announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Chris Brannon]

Hi folks,
This is a vision I've had for many years, and now I'm slowly starting to
realize it.  More information is at https://blvuug.org but I will paste
the markdown source for the homepage inline.  It is readable plaintext
and I don't have to repeat myself.

I'm sorry if anyone is annoyed by the self-promotion, but I suspect most
people on this list might be interested.  Please feel free to spread
this around.

# Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group

Welcome to BLVUUG, the Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group.
We are a not-for-profit association of people working to improve and promote
greater accessibility of free Unix operating systems for the visually disabled.
The group is founded on the principles of mutual aid and cooperating to advance the
social good.  There isn't much here yet.  The rest of the page is an
informal charter.  If all of this sounds exciting to you, please subscribe
to the mailing list: [discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org](mailto:discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org).

## Abstract Goals

* To promote communication among blind and low vision Unix users and to connect them with potential sighted allies.
* To foster collaboration among people working on Unix-based adaptive technology for people with visual disabilities.
* Eventually, to serve as a vehicle for funding development of said technologies.
* To enable community members to promote products or services generally useful to the blind Unix community.

## Concrete Goals

We'll be adding a code forge (a la github and other code hosting sites)
to be a home for accessibility related projects.  We promise that it will
be something that is usable from a text mode web browser and with command-line
tools.  In other words, it will be aggressively interoperable and fluff-free.

We will also add a forum for communication among the community.  Again,
the promise of aggressive interoperability is made for the forum.  It
should be usable from email, web, and hopefully NNTP.

We will have a "classified ads" section on the site or as part of the forum.  Out of principle,
we will *never* accept paid advertising.  The purpose of the classifieds
is to connect and enable, rather than foster mindless consumerism or
profiteering.

## Legalese

In the US state of Oregon, where BLVUUG's founder resides, this group
is considered a "not for profit association" under Oregon law.  Here's a little blurb cribbed from
[Nonprofit Association of Oregon](https://nonprofitoregon.org/helpline_resources/tools_information/faqs/starting_a_nonprofit),
discussing what this means and comparing nonprofit associations and nonprofit corporations.

>Oregon nonprofits can be either unincorporated associations or corporations.
>If you do not file Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of State,
>your organization will be an unincorporated association by default.
>An unincorporated association is defined as a group of people who come together
>for some purpose other than to do business, such as book clubs,
>small hobby groups, etc.
>
>The positive aspects of associations are:
>
>* There are no registration or reporting requirements to the Oregon Secretary of State or DOJ
>* There is greater flexibility in how the organization is run
>* Change in membership doesn’t impact the existence of the organization
>
>The negative aspects of associations are:
>
>* There is no protection for the members. Everyone involved is equally and personally liable for the debts and lawsuits
>* It is not possible to open a bank account because the association cannot obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Anyone in the association can open a personal bank account on behalf of the association, but this can blur the line between personal and association assets
>
>Unincorporated associations are often most appropriate for groups with smaller
>budgets. They are a poor choice if your organization will be engaging in any
>activities with potential financial risk or that might result in physical or
>emotional injuries. Corporations, on the other hand,
>provide a much higher degree of legal protection for the individuals involved.
>They are also subject to more reporting requirements and to ORS 65.
>The legal liability protection is often enough reason to choose this structure.

At some point, especially if we start connecting projects with funding, it
might be advisable to incorporate.  That's a problem for another day.

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Glenn K0LNY]

Hi Chris,
Is there a screenreader for Unix?
Thanks

Glenn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Brannon" <chris@the-brannons.com>
To: <speakup@linux-speakup.org>
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2021 2:40 PM
Subject: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group


Hi folks,
This is a vision I've had for many years, and now I'm slowly starting to
realize it.  More information is at https://blvuug.org but I will paste
the markdown source for the homepage inline.  It is readable plaintext
and I don't have to repeat myself.

I'm sorry if anyone is annoyed by the self-promotion, but I suspect most
people on this list might be interested.  Please feel free to spread
this around.

# Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group

Welcome to BLVUUG, the Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group.
We are a not-for-profit association of people working to improve and promote
greater accessibility of free Unix operating systems for the visually 
disabled.
The group is founded on the principles of mutual aid and cooperating to 
advance the
social good.  There isn't much here yet.  The rest of the page is an
informal charter.  If all of this sounds exciting to you, please subscribe
to the mailing list: 
[discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org](mailto:discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org).

## Abstract Goals

* To promote communication among blind and low vision Unix users and to 
connect them with potential sighted allies.
* To foster collaboration among people working on Unix-based adaptive 
technology for people with visual disabilities.
* Eventually, to serve as a vehicle for funding development of said 
technologies.
* To enable community members to promote products or services generally 
useful to the blind Unix community.

