I think you need to tie four things together when dealing with accessibility. You have two of them and that is free and Accessible. You are missing two others. It doesn't have to be free if its affordable take the nice speech voices that they sell for 5 bucks that's not ridiculous so if it can't be free make it affordable. Second but most important. This is the great equalizer not accessibility and not free. But the word Usable or usability must be included. Did you know my email on my IPhone is free with my phone its accessible but the problem is its almost unusable without getting someone to set up my account. I can also access my work mail on the web exchange site since they don't support POP3 or Imap but no matter if I am using Orca and Espeak free or Jaws 11 its not Usable. It takes me 10 to 20 minutes to reply and spell check and attach a few things to an email where it takes my sited counter parts seconds. So I guess any accessibility statement that does not also say both accessibility and usability is part of the standard I don't see it as much of a statement. Words do matter. Ken From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Hofstader Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 1:51 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: GNU Accessibility Statement Online Hey Storm, I'm making a list of ideas like the one you present below that we can consider for future revisions of the statement. Sina also suggested while we were on the phone that a paragraph be added regarding net neutrality which is really important to people with disabilities. The entire GNU team has, over the past couple of months, caught the accessibility bug. Stallman himself feels that discussing freedom without including a specific disenfranchised population isn't true freedom after all. As GNU is really new to the accessibility space, we'll have some hiccups for a while. I include my own bias for blind/low vision technologies and relative ignorance of most other AT in the GNU/Linux world. cdh On Mar 27, 2010, at 1:05 PM, Storm Dragon wrote: Hi, Ok, you got me there, it is right out in the open. The thing is, it kind of seems like one of those things that congress likes to do when getting a really good bill passed. They tack things on to the end of it that are what they want to get done, and they get passed just because the rest of it is great. "Also, the statement does not condemn server based applications but, rather, encourages people not to make or use them." What is the difference? May as well condemn them, that would meet the same goal. As for the privacy issues, that is a very good point. Why not add something about that instead of just letting the statement hang in the air right at the end of the rest of it. It would make it fit better perhaps. Thanks Storm -- Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stormdragon2976 My blog, Thoughts of a Dragon: http://www.stormdragon.us/ What color dragon are you? http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/alustriel07/what-color-dragon-would-you-be/ Install Windows Vista in under 2 minutes: http://is.gd/am6TD On Sat, 2010-03-27 at 12:30 -0400, Chris Hofstader wrote: It isn't a "hidden agenda" as it is written in very plain English for all to see. It is, however, a position fundamental to FSF and as it is an FSF statement, also not hidden anywhere, it fits into GAS. You can take the statement and remove that line and other things you may not agree with and repost it as your own statement based on the GNU statement. Also, the statement does not condemn server based applications but, rather, encourages people not to make or use them. cdh On Mar 27, 2010, at 11:11 AM, Storm Dragon wrote: Hi, You know, I kind of wondered about that one myself lol. So, that explains it. It sucks that hidden agendas have to sneak in everywhere, even in to a goal as pure and right as accessibility. Storm -- Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stormdragon2976 My blog, Thoughts of a Dragon: http://www.stormdragon.us/ What color dragon are you? http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/alustriel07/what-color-dragon-would-you-be/ Install Windows Vista in under 2 minutes: http://is.gd/am6TD On Sat, 2010-03-27 at 11:03 -0400, Sina Bahram wrote: The following statement really got to me: "and please don't invite users to do something on a server that they could conceivably do on their own computers." I understand that Stallmann is one of the leading activists against cloud computing, but why on earth are you allowing such an agenda to creap into a statement on accessibility? In my opinion, this one statement completely undermines the rest of the things you're trying to do. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Hofstader Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 9:00 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: GNU Accessibility Statement Online Hi, For a couple of months, Richard Stallman and I have been working on the GNU Accessibility Statement (GAS) which takes a no nonsense approach to endorsing the rights of people with disabilities as regard software within the context of free software. I've never read a more strongly worded statement from any organization regarding software and people with disabilities. GAS also takes a strong stance on free software values but does not endorse any specific license, although we would like people to use GPL. You can read the statement at: http://www.gnu.org/accessibility/accessibility.html and send comments to me that we can consider for future revisions of the statement. Thanks, cdh __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind