Good day,

I'd like to ask a few questions of all candidates for Debian leadership. As
a person who is blind, these are of significant importance to me. I hope
that, in asking these questions and maybe sparking a discussion on these topics, attention can be focused on Debian's role in the lives of people
with disabilities, and the companies and organizations that use it.

* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?
* If so, have you worked with them in the past, or are you currently
working with them?
* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get the
most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining on a stable base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca screen
reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the thing that makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing to
entertain the idea of moving those updates directly to Debian stable?
* How would you present Debian to a group of people with disabilities? What reasons would you give them for why they should consider Debian?
* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive
technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the use
of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair to users?

Thanks so much for the answers.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com

<div dir="ltr">Good day,<div><br></div><div>I&#39;d like to ask a few questions of all candidates for Debian leadership. As a person who is blind, these are of significant importance to me. I hope that, in asking these questions and maybe sparking a
discussion on these topics, attention can be focused on Debian&#39;s role in the lives of people with disabilities, and the companies and organizations that use it.</div><div><br></div><div>* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?</div><div> 
* If so, have you worked with them in the past, or are you currently working with them?</div><div>* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get the most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining on a stable
base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca screen reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the thing that makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing to entertain the idea of moving those updates
directly to Debian stable?</div><div>* How would you present Debian to a group of people with disabilities? What reasons would you give them for why they should consider Debian?</div><div>* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive
technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the use of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair to users?</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks so much for the answers.</div><div>Devin Prater<br></div><div><div dir=
"ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>

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Hi Devin,

On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 10:09 AM Devin Prater <r.d.t.prater@gmail.com> wrote:

I'd like to ask a few questions of all candidates for Debian leadership.
As a person who is blind, these are of significant importance to me.
I hope that, in asking these questions and maybe sparking a
discussion on these topics, attention can be focused on Debian's
role in the lives of people with disabilities, and the companies and organizations that use it.

* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?
* If so, have you worked with them in the past, or are you currently
working with them?
* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can
get the most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements
while remaining on a stable base system. For example, the
newest version of the Orca screen reader, with all of its fixes, and
newest version of ATSPI, the thing that makes Orca able to talk to
applications. Would you be willing to entertain the idea of moving
those updates directly to Debian stable?
* How would you present Debian to a group of people with
disabilities? What reasons would you give them for why they
should consider Debian?
* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive
technologies effectively unless they find and check a box
enabling the use of assistive technologies. Do you think that
this is good and fair to users?

I have some modest vision challenges myself with thirteen diopters on
both sides since my youth, but my risk is the detachment of both
retinas due to the shape of my eyeballs. Fortunately, a correction
via glasses has worked well so far.

My condition is one reason why I live in Fremont, which is also home
to California's School for the Blind. The entire city is equipped for
the visually impaired (and also for the deaf). If I go blind one day,
I will still be able to go shopping.

I have heard of the Debian Accessibility group, but I do not recall
having worked with you or your team on accessibility items.

As a fellow user of the 'stable' base system (which I believe is
somewhat uncommon inside Debian) I backport nearly all of my packages
to bullseye. I would generally like to find a workflow to make
backports more common overall. As project leader, I would support the Accessibility Group in any need, with high priority. You fall under a
specially protected class.

I would furthermore not hesitate to push for the use of project funds
on your behalf, if that's not happening already.

When asked to present to a group of people with disabilities, I would
prefer to do so by your side. In advance, I would try to find a
suitable position in our organization for any person agreeable to the Accessibility team (but subject to a confirmation by the appointments committee). I do not believe any delegation for better accessibility
currently exists. I would then point to that "Accessibility Czar" as a
reason why people with disabilities should use Debian.

As for finding a box, it seems a terrible way to enable assistive
technologies. How do you find it when you are blind? Maybe some
desktop environments try to enable a few of those tools by default,
but that calls for a technical solution. I pledge to work with you to
improve the availability of accessibility tools in Debian.

Thank you for bringing Debian to people in whose lives it can make a
real difference!

Kind regards,
Felix Lechner

P.S. Hi everyone, please join #meetfelix on OFTC. I hope to get to
know you better!

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Hi,

On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 12:09:24 -0500
Devin Prater <r.d.t.prater@gmail.com> wrote:

* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?

Sorry, no.

It means that there's an opportunity to people like me can know it more
if the Debian Accessibility group could show their duties and activities :)

* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get the most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining on a stable base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca screen reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the thing that makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing to
entertain the idea of moving those updates directly to Debian stable?

Yes, as I said in my platform.

Provide better Debian $B!H(BExperience$B!I(B for our contributors and users.

We are developing Debian a lot day by day, but it seems that won$B!G(Bt reach
most of our users. I$B!G(Bm not sure what is the better way to give more values
(providing easy access to testing/unstable in d-i? more updates to stable?),
but it$B!G(Bs wonderful if we can.

