Re: Needs educating: Message from Linux (fwd)

["Thomas Ward" <tward@bright.net>]

I take it you don't know much bout the Gnome 2.0 project. Well, here is a
more in depth look at Gnome 2. Which is part of the x-windows system.

1. Gnome 2 is being majorly over halled with speech accessible widgits,
screen reader hooks, and other fixes to make it accessible.
2. synth driver support is being added to support synths for Linux. This
project is called Gnome-speech.
3. the gtk+ language is being modified so that from now on all applications
using the standard gtk+ 2 will come out of the box accessible with
Gnopernicus and other x screen readers like it.

So steps are being taken to make X accessible, but it merely takes time.

----- Original Message -----
From: David Arocho <darocho@earthlink.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 9:08 PM
Subject: RE: Needs educating: Message from Linux (fwd)


> The real question is access.  Neither JAWS nor WINDOW EYES can give full
> access to the Windows operating system.  If you get away from the small
> number of familiar Microsoft applications, you find that you have to limp
> along.  This will be so until speech and Braille and large print access
are
> built right into the operating system.  Linux is the only operating system
> that has a prayer of getting such access built in.  However, until
> X-windows is made accessible, Linux will remain a solution for only a few.
> If it is not done soon, though, and X-windows gets to challenge Microsoft
> for its dominance, blind people will again be left out in the cold.  The
> fact is tat, unless some of us get behind it and push and make our own way
> to get X-windows accessible, it is not going to get done.  If any of you
> are interested in working aggressively toward that end, let me hear from
> you privately.  Lists are great for getting people in touch, but they all
> tend to go in the direction of griping sessions a la talk radio.  Let's
> start doing, as talk is very cheap and time is not on our side.
>
> David Arocho
>
>