## Concrete Goals

We'll be adding a code forge (a la github and other code hosting sites)
to be a home for accessibility related projects.  We promise that it will
be something that is usable from a text mode web browser and with 
command-line
tools.  In other words, it will be aggressively interoperable and 
fluff-free.

We will also add a forum for communication among the community.  Again,
the promise of aggressive interoperability is made for the forum.  It
should be usable from email, web, and hopefully NNTP.

We will have a "classified ads" section on the site or as part of the forum. 
Out of principle,
we will *never* accept paid advertising.  The purpose of the classifieds
is to connect and enable, rather than foster mindless consumerism or
profiteering.

## Legalese

In the US state of Oregon, where BLVUUG's founder resides, this group
is considered a "not for profit association" under Oregon law.  Here's a 
little blurb cribbed from
[Nonprofit Association of 
Oregon](https://nonprofitoregon.org/helpline_resources/tools_information/faqs/starting_a_nonprofit),
discussing what this means and comparing nonprofit associations and 
nonprofit corporations.

>Oregon nonprofits can be either unincorporated associations or 
>corporations.
>If you do not file Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of State,
>your organization will be an unincorporated association by default.
>An unincorporated association is defined as a group of people who come 
>together
>for some purpose other than to do business, such as book clubs,
>small hobby groups, etc.
>
>The positive aspects of associations are:
>
>* There are no registration or reporting requirements to the Oregon 
>Secretary of State or DOJ
>* There is greater flexibility in how the organization is run
>* Change in membership doesn’t impact the existence of the organization
>
>The negative aspects of associations are:
>
>* There is no protection for the members. Everyone involved is equally and 
>personally liable for the debts and lawsuits
>* It is not possible to open a bank account because the association cannot 
>obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Anyone in the association 
>can open a personal bank account on behalf of the association, but this can 
>blur the line between personal and association assets
>
>Unincorporated associations are often most appropriate for groups with 
>smaller
>budgets. They are a poor choice if your organization will be engaging in 
>any
>activities with potential financial risk or that might result in physical 
>or
>emotional injuries. Corporations, on the other hand,
>provide a much higher degree of legal protection for the individuals 
>involved.
>They are also subject to more reporting requirements and to ORS 65.
>The legal liability protection is often enough reason to choose this 
>structure.

At some point, especially if we start connecting projects with funding, it
might be advisable to incorporate.  That's a problem for another day.

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Chris Brannon]

"Glenn K0LNY" <glennervin@cableone.net> writes:

> Hi Chris,
> Is there a screenreader for Unix?

There are screenreaders for Unix derivatives, like Linux.  Some of those
screenreaders are portable to other Unix variants like *BSD and
even Mac OS X (yes it's Unix under the hood).  I guess some companies still
hold the trademark on Unix but I'm using it here as a blanket term to
cover all Unix-likes and Unix-derivatives.  The focus for BLVUUG is free
Unix-derivatives, so the target isn't Mac OS X users, even though OS X
is BSD under the covers.  If someone is doing accessibility stuff with
Solaris (or its several free forks like openindiana), that is also
copacetic.

So yeah, I'm sorry, Unix is kind of nebulous, but I'm aiming for a "big
tent" here.

-- Chris

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Amazingly MacOS version 11.0 Big Sur is an UNIX O3 certified product, 
source:
https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3668.htm

For practical matters I believe that thee UNIX 03 Production Standard:
https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/xym0.htm
is very close if not identical to the POSIX specification:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/

So as long as a software is POSIX compliant it should run on MacOS
(and also on any Linux and *BSD).

As a practical example and counter-example this is the case for 
PulseAudio but
not for systemd.

As an aside, when writing shell scripts I now use only syntactical 
constructs
specified by POSIX, so that they be portable across OS.

Sorry for the digression

Best regards,
Didier
Le 19/02/2021 à 21:59, Chris Brannon a écrit :
> "Glenn K0LNY" <glennervin@cableone.net> writes:
> 
>> Hi Chris,
>> Is there a screenreader for Unix?
> 
> There are screenreaders for Unix derivatives, like Linux.  Some of those
> screenreaders are portable to other Unix variants like *BSD and
> even Mac OS X (yes it's Unix under the hood).  I guess some companies still
> hold the trademark on Unix but I'm using it here as a blanket term to
> cover all Unix-likes and Unix-derivatives.  The focus for BLVUUG is free
> Unix-derivatives, so the target isn't Mac OS X users, even though OS X
> is BSD under the covers.  If someone is doing accessibility stuff with
> Solaris (or its several free forks like openindiana), that is also
> copacetic.
> 
> So yeah, I'm sorry, Unix is kind of nebulous, but I'm aiming for a "big
> tent" here.
> 
> -- Chris
> 

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Mike Ray]

Chris,

The front page mentions git repositories.