We need some coordination to achieve this, but worth trying.

* How would you present Debian to a group of people with disabilities? What reasons would you give them for why they should consider Debian?

Honestly, I don't have enough information for that.

It means that YOU people with disabilities need to show what's good/bad
currently in Debian and what should be done in the future, then discuss
with others. Something clear to you is sometimes not clear to me, please
tell us :)

* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the use
of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair to users?

Yes and No.

I'm Japanese and not good at English, so want to use Japanese in
the desktop environment but I should choose Japanese in the installer
that shows in English. It's fair since most people can recognize English
more than Japanese. There is some limitation in the user interface and
prefer majority is reasonable.

However, adding Accessibility software by default is not hard, IMHO.
Installing Accessibility by default and setting "minimum desktop" checkbox
for people who don't need it would be better (of course, it also needs
some coordination to do so).


--
Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp>

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Hi Devin,

On 3/20/22 18:09, Devin Prater wrote:

* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get
the most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining
on a stable base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca
screen reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the
thing that makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing
to entertain the idea of moving those updates directly to Debian stable?

This is up to the Debian Stable release team to decide, and that's not something the DPL can override. The TC or a GR could. But best would be
to use the normal way: be convincing when discussing with the release team.

* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the
use of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair
to users?

The DPL can give you his opinion, but even with super DPL power, he
cannot act on the issue better than any other DD, IMO... At best, the
DPL could influence others and push them to work on the problem.

Just an idea: how about we create a day per year, where all DDs are
invited to work on accessibility issues? I'm not volunteering for
organizing such a day, just giving the idea for the accessibility team
to pick-up... I'd volunteer a day per year, if I'm given a list of tasks
I can act on!

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

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Hi Devin

On 2022/03/20 19:09, Devin Prater wrote:

* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?

I have indeed.

  * If so, have you worked with them in the past, or are you currently working with them?

I haven't directly worked with them directly, but I have been on the
receiving end of criticism (and it was completely valuable and useful
and valid feedback) on things that I did.

Most notably, I received some very angry emails when I added the
Calamares installer to our Debian live images. It introduced some
horrible accessibility bugs because Orca couldn't see the Calamares
window (iirc it was some combination also of Calamares being a Qt app
and apps under Wayland not being able to peek at other windows), which
made it quite useless for people who are blind. The situation has gotten
a bit better, but it's still terrible.

I also have lots of ideas I'd like to implement for accessibility,
specifically in installers, but that's also a rabbit hole that doesn't
quite address your questions at this point.

We also have a few other DDs who are blind or visually impaired to some
degree which brought some more attention to things that I've implemented
that are terrible in terms of accessibility.

I installed a Jitsi server for Debian (it's a system for making group
video calls), and was really proud that we had this... until we had some
blind people join some calls and learned how utterly inaccessible it is.
For example, you can toggle your mic or camera (there's no way to set it
as either on or off explicitly) and then you have to be able to see the
mic or camera icon on your screen in order to tell whether those are
enabled or not. I think in our case our DDs went ahead and checked the
status in the javascript debug console to find the variables and their values... and I'm proud of them for being so resourceful, but totally embarrassed that we needed them to do that in the first place. On the
bright side, video chat software has been good at raising funding during
covid, and these issues are filed upstream, so I hope that jitsi gets a
lot better and makes it a lot easier for people with visual disabilities
to join video calls and participate in our community in the future.

* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get
the most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining
on a stable base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca
screen reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the
thing that makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing
to entertain the idea of moving those updates directly to Debian stable?

To be fair, it seems like a very valid use of backports. Is the main
issue more about the hurdle of enabling the backports repository, or
about issues like the level of security fixes available for backported packages?

* How would you present Debian to a group of people with disabilities?
What reasons would you give them for why they should consider Debian

I would present it to them warts and all. I'd cover why I believe Debian
is important, explain our problems, and explain how we want to be
better. Some people in such a group might decide "nah, it's not worth
the effort", but some might decide that it's at least worth while to try
out it out, even if only in a VM, and might have the skills to submit
bug reports or even get involved. Some things that seemed like tiny bits
of feedback have made some important changes in the past (like losing a
beep on live media when we use GRUB (for UEFI) instead of isolinux). I
believe we can benefit from a lot more feedback, but it's also a
question of priority in the project when it comes to dealing with such feedback.

* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the
use of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair
to users?

At DebConf15, I attended this talk from Samuel Thibault:

https://peertube.debian.social/w/9hoptcMQiPsmJrb2fbRvxW

Even though it's now a few years old, I can recommend that to anyone
reading here who aren't very familiar with accessibility issues in Debian.

The way he describes Debian as being in the stone age compared to Apple
in terms of accessibility (where accessibility is always just a few
buttons away) has convinced me that users should only have to do the
bare minimum of effort to ever enable an assistive technology.

-Jonathan

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Hello,

Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:

Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,
unfortunately.

