Re: free software & accessibility
On 27/08/11 15:53, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
Scott Ferguson<prettyfly.productions@gmail.com> writes:
On 27/08/11 13:57, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
>> [Cross-posting to both sfd-discuss@ and planning-ru@.]
[…]
>> Our team would probably have joined the deal, but, unfortunately, we
>> don't apparently have anything to offer to the sight impaired at our
>> disposal
Apart from your eyes!
eg. help identifying hardware at an installfest.
> I'd argue that you do, and have. Debian and w3 make it easier for
> developers to build to standards. The community helps developers
> make apps useable. Without those things assistive technology is just
> a cart waiting on a horse.
I mentioned those things because sometimes people only think about
"using" an OS as a feature.
ie. use A instead of B because it's gratis.
Debian offers much more than just better screenreader support - you can
keep using the hardware you know - you can individualise your software
to suit yourself without breaking support for JAWS - you are part of
*the* community that does the same instead of being a separate
"handicapped" community.
Well, that's certainly something to offer. However, I doubt
that there would be enough (or even any) developers interested
in that in our locality.
You could give away DVDs, though it's running late to apply for funding,
it's probably still possible.
Probably not enough lead time to customise the Debian installer, though
it might be possible to modify the Knoppix Adriane to do that eg.
unsighted install from Adriane*1 to build minimal Knoppix, then upgrade
to full Debian.
Then there's an installfest which is a great, low risk, way of letting
people try this new thing called GNU/Linux - make sure the location is
accessible and advertise it as such.
KDE has full screenreader implementation - setting up a PXE installer
with appropriate preseeding to build a kttsd KDE is an option. Don't
know about Gnome, but is has a screen reader called Orca.
Advertise your willingness to "try" and support haptic devices, they're
cool, very expensive, and not necessarily supported from one version of
Windoof to another, likewise synthesizer boards - there's a lot of old
DECtalk boards that go unused and Debian will support them right from
the install boot screen.
If you approach your local disability support groups you'll probably get
plenty of suggestions - and if you can help with transport/directions
they *will* come.
If you were interested in doing that - these links might be useful in
finding ways to advertise your events (and find helpers):-
http://mnadamovfund.org/
http://www.icevi-europe.org/national/ru.html
http://www.sibdisnet.ru/
>> (no embossers, no Braille terminals, and I don't even know if the
>> speech synthesizers provided with Debian support Russian.)
> Festival and espeak do - I don't know how well though
ACK. I'd try to check it out.
Any particular examples of software these could be used with?
With KDE - everything.
[You should've kept To: planning-ru@, BTW.]
> (ваша оценка может измениться)
Is that YMMV as translated by Google?
Yes. Let's blame Google.
Stupid Google! ;-p
Funny enough, but it
reads rather like Your Mileage May Change. (“May vary” would be
“может отличаться” in Russian in this case.)
vary - differ?
Thank you for the correction (seriously).
I can make myself misunderstood in more than one language! :-D
Cheers
Ref:-
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s02.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECtalk
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html
[*1] Turns out that Adriane is Klaus's wife's name (thanks Lisi) it's
also a bacronym "Audio Desktop Reference Implementation And Networking
Environment"
--
"When two or more people agree on an issue, I form on the other side."
— Bill Hicks
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