But I have many repositories which relate to low vision and Linux,
especially the Raspberry Pi.

It would be silly for code to exist in two or more places.

So will I be able to highlight my github repos on the list/site?

I currently have repos for:

* General tts projects
* Ansible Raspberry Pi config
* Raspberry Pi Arch image creation
* Raspberry Pi image file creation and manipulation

Great idea, especially to encourage funding and development for *nix
other than Linux.

Glenn, it would be possible to build yasr and other Open Source screen
readers that use the tty to provide console speech on other flavours of
*nix.

Mike



On 19/02/2021 20:40, Chris Brannon wrote:
> Hi folks,
> This is a vision I've had for many years, and now I'm slowly starting to
> realize it.  More information is at https://blvuug.org but I will paste
> the markdown source for the homepage inline.  It is readable plaintext
> and I don't have to repeat myself.
> 
> I'm sorry if anyone is annoyed by the self-promotion, but I suspect most
> people on this list might be interested.  Please feel free to spread
> this around.
> 
> # Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group
> 
> Welcome to BLVUUG, the Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group.
> We are a not-for-profit association of people working to improve and promote
> greater accessibility of free Unix operating systems for the visually disabled.
> The group is founded on the principles of mutual aid and cooperating to advance the
> social good.  There isn't much here yet.  The rest of the page is an
> informal charter.  If all of this sounds exciting to you, please subscribe
> to the mailing list: [discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org](mailto:discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org).
> 
> ## Abstract Goals
> 
> * To promote communication among blind and low vision Unix users and to connect them with potential sighted allies.
> * To foster collaboration among people working on Unix-based adaptive technology for people with visual disabilities.
> * Eventually, to serve as a vehicle for funding development of said technologies.
> * To enable community members to promote products or services generally useful to the blind Unix community.
> 
> ## Concrete Goals
> 
> We'll be adding a code forge (a la github and other code hosting sites)
> to be a home for accessibility related projects.  We promise that it will
> be something that is usable from a text mode web browser and with command-line
> tools.  In other words, it will be aggressively interoperable and fluff-free.
> 
> We will also add a forum for communication among the community.  Again,
> the promise of aggressive interoperability is made for the forum.  It
> should be usable from email, web, and hopefully NNTP.
> 
> We will have a "classified ads" section on the site or as part of the forum.  Out of principle,
> we will *never* accept paid advertising.  The purpose of the classifieds
> is to connect and enable, rather than foster mindless consumerism or
> profiteering.
> 
> ## Legalese
> 
> In the US state of Oregon, where BLVUUG's founder resides, this group
> is considered a "not for profit association" under Oregon law.  Here's a little blurb cribbed from
> [Nonprofit Association of Oregon](https://nonprofitoregon.org/helpline_resources/tools_information/faqs/starting_a_nonprofit),
> discussing what this means and comparing nonprofit associations and nonprofit corporations.
> 
>> Oregon nonprofits can be either unincorporated associations or corporations.
>> If you do not file Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of State,
>> your organization will be an unincorporated association by default.
>> An unincorporated association is defined as a group of people who come together
>> for some purpose other than to do business, such as book clubs,
>> small hobby groups, etc.
>>
>> The positive aspects of associations are:
>>
>> * There are no registration or reporting requirements to the Oregon Secretary of State or DOJ
>> * There is greater flexibility in how the organization is run
>> * Change in membership doesn’t impact the existence of the organization
>>
>> The negative aspects of associations are:
>>
>> * There is no protection for the members. Everyone involved is equally and personally liable for the debts and lawsuits
>> * It is not possible to open a bank account because the association cannot obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Anyone in the association can open a personal bank account on behalf of the association, but this can blur the line between personal and association assets
>>
>> Unincorporated associations are often most appropriate for groups with smaller
>> budgets. They are a poor choice if your organization will be engaging in any
>> activities with potential financial risk or that might result in physical or
>> emotional injuries. Corporations, on the other hand,
>> provide a much higher degree of legal protection for the individuals involved.
>> They are also subject to more reporting requirements and to ORS 65.
>> The legal liability protection is often enough reason to choose this structure.
> 
> At some point, especially if we start connecting projects with funding, it
> might be advisable to incorporate.  That's a problem for another day.
> 


-- 
Michael A. Ray
Analyst/Programmer
Witley, Surrey, South-east UK

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away." -- A. de Saint-Exupery


https://cromarty.github.io/
http://eyesfreelinux.ninja/
http://www.raspberryvi.org/

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[MENGUAL Jean-Philippe]

Very interesting. We need more testers for GTK4, but now also for Qt, 
especially persons with low-vision, so will be useful to get a group to 
rely on