I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to
work on issues :)

Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he
may ping them more frequently during his public statements (Debconf,
bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.

Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this
front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.

Samuel

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Le 21/03/2022 à 00:07, Hideki Yamane a écrit :

Hi,

On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 12:09:24 -0500
Devin Prater <r.d.t.prater@gmail.com> wrote:

* Have you heard of the Debian Accessibility group?

Sorry, no.

It means that there's an opportunity to people like me can know it more
if the Debian Accessibility group could show their duties and activities :)

* Currently, Debian backports is how people with disabilities can get the
most up-to-date accessibility fixes and improvements while remaining on a
stable base system. For example, the newest version of the Orca screen
reader, with all of its fixes, and newest version of ATSPI, the thing that >> makes Orca able to talk to applications. Would you be willing to
entertain the idea of moving those updates directly to Debian stable?

Yes, as I said in my platform.

I dont think DPL can influence this, indeed. It si really a discussion
with debian-release, and it is not fully trivial, because orca depends
on at-spi and upgrading this can have some consequences on the
accessibility. So it is not unfeasible, but not trivial

Provide better Debian “Experience” for our contributors and users. >>>
We are developing Debian a lot day by day, but it seems that won’t reach >>> most of our users. I’m not sure what is the better way to give more values
(providing easy access to testing/unstable in d-i? more updates to stable?),
but it’s wonderful if we can.

We need some coordination to achieve this, but worth trying.

* How would you present Debian to a group of people with disabilities? What >> reasons would you give them for why they should consider Debian?

Honestly, I don't have enough information for that.

It means that YOU people with disabilities need to show what's good/bad
currently in Debian and what should be done in the future, then discuss
with others. Something clear to you is sometimes not clear to me, please
tell us :)

Difficult question indeed. Most information are on wiki.debian.org/accessibility.

* In many desktop environments, a user cannot use their assistive
technologies effectively unless they find and check a box enabling the use >> of assistive technologies. Do you think that this is good and fair to users?

Yes and No.

I'm Japanese and not good at English, so want to use Japanese in
the desktop environment but I should choose Japanese in the installer
that shows in English. It's fair since most people can recognize English
more than Japanese. There is some limitation in the user interface and
prefer majority is reasonable.

However, adding Accessibility software by default is not hard, IMHO.
Installing Accessibility by default and setting "minimum desktop" checkbox
for people who don't need it would be better (of course, it also needs
some coordination to do so).

It had been proposed at debconf 2015 and, IIRC, done in most dekstops
(enabled accessibility). But it does not warranty they will work as most
of them are not ready technically without major tweaks in configuration,
and it depends on toolkit. Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial
role about this, unfortunately. Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he may ping them more frequently during his
public statements (Debconf, bits, debian-news) so make them talk about
their work progress.

Best regards



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Thanks. I tried to think of good, useful questions to spark discussion, but
I don't know much about the structure of Debian or its project leaders. I
do think, though, that if the project leader keeps accessibility in mind,
this will filter down throughout Debian as a whole.

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users
probably won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to me
at least. I'd personally like to see accessibility on the same level as security or very important bug fix updates, because sometimes they are, especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca, where
Orca couldn't read the Mate Terminal. Another thing is braille support.
BRLTTY, the package for driving Braille displays, gets updated like once
every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.

This isn't to say that Debian's accessibility is awful; it's one of the
best among all Linux distributions, because the user is guided from installation to first system boot. It's nice. I know the project leader
can't be everything to all people, and there are legal, security, and other community issues, but it would be nice if whoever is elected to remember
us, and setting aside a day to work on accessibility issues would be an
amazing start. And since Debian is the root of a lot of other
distributions, and even the default container in Google's Crostini Linux
thing, we can show both other FOSS projects, and big corporations (corpses) that FOSS doesn't have to only be for people who are privileged enough to
have all senses and use of their bodies and minds.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com




On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:46 PM Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org>
wrote:

Hello,

Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:

Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,
unfortunately.

I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to
work on issues :)

Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he
may ping them more frequently during his public statements (Debconf,
bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.

Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this
front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.

Samuel

<div dir="ltr">Thanks. I tried to think of good, useful questions to spark discussion, but I don&#39;t know much about the structure of Debian or its project leaders. I do think, though, that if the project leader keeps accessibility in mind, this will
filter down throughout Debian as a whole.<div><br></div><div>As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users probably won&#39;t even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to me at least. I&#39;d personally like to see
accessibility on the same level as security or very important bug fix updates, because sometimes they are, especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca, where Orca couldn&#39;t read the Mate Terminal. Another thing is braille
support. BRLTTY, the package for driving Braille displays, gets updated like once every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.</div><div><br></div><div>This isn&#39;t to say that Debian&#39;s accessibility is awful; it&#39;s one of the
best among all Linux distributions, because the user is guided from installation to first system boot. It&#39;s nice. I know the project leader can&#39;t be everything to all people, and there are legal, security, and other community issues, but it would
be nice if whoever is elected to remember us, and setting aside a day to work on accessibility issues would be an amazing start. And since Debian is the root of a lot of other distributions, and even the default container in Google&#39;s Crostini Linux
thing, we can show both other FOSS projects, and big corporations (corpses) that FOSS doesn&#39;t have to only be for people who are privileged enough to have all senses and use of their bodies and minds.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_
signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Devin Prater</div><div><a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><

