usually far above 90%;
 and I could go on for pages.  The point is:

Educational and employment policies/strategies by both governments and 
NGOs have failed miserably, and so has the private sector, in offering 
solutions.  The answer is not in throwing money at the problem while 
using the same formulas, but in using new strategies.  Strategies that 
take advantage of new thinking such as Creative Commons and the GPL.

Computer use is essencial for anyone to be competitive these days and as 
such doing so is a human right as real as the right to be educated and 
the right to work.

Any government, foundation, or NGO that takes education and employment 
seriously and considers current statistics unacceptable will want to 
think strategically and will invest in technology that does not depend 
on any single government, company, foundation, or NGO to evolve and be 
generally available.  Such entities will understand that donations of 
proprietary software are a trap since the student that becomes dependent 
on those will have yet another enormous barrier (cost) to face when 
he/she tries to move into the job market.

it is not just cost of course; nobody wants his/her human right to 
depend on whether any particular government is re-elected or any 
specific company does not go broke. If you think this is highly 
theoretical just look at how many "stable" institutions in finance (an 
easier industry than the software world) have gone bankrupt; or remember 
how much investment in software licenses and training went to waste when 
the company that made the Slimware Window Bridge screen reader closed 
its doors. Now imagine that waste when instead of Canada or the US you 
are Paraguay.

Long-term or strategic thinking is not easy for individuals or 
institutions, since such thinking pays off when one makes sacrifices in 
the short term for long-term benefit.  However, no foundation, NGO, 
government, or individual can claim to have a serious straategy for 
making the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 
become more than just pretty words without adopting principles such as 
the use of free software and knowledge.

Now I beg of you: Can we also discuss how to prioritize bugs, how to 
find technical people to manage volunteer developers, where can one send 
funds and get reports on the bugs that have been killed with those, how 
can we make Firefox developers resolve bugs that are blocking our work 
or make them accept accessibility-related contributions?

In many countries disability has gained a higher profile and this is an 
amazing opportunity for us to liberate more people from dependency and 
vulnerability to proprietary solutions. But we can only do so if we can 
show results.  please help me out here so we can get Orca the patches it 
needs. If such day-to-day concerns are out of place here, let me know 
which list would be best and I will join it.

I have tremendous respect for what RMS and so many on the list have 
achieved. Our  effectiveness however depends on achieving a balance 
between energy spent on our "vision" and on how to get there from here.

Best,

Fernando

On 07/28/2010 12:43 AM, Bill Cox wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Eric S. Johansson<address@hidden>  wrote:
> >   On 7/27/2010 8:57 PM, Bill Cox wrote:
> > I thought the discussion was worth having
> > because this is a free software foundation sponsored list and if they say,
> > thou shalt do only free software, then that is their right and we should
> > respect that.
>
> This gets to the heart of my greatest misgiving in having FSF leading
> FOSS accessibility development.  I think that FOSS is pretty much the
> only way to get programmers with disabilities from around the world to
> volunteer to work together to write this stuff, so I see significant
> synergy between FSF goals and the goals of the volunteers.
>
> However, will the volunteers see it that way?  Will programmers who
> use Windows and Naturally Speaking, or Windows and JAWs hesitate to
> join a FSF community?  FSF has broad reach, resources for servers, web
> development, and a well recognised brand, in addition to Chris working
> full time.  So, it seems like a great foundation to organise things
> from.  Will the community converge here?  Would we be better off
> building an on-line community of volunteers dedicated to
> accessibility, and only accessibility?  Can that be done through FSF?
>
> Bill
>
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