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TIL: #Wayland breaks most screen readers, as they are not not intended by design. (they need to interact with other apps)
Wayland is now the default in pretty much all gnome distros.
Orca has workarounds, but they are not merged and not fully working. (And a blind user can't built it without a working screen reader)
I'm not entirely sure if I got this correct, but it seems to me like the #Linux community once again booted the #blind.
https://wiki.gnome.org/Accessibility/Wayland
https://wayland-devel.freedesktop.narkive.com/in2sPBfc/making-wayland-accessible
Hot Take: #openSource without #accessibility is not free software and does not respect fundamental human freedoms.
@betalars
open source is created by generous people that do it in their passion. dismissing this as not free software is unfair. if you are mad at the accessibility lacking why dont you just contribute yourself? i am happy that these open source projects exist at all, and grateful for those who have spent their own time developing and helping them grow
@qwfp @betalars I don't mind people creating inaccessible software, and sharing it (so long as I don't have to spend too much time getting it to work).
When people start saying "hey, we should all transition towards this other thing", and this other thing is materially less accessible than what we had before, I have a problem. That's not giving, but taking away.
Good intentions are not enough.
@wizzwizz4 @betalars
good point
@wizzwizz4 @qwfp @betalars Personally the line I draw is: Are you encouraging others to use your thing?
This goes for both free software & proprietary, even if I'd prefer proprietary didn't exist (save for what Stallman calls "trivially free software").
@qwfp @betalars Who cares if people are doing it for free? If you redo all the sidewalks on my street and completely break the accessibility for wheelchair users, pram users, blind users and the elderly, that’s a problem and a disgrace. If you do it for free instead of being paid by the city? That doesn't count, sorry, people on my street still have the exact same problem whether you got paid or not.
@fvsch @qwfp @betalars
Well you would only be able to do it if the city allows/contracts you. So it would be the city's fault for not investing the money required to make it accessible.
Same goes for free software: The governments/companies that want to deploy them are responsible for improving them to the required standards, not the people that started the project for themselves and maintain it for a small group of others as a hobby.
@qwfp
a) please understand that a hot take is hot
b) whether or not you consider accessibility to be part of FOSS is a philosophical argument, and totally independent from the question of an individuals contributions
c) a lot of FOSS software is also made by paid people, who do this as their job (and we should probably pay more people for contributing)
d) critiquing something does not mean I am ungrateful
e) go fix it yourself is a horrible thing to say to a disabled person demanding access.
@betalars
a) I understand it is a hot take, just wanted to share my opinion
b) accessibility is great, and i believe that it is great to have in a FOSS project, just think that they are already trying their best to juggle all the different issues and demands: rather than being a disabled person "demanding" access, I believe it better to ask.
c) saying that FOSS software is "also made by paid people" doesn't justify "demanding access" either.
@qwfp Free Software respects the users fundamental freedoms. It is only free, if everybody can use it whenever and however they want.
If your project has barriers that will not allow some users to use your software, I do not consider it to be in the Spirit of FOSS.
@qwfp And I know I know I know: full accessibility is an unreachable goal. Everybody knows that.
But I think accessibility should be a lot more fundamental to FOSS than it is now. And it is very sad to see, that a lot of people practically do not have the choice to use linux, even tho technically no license is there to forbid it.
@betalars @qwfp
So by your definition a software that does not work on Windows isn't free because not everyone can use it? That feels wrong.
Imo. as long as nobody says "This is feature complete and you are unable to expand it" (which you can't with free software licenses) it is fine to publish things that aren't perfectly suited for every use case and every user. (Of course you can fault individuals if they react to accessibility requests with ignorance)
@betalars
To keep it short whether FOSS needs accessibility is not within the definition of FOSS itself. FOSS is free and open source software, and saying that something isn't FOSS because it doesn't have accessibility isn't argument at all: you are arguing against the definition of FOSS itself??
@qwfp @betalars I write a huge amount of open source code.
If you do that, it comes with some degree of responsibility. You can't just say, "It's free, you're out of luck", if you release a major "upgrade" which renders computers unusable for people who are visually impaired.
If you don't have the time not to break a large number of people's lives with your software update, then simply don't emit the update at all, particularly when no one's begging for it.
@TomSwirly @qwfp @betalars Yes, I totally agree. The good thing about open source is that you can rollback and use older versions. I understand that this shouldnt need to happen though, and when making changes everyone should be kept in mind. Just wanted to say that we should appreciate those who have set aside time to contribute. I do not support actions that detriment some groups of people.