</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:46 PM Samuel Thibault &lt;<a href="mailto:sthibault@debian.org">sthibault@debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="

margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hello,<br>

Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)<br>

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:<br>
&gt; Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,<br>
&gt; unfortunately.<br>

I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to<br>
work on issues :)<br>

&gt; Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he<br> &gt; may ping them more frequently during his public statements (Debconf,<br> &gt; bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.<br>

Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this<br>
front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.<br>

Samuel<br>

</blockquote></div>

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Hello,

Devin Prater, le lun. 21 mars 2022 22:10:15 -0500, a ecrit:

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users probably won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to me at least.

Ok, that's one point that could be worked on: creating an easy way to
enable backports. At least as a question in the installer, and possibly
in e.g. synaptic or such after installation. Please report this idea to
the debian installer team and to the synaptic package.

I'd personally like to see accessibility on the same level as security or very
important bug fix updates, because sometimes they are,

Actually this is already considered so. For instance, two important accessibility fixes have gone into the dot-release that will happen this week-end.

But like security, just uploading a new version of software to Debian
stable is dangerous for stability. New software do not only have fixes,
but also do have regression as well, that's why the release team only
accepts small targetted fixes in Debian stable, whose changes can be
closely scrutinized to make sure they aren't bringing regressions.

especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca,
where Orca couldn't read the Mate Terminal.

I'm not aware of the issue?
Bugs that aren't reported are bugs that won't be fixed ;)

Another thing is braille support. BRLTTY, the package for driving
Braille displays, gets updated like once every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.

That is what backports is for, just like it is for the Linux kernel when
people buy newer hardware. So we're back to the question at the top.

it would be nice if whoever is elected to remember us, and setting
aside a day to work on accessibility issues would be an amazing start.

Promoting awareness of accessibility issues in Debian communication
would be the role of a DPL, yes.

But I don't think it would have to be for the DPL to lead work on accessibility: *anybody* can do that, so let's not put the load over
somebody who will already have a lot to do.

Really, leading work on accessibility is mostly about taking the time
to identify a problem, discussing with various teams to find out where
it can be fixed, and then finding volunteers to work on the fix. One
doesn't even need to know programming to do this, and this does not have
to be just one person to do it (otherwise things will move, yes, but at
a very slow pace).

Samuel

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So, the Terminal issue was fixed some time ago, so we don't have to worry
about that. That was just an example of a bug which *has* happened before.
I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com




On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 5:52 AM Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <jpmengual@debian.org> wrote:

Le 22/03/2022 à 04:10, Devin Prater a écrit :

Thanks. I tried to think of good, useful questions to spark discussion,
but I don't know much about the structure of Debian or its project
leaders. I do think, though, that if the project leader keeps
accessibility in mind, this will filter down throughout Debian as a

whole.

You are right, and thanks to give visibility fot this matter here.

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users probably won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to
me at least. I'd personally like to see accessibility on the same level
as security or very important bug fix updates, because sometimes they
are, especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca, where Orca couldn't read the Mate Terminal. Another thing is braille support. BRLTTY, the package for driving Braille displays, gets updated like once every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.

What you describe are issues mainly related to upstream development. The
fact Orca has problems in a terminal (I think I know this) should be
reported and discussedon the orcamailing list, as it is the place where
the development happens. Debian is only a distribution, ie. a place to
make easier getting packages usable. But a distro should not patch so
much a program, in particular it cannot bring new features or fix bugs.
Some maintainers do, but often because they maintain the package and the program upstream. It is not the case for graphical accessibility tools,
where maintainers in Debian (thanks Samuel, Paul and few others) are
often different from the upstream developers. Tools such as
speech-dispatcher are maintained by accessibility team upstream and in Debian, for instance.

So the best thing you can do to report such problems is writing to the
orca mailing list so that they are in the todo list of the developer.
And indeed, Orca in a terminal is not optimum.

For braille, the thing is to know if a new version of brltty supports a display you have and which is not yet supported in stable. Ti is a kind
of program where upgrades are not required as few new features appear,
except sometimes (cut and paste recently introduced in graphical
interface). So if it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport
is a good idea.

This isn't to say that Debian's accessibility is awful; it's one of the best among all Linux distributions, because the user is guided from installation to first system boot. It's nice. I know the project leader can't be everything to all people, and there are legal, security, and
other community issues, but it would be nice if whoever is elected to remember us, and setting aside a day to work on accessibility issues
would be an amazing start. And since Debian is the root of a lot of
other distributions, and even the default container in Google's Crostini Linux thing, we can show both other FOSS projects, and big
corporations (corpses) that FOSS doesn't have to only be for people who
are privileged enough to have all senses and use of their bodies and

minds.