Regards

Le 19/02/2021 à 21:40, Chris Brannon a écrit :
> Hi folks,
> This is a vision I've had for many years, and now I'm slowly starting to
> realize it.  More information is at https://blvuug.org but I will paste
> the markdown source for the homepage inline.  It is readable plaintext
> and I don't have to repeat myself.
>
> I'm sorry if anyone is annoyed by the self-promotion, but I suspect most
> people on this list might be interested.  Please feel free to spread
> this around.
>
> # Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group
>
> Welcome to BLVUUG, the Blind and Low-Vision Unix Users Group.
> We are a not-for-profit association of people working to improve and promote
> greater accessibility of free Unix operating systems for the visually disabled.
> The group is founded on the principles of mutual aid and cooperating to advance the
> social good.  There isn't much here yet.  The rest of the page is an
> informal charter.  If all of this sounds exciting to you, please subscribe
> to the mailing list: [discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org](mailto:discuss+subscribe@blvuug.org).
>
> ## Abstract Goals
>
> * To promote communication among blind and low vision Unix users and to connect them with potential sighted allies.
> * To foster collaboration among people working on Unix-based adaptive technology for people with visual disabilities.
> * Eventually, to serve as a vehicle for funding development of said technologies.
> * To enable community members to promote products or services generally useful to the blind Unix community.
>
> ## Concrete Goals
>
> We'll be adding a code forge (a la github and other code hosting sites)
> to be a home for accessibility related projects.  We promise that it will
> be something that is usable from a text mode web browser and with command-line
> tools.  In other words, it will be aggressively interoperable and fluff-free.
>
> We will also add a forum for communication among the community.  Again,
> the promise of aggressive interoperability is made for the forum.  It
> should be usable from email, web, and hopefully NNTP.
>
> We will have a "classified ads" section on the site or as part of the forum.  Out of principle,
> we will *never* accept paid advertising.  The purpose of the classifieds
> is to connect and enable, rather than foster mindless consumerism or
> profiteering.
>
> ## Legalese
>
> In the US state of Oregon, where BLVUUG's founder resides, this group
> is considered a "not for profit association" under Oregon law.  Here's a little blurb cribbed from
> [Nonprofit Association of Oregon](https://nonprofitoregon.org/helpline_resources/tools_information/faqs/starting_a_nonprofit),
> discussing what this means and comparing nonprofit associations and nonprofit corporations.
>
>> Oregon nonprofits can be either unincorporated associations or corporations.
>> If you do not file Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of State,
>> your organization will be an unincorporated association by default.
>> An unincorporated association is defined as a group of people who come together
>> for some purpose other than to do business, such as book clubs,
>> small hobby groups, etc.
>>
>> The positive aspects of associations are:
>>
>> * There are no registration or reporting requirements to the Oregon Secretary of State or DOJ
>> * There is greater flexibility in how the organization is run
>> * Change in membership doesn’t impact the existence of the organization
>>
>> The negative aspects of associations are:
>>
>> * There is no protection for the members. Everyone involved is equally and personally liable for the debts and lawsuits
>> * It is not possible to open a bank account because the association cannot obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Anyone in the association can open a personal bank account on behalf of the association, but this can blur the line between personal and association assets
>>
>> Unincorporated associations are often most appropriate for groups with smaller
>> budgets. They are a poor choice if your organization will be engaging in any
>> activities with potential financial risk or that might result in physical or
>> emotional injuries. Corporations, on the other hand,
>> provide a much higher degree of legal protection for the individuals involved.
>> They are also subject to more reporting requirements and to ORS 65.
>> The legal liability protection is often enough reason to choose this structure.
> At some point, especially if we start connecting projects with funding, it
> might be advisable to incorporate.  That's a problem for another day.
>

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[Chris Brannon]

Mike Ray <mike@raspberryvi.org> writes:

> It would be silly for code to exist in two or more places.
>
> So will I be able to highlight my github repos on the list/site?

Certainly.  I think the best approach will be to put up a
member-updatable software directory.  In other words, a wiki.  The code
hosting will be there as just an option, for people who need or want it.

-- Chris

Re: announcing: Blind and Low Vision Unix Users Group

[chris]

Didier Spaier <didier@slint.fr> writes:

> As an aside, when writing shell scripts I now use only syntactical
> constructs
> specified by POSIX, so that they be portable across OS.

Building on your digression a bit: basically if a script has "#!/bin/sh"
in the shebang line, it should only use constructs from POSIX sh.  If it
needs bash or something else, it is best to require that in the shebang
line.  Bash et al are insanely portable, so it's fine to require them.
It's not fine to assume bash is /bin/sh, like so many Linux users did
for years.

There are some tools for detecting portability issues, namely shellcheck
and checkbashisms.  I use shellcheck because it's a general-purpose
linter for shell that will find and flag all kinds of other issues, not
just a tool to find nonportable constructs.

-- Chris