Hi Willie, I think the fact that Ubuntu 9.04 has been given such a hard time is actually testament to its high standards. Ubuntu is by far the easiest version of Linux for a beginner to get up and running from a hardware point of view etc and because people expect Ubuntu to be perfect everytime they are subsequently disappointed when it isn't as perfect as they expect. So I wouldn't take this negatively. Secondly many of the problems that have effected 9.04 are not directly related to Orca or other accessibility software but more basic things like xorg etc which caused a lot of problems for certain video cards etc. So many of the things that finally persuaded me to switch Vinux to Debian was a whole host of problems, that starting with the screen-reader option did not fix. So it is the rapid release cycle, the intergration of pulseAudio along with xorg and compiz etc that were the straws that broke the camels back.
I have tried OpenSolaris and while I was able to start it up and use Orca with admin apps etc, I found that it didn't support as much hardware as Ubuntu and the package choice was a little limited. But it looks very slick and I am sure if you keep working on it will become more and more accessible. The one thing that Debian seems to offer at the moment is very responsive speech using Orca, Speech-Dispatcher and Alsa, and I haven't been able to reproduce this on any other distro Ubuntu and OpenSolaris included. Not sure why this is but there seems to be a significant difference. You must realise by now that software development can be a thankless task. No matter what you do or how much effort you put in, someone won't be happy or want more features.; They have no conception of how much time, effort and testing this requires and as your work is dependant on so many other developers you can't control everything. I think the key thing to remember is that we are all on the same side working for the same goals, and it is OK for people to disagree about the best way to do things, ultimately it is the users who will vote with their fingers and use what they feel works best for them. So I say keep up the good work and try to take any criticism or negative posts with a pinch of salt. You do a great job with the Orca mailing list and doing great things with OpenSolaris. I wish you every success and it is great that a company is taking accessibility seriously. Vive la difference drbongo -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