+1

Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com <mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:46 PM Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org <mailto:sthibault@debian.org>> wrote:

Hello,

Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:
> Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,
> unfortunately.

I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to
work on issues :)

> Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic,

he

> may ping them more frequently during his public statements

(Debconf,

> bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.

Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this
front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.

Samuel

<div dir="ltr">So, the Terminal issue was fixed some time ago, so we don&#39;t have to worry about that. That was just an example of a bug which *has* happened before. I&#39;m sorry I wasn&#39;t clear enough.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="
gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Devin Prater</div><div><a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div><
/div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 5:52 AM Jean-Philippe MENGUAL &lt;<a href="mailto:jpmengual@debian.org">jpmengual@debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
Le 22/03/2022 à 04:10, Devin Prater a écrit :<br>
&gt; Thanks. I tried to think of good, useful questions to spark discussion, <br>
&gt; but I don&#39;t know much about the structure of Debian or its project <br>
&gt; leaders. I do think, though, that if the project leader keeps <br>
&gt; accessibility in mind, this will filter down throughout Debian as a whole.<br>

You are right, and thanks to give visibility fot this matter here.<br>

&gt; <br>
&gt; As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users <br> &gt; probably won&#39;t even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to <br>
&gt; me at least. I&#39;d personally like to see accessibility on the same level <br>
&gt; as security or very important bug fix updates, because sometimes they <br> &gt; are, especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca, <br>
&gt; where Orca couldn&#39;t read the Mate Terminal. Another thing is braille <br>
&gt; support. BRLTTY, the package for driving Braille displays, gets updated <br>
&gt; like once every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.<br>

What you describe are issues mainly related to upstream development. The <br> fact Orca has problems in a terminal (I think I know this) should be <br> reported and discussedon the orcamailing list, as it is the place where <br> the development happens. Debian is only a distribution, ie. a place to <br> make easier getting packages usable. But a distro should not patch so <br>
much a program, in particular it cannot bring new features or fix bugs. <br> Some maintainers do, but often because they maintain the package and the <br> program upstream. It is not the case for graphical accessibility tools, <br> where maintainers in Debian (thanks Samuel, Paul and few others) are <br>
often different from the upstream developers. Tools such as <br> speech-dispatcher are maintained by accessibility team upstream and in <br> Debian, for instance.<br>

So the best thing you can do to report such problems is writing to the <br> orca mailing list so that they are in the todo list of the developer. <br>
And indeed, Orca in a terminal is not optimum.<br>

For braille, the thing is to know if a new version of brltty supports a <br> display you have and which is not yet supported in stable. Ti is a kind <br>
of program where upgrades are not required as few new features appear, <br> except sometimes (cut and paste recently introduced in graphical <br> interface). So if it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport <br>
is a good idea.<br>


&gt; <br>
&gt; This isn&#39;t to say that Debian&#39;s accessibility is awful; it&#39;s one of the <br>
&gt; best among all Linux distributions, because the user is guided from <br> &gt; installation to first system boot. It&#39;s nice. I know the project leader <br>
&gt; can&#39;t be everything to all people, and there are legal, security, and <br>
&gt; other community issues, but it would be nice if whoever is elected to <br>
&gt; remember us, and setting aside a day to work on accessibility issues <br> &gt; would be an amazing start. And since Debian is the root of a lot of <br> &gt; other distributions, and even the default container in Google&#39;s Crostini <br>
&gt; Linux thing, we can show both other FOSS projects, and big <br>
&gt; corporations (corpses) that FOSS doesn&#39;t have to only be for people who <br>
&gt; are privileged enough to have all senses and use of their bodies and minds.<br>

+1<br>

&gt; Devin Prater<br>
&gt; <a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a> &lt;mailto:<a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a>&gt;<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; <br>
&gt; On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:46 PM Samuel Thibault &lt;<a href="mailto:sthibault@debian.org" target="_blank">sthibault@debian.org</a> <br>
&gt; &lt;mailto:<a href="mailto:sthibault@debian.org" target="_blank">sthibault@debian.org</a>&gt;&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     Hello,<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:<br>
&gt;      &gt; Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,<br>
&gt;      &gt; unfortunately.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to<br>
&gt;     work on issues :)<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;      &gt; Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he<br>
&gt;      &gt; may ping them more frequently during his public statements (Debconf,<br>
&gt;      &gt; bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this<br>
&gt;     front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.<br>
&gt; <br>
&gt;     Samuel<br>
&gt; <br>

</blockquote></div>

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Le 22/03/2022 à 04:10, Devin Prater a écrit :

Thanks. I tried to think of good, useful questions to spark discussion,
but I don't know much about the structure of Debian or its project
leaders. I do think, though, that if the project leader keeps
accessibility in mind, this will filter down throughout Debian as a whole.

