Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC digital curriculum service in England

[Chris Croughton]

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 04:53:34PM +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:

> It's a bit like the argument for using strict web standards to make
> sites accessible. The theory is nice, but it doesn't work that way in
> practice - the accessibility technology people use already adapted to th
> current "web" way of doing things. So, although a 'pure' HTML site with
> CSS layout is theoretically easier to understand, many sites that are
> table-driven (for example, the RNIB's site) are just as accessible. 

Probably more accessible to text-based browsers, which don't seem to be
rushing to support CSS.

> Second, the 'standards' stuff just isn't well supported. SVG has few
> players (especially for animation), and the 'big' free software apps
> aren't rushing to support it. Moz dropped it. Moz also dropped the MNG
> animation format, because the standard was basically massive. They
> replaced it with the proprietary APNG format, which required an increase
> in the binary of 5k or something but supplied most of the same features.
> I guess we do ECMA script well, and if SMIL 2.0 is in Helix, well that's
> good too. I think the thing to ask is, why aren't people developing
> these tools? I'm assuming there just isn't a big call for them.

Plus the constant problem with free software, you need to find people
who have the interest, time and experience who want to work on them.
Whereas commercial software can provide incentive in the form of money,
amateurs have to fit it in around other things.  For instance, I would
love to see some good music software (notation software as easy to use
as Noteworthy Composer, for instance), but I have neither time to write
it nor money to sponsor it (nor experience writing GUI code to implement
it, and most of it is GUI work), so I use the Windows shareware one
hoping that at some point the author will port it to a free OS.

Chris C