Solaris 10 released, with accessibility built-in! Also FreeTTS 1.2 released. (fwd)

Peter Korn Peter.Korn at Sun.COM
Fri Feb 25 19:55:15 UTC 2005


Hi Michael,

I am from Sun, so I don't qualify as the "non-Sun" person you are seeking.  I 
also am sighted, so perhaps don't qualify as a sufficient authority by that 
measure.  However, I may have some useful information, so I'll chime in...

 > Michael Malver writes:
 >>One of the things I like about speakup is the ability to install the os
 >>myself.  I am totally blind, and own a dectalk.  I know nothing of Solaris,
 >>but would be greatly indebted to anyone who could do a realistic evaluation
 >>of how "accessible" this is.  The press release looks great, but most people
 >>I know who have used Linux say the x-windows access with screen reading
 >>isn't ready for common use.  Has sun created something in terms of screen
 >>reading beyond what is available in Linux??
 >>I'd love to install the os, but want a person who doesn't work for sun to
 >>evaluate the usefulness of the accessibility features from the perspective
 >>of a totally blind person.
 >>Michael
 >>p.s. I truly hope it doesn't appear I'm flaming the wonderful work on access
 >>sun is doing. I'm simply concerned as to how usable this is before I invest
 >>limited time.

The priority for our first release, as informed by the letter of the rules in 
Section 508, was a usable, accessible desktop for end-users.  This 
specifically meant that for the first release, accessible installation was a 
"nice to have", not a "must have".  Solaris, unlike Linux, doesn't have a 
notion of virtual text consoles in which you can run Speakup or BrlTTY.  You 
can run BrlTTY on Solaris (we have been shipping them on the Solaris Companion 
CD for a little while now), but it doesn't run at as low a level in Solaris as 
they do in Linux.  See http://blogs.sun.com/roller/search/richb?q=Companion&c= 
for a blog entry from Rich Burridge on the contents of the Solaris Companion CD.

GUI accessibility in Solaris 10 is very likely better than what most folks in 
the community have experienced.  This isn't because we've "held stuff back", 
or "added secret sauce".  Rather it is becaus there are a *lot* of components 
to put together to make this all work, and we've been building and testing the 
particular collection of versions for a while now in both Solaris and our 
upcoming Java Desktop System release 3 for Linux.  Many of the problems folks 
have encountered are due in part to older, or mis-matched versions of things. 
  Web browsing in particular is significant better using the Sun Mozilla 
branch (we've gotten about half of our accessibility patches put back to 
Mozilla trunk, with more going in every week; but the most accessible Mozilla 
on UNIX remains our branch, which is what we ship in Solaris 10).

So Solaris 10 is probably "beyond what is available in Linux" from the point 
of view of what most people have put together in Linux.  But strictly 
speaking, *everything* we've done in Solaris 10 is "available" in Linux - you 
just have to do a bunch of work to put it together (and of course, that work 
is part of the value of going to a commercial, supported, UNIX distro and why 
many folks will pay Sun $50 for the retail edition of the Sun Java Desktop 
System).

But... I wouldn't say that the shipping Solaris 10 is dramatically beyond what 
many have experienced on their own with Linux.  Perhaps others will disagree - 
I've spent very little time trying to roll my own stuff on top of Debian or 
Fedora or what-have-you.  Even so, this is a *first* release.  Compared to 
outSPOKEN 1.0, or JAWS 1.0, I think this is far superior, and far more 
functional.  And I personally know a number of folks who were pretty 
successful with outSPOKEN 1.0 (and especially outSPOKEN 1.1).  And certainly 
compared to the built-in GUI access options on Windows, there is no