You are right, and thanks to give visibility fot this matter here.

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users
probably won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to
me at least. I'd personally like to see accessibility on the same level
as security or very important bug fix updates, because sometimes they
are, especially when something like the Terminal bug happened with Orca, where Orca couldn't read the Mate Terminal. Another thing is braille
support. BRLTTY, the package for driving Braille displays, gets updated
like once every three months or so with support for new Braille displays.

What you describe are issues mainly related to upstream development. The
fact Orca has problems in a terminal (I think I know this) should be
reported and discussedon the orcamailing list, as it is the place where
the development happens. Debian is only a distribution, ie. a place to
make easier getting packages usable. But a distro should not patch so
much a program, in particular it cannot bring new features or fix bugs.
Some maintainers do, but often because they maintain the package and the program upstream. It is not the case for graphical accessibility tools,
where maintainers in Debian (thanks Samuel, Paul and few others) are
often different from the upstream developers. Tools such as
speech-dispatcher are maintained by accessibility team upstream and in
Debian, for instance.

So the best thing you can do to report such problems is writing to the
orca mailing list so that they are in the todo list of the developer.
And indeed, Orca in a terminal is not optimum.

For braille, the thing is to know if a new version of brltty supports a
display you have and which is not yet supported in stable. Ti is a kind
of program where upgrades are not required as few new features appear,
except sometimes (cut and paste recently introduced in graphical
interface). So if it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport
is a good idea.

This isn't to say that Debian's accessibility is awful; it's one of the
best among all Linux distributions, because the user is guided from installation to first system boot. It's nice. I know the project leader
can't be everything to all people, and there are legal, security, and
other community issues, but it would be nice if whoever is elected to remember us, and setting aside a day to work on accessibility issues
would be an amazing start. And since Debian is the root of a lot of
other distributions, and even the default container in Google's Crostini Linux thing, we can show both other FOSS projects, and big corporations (corpses) that FOSS doesn't have to only be for people who
are privileged enough to have all senses and use of their bodies and minds.

+1

Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com <mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:46 PM Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org <mailto:sthibault@debian.org>> wrote:

Hello,

Devin, thanks for bringing accessibility questions in :)

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le lun. 21 mars 2022 23:37:03 +0100, a ecrit:
> Again, not sur the DPL can have a crucial role about this,
> unfortunately.

I agree, a DPL cannot make current maintainers magically find time to
work on issues :)

> Perhaps, however, in order to give more visibility to the topic, he
> may ping them more frequently during his public statements (Debconf,
> bits, debian-news) so make them talk about their work progress.

Agreed as well: advertising the will of Debian to progress on this
front, and that help is welcome, *can* make new maintainers come up.

Samuel

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Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le mar. 22 mars 2022 11:51:43 +0100, a ecrit:

If it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport is a good
idea.

Note that sometimes supporting a new device does not actually require
a completely new driver, only a small addition to recognize the USB
device. That can be added in stable updates without problem.

Samuel

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Yeah, right now there is a device being tested, the NLS EReader. This is a braille display that the National Library Service for the Blind in the US
is having companies develop so that they can then distribute them, for
free, to their patrons. Two versions are being tested, one from the
Humanware manufacturer, and another from Zoomax. The one from Zoomax works currently, in at least BRLTTY 6.4, and work is being done to complete
support for the Humanware model. So I'm glad device support can be added in stable like that. I only have access to the Humanware model, and some
devices, like Android phones, don't support it, while others, like iOS
systems, have... unfinished support for it.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com




On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 6:34 AM Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org>
wrote:

Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le mar. 22 mars 2022 11:51:43 +0100, a ecrit:

If it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport is a good
idea.

Note that sometimes supporting a new device does not actually require
a completely new driver, only a small addition to recognize the USB
device. That can be added in stable updates without problem.

Samuel

<div dir="ltr">Yeah, right now there is a device being tested, the NLS EReader. This is a braille display that the National Library Service for the Blind in the US is having companies develop so that they can then distribute them, for free, to their
patrons. Two versions are being tested, one from the Humanware manufacturer, and another from Zoomax. The one from Zoomax works currently, in at least BRLTTY 6.4, and work is being done to complete support for the Humanware model. So I&#39;m glad device
support can be added in stable like that. I only have access to the Humanware model, and some devices, like Android phones, don&#39;t support it, while others, like iOS systems, have... unfinished support for it.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="
gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Devin Prater</div><div><a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div><
/div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 6:34 AM Samuel Thibault &lt;<a href="mailto:sthibault@debian.org">sthibault@debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="
margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Jean-Philippe MENGUAL, le mar. 22 mars 2022 11:51:43 +0100, a ecrit:<br>
&gt; If it adds a driver for your device, indeed, a backport is a good<br>
&gt; idea.<br>

Note that sometimes supporting a new device does not actually require<br>
a completely new driver, only a small addition to recognize the USB<br>
device. That can be added in stable updates without problem.<br>

Samuel<br>

</blockquote></div>

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"Jonathan" == Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> writes:

Jonathan> I installed a Jitsi server for Debian (it's a system for
Jonathan> making group video calls), and was really proud that we
Jonathan> had this... until we had some blind people join some calls
Jonathan> and learned how utterly inaccessible it is. For example,
Jonathan> you can toggle your mic or camera (there's no way to set
Jonathan> it as either on or off explicitly) and then you have to be
Jonathan> able to see the mic or camera icon on your screen in order
Jonathan> to tell whether those are enabled or not.

This has gotten much much better.

* You can hold down space bar in orca focus mode, when you release, you
know you will be muted.
(push to talk key)

* The accessibility of the icons is much better.
The buttons are "pressed" when muted and this displays through to orca.

There are still a few things that are not perfect, but Jitsi
accessibility is on par with Zoom and Teams from my standpoint these
days.

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Hi Sam

On 2022/03/23 06:04, Sam Hartman wrote:

This has gotten much much better.

* You can hold down space bar in orca focus mode, when you release, you
know you will be muted.
(push to talk key)

* The accessibility of the icons is much better.
The buttons are "pressed" when muted and this displays through to orca.

There are still a few things that are not perfect, but Jitsi
accessibility is on par with Zoom and Teams from my standpoint these
days.

That is great to hear, thanks so much for the feedback, I'll feel a
little less guilty whenever I invite an orca user to a jitsi meeting
now, thanks!

-Jonathan

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That's good to hear. We use Element at work, so I can tell the boss that
Jitsi is good to use now. Unfortunately, Element has started making their
own video call stuff because <sarcasm>it's just never enough to have a good FOSS solution, one must make their own to have it perfect!</sarcasm>.
Funnily enough, Zoom is pretty awful to use on Linux as a desktop app. The
web app works a bit better, so I'm glad Jitsi outshines them in
accessibility now.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com




On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 11:05 PM Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> wrote:

"Jonathan" == Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> writes:

Jonathan> I installed a Jitsi server for Debian (it's a system for
Jonathan> making group video calls), and was really proud that we
Jonathan> had this... until we had some blind people join some calls
Jonathan> and learned how utterly inaccessible it is. For example,
Jonathan> you can toggle your mic or camera (there's no way to set
Jonathan> it as either on or off explicitly) and then you have to be
Jonathan> able to see the mic or camera icon on your screen in order
Jonathan> to tell whether those are enabled or not.

This has gotten much much better.

* You can hold down space bar in orca focus mode, when you release, you
know you will be muted.
(push to talk key)

* The accessibility of the icons is much better.
The buttons are "pressed" when muted and this displays through to orca.

There are still a few things that are not perfect, but Jitsi
accessibility is on par with Zoom and Teams from my standpoint these
days.

<div dir="ltr">That&#39;s good to hear. We use Element at work, so I can tell the boss that Jitsi is good to use now. Unfortunately, Element has started making their own video call stuff because &lt;sarcasm&gt;it&#39;s just never enough to have a good
FOSS solution, one must make their own to have it perfect!&lt;/sarcasm&gt;. Funnily enough, Zoom is pretty awful to use on Linux as a desktop app. The web app works a bit better, so I&#39;m glad Jitsi outshines them in accessibility now.<br clear="all"><

<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Devin Prater</div><div><a href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><

</div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 11:05 PM Sam Hartman &lt;<a href="mailto:hartmans@debian.org">hartmans@debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="

gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; &quot;Jonathan&quot; == Jonathan Carter &lt;<a href="mailto:jcc@debian.org" target="_blank">jcc@debian.org</a>&gt; writes:<br>
    Jonathan&gt; I installed a Jitsi server for Debian (it&#39;s a system for<br>
    Jonathan&gt; making group video calls), and was really proud that we<br>     Jonathan&gt; had this... until we had some blind people join some calls<br>
    Jonathan&gt; and learned how utterly inaccessible it is.  For example,<br>
    Jonathan&gt; you can toggle your mic or camera (there&#39;s no way to set<br>
    Jonathan&gt; it as either on or off explicitly) and then you have to be<br>
    Jonathan&gt; able to see the mic or camera icon on your screen in order<br>
    Jonathan&gt; to tell whether those are enabled or not.<br>

This has gotten much much better.<br>

* You can hold down space bar in orca focus mode, when you release, you<br>
  know you will be muted.<br>
  (push to talk key)<br>

* The accessibility of the icons is much better.<br>
The buttons are &quot;pressed&quot; when muted and this displays through to orca.<br>

There are still a few things that are not perfect, but Jitsi<br>
accessibility is on par with Zoom and Teams from my standpoint these<br> days.<br>

</blockquote></div>

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Hi Samuel,

On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 09:23:38AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:

Hello,

Devin Prater, le lun. 21 mars 2022 22:10:15 -0500, a ecrit:

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users probably
won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to me at least.

Ok, that's one point that could be worked on: creating an easy way to
enable backports.

This is what my project, "extrepo", wants to accomplish: to make it
easily possible to enable repositories that are not enabled by default.
You can enable backports on bullseye by way of the following two
commands:

sudo apt install extrepo
sudo extrepo enable debian_backports

(there are a lot of other repositories you can enable that way, btw; to
get a full list, run "extrepo search", although you might want to pipe
it into a pager ;-) )

At least as a question in the installer,

Adding an installer module for extrepo is on my TODO list, but I do have
a lot on my plate and thus am not sure I'll be able to finish that work
in time for the release.

[...]
--
w@uter.{be,co.za}
wouter@{grep.be,fosdem.org,debian.org}

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Hello,

Wouter Verhelst, le mar. 29 mars 2022 20:00:19 +0200, a ecrit:

On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 09:23:38AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:

Hello,

Devin Prater, le lun. 21 mars 2022 22:10:15 -0500, a ecrit:

As far as backports, my problem is enabling it. Normal desktop users probably
won't even know what that is, and the syntax is rather ugly, to me at least.

Ok, that's one point that could be worked on: creating an easy way to enable backports.

This is what my project, "extrepo", wants to accomplish: to make it
easily possible to enable repositories that are not enabled by default.

Nice!

I added a not on the accessibility wiki page.

Samuel

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Hi,

On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 23:37:03 +0100
Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <jpmengual@debian.org> wrote:

I dont think DPL can influence this, indeed.

DPL can influence it, IMHO. But, of course cannot force it.
Just point "the direction" and show the idea behind it and discuss -
that's what I want to do.

Difficult question indeed. Most information are on wiki.debian.org/accessibility.

"Pulling" the information is a bit hard these days since there are
a lot of info and not well constructed. And there is no "feelings"
with current situations. Improving accessibility is a good thing,
but push people to do so, we need some emotional "gas" to heat our
heart. So, it is important that "pushing" information about current
situation of accessibility in Debian and what you want to do with
it is necessary, IMO.


--
Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp>

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Gas is rather expensive these days. :D How would you propose we improve the emotional response? I've written plenty of blog posts on
write.as/devinprater (some on other operating systems but a good bit about Linux). I'm not very good at making videos, but I can write and edit.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com




On Fri, Apr 1, 2022 at 1:24 AM Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp> wrote:

Hi,

On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 23:37:03 +0100
Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <jpmengual@debian.org> wrote:

I dont think DPL can influence this, indeed.

DPL can influence it, IMHO. But, of course cannot force it.
Just point "the direction" and show the idea behind it and discuss -
that's what I want to do.

Difficult question indeed. Most information are on wiki.debian.org/accessibility.

"Pulling" the information is a bit hard these days since there are
a lot of info and not well constructed. And there is no "feelings"
with current situations. Improving accessibility is a good thing,
but push people to do so, we need some emotional "gas" to heat our
heart. So, it is important that "pushing" information about current
situation of accessibility in Debian and what you want to do with
it is necessary, IMO.

--
Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp>

<div dir="ltr">Gas is rather expensive these days. :D How would you propose we improve the emotional response? I&#39;ve written plenty of blog posts on <a href="http://write.as/devinprater">write.as/devinprater</a> (some on other operating systems but a
good bit about Linux). I&#39;m not very good at making videos, but I can write and edit.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Devin Prater</div><div><a
href="mailto:r.d.t.prater@gmail.com" target="_blank">r.d.t.prater@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Apr 1, 2022 at 1:24 AM Hideki
Yamane &lt;<a href="mailto:henrich@iijmio-mail.jp">henrich@iijmio-mail.jp</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>

On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 23:37:03 +0100<br>
Jean-Philippe MENGUAL &lt;<a href="mailto:jpmengual@debian.org" target="_blank">jpmengual@debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt; I dont think DPL can influence this, indeed. <br>

 DPL can influence it, IMHO. But, of course cannot force it.<br>
 Just point &quot;the direction&quot; and show the idea behind it and discuss -<br>
 that&#39;s what I want to do.<br>


&gt; Difficult question indeed. Most information are on <br>
&gt; <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/accessibility" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">wiki.debian.org/accessibility</a>.<br>

 &quot;Pulling&quot; the information is a bit hard these days since there are<br>
 a lot of info and not well constructed. And there is no &quot;feelings&quot;<br>
 with current situations. Improving accessibility is a good thing,<br>
 but push people to do so, we need some emotional &quot;gas&quot; to heat our<br>
 heart. So, it is important that &quot;pushing&quot; information about current<br>
 situation of accessibility in Debian and what you want to do with<br>
 it is necessary, IMO.<br>


-- <br>
Hideki Yamane &lt;<a href="mailto:henrich@iijmio-mail.jp" target="_blank">henrich@iijmio-mail.jp</a>&gt;<br>
</blockquote></div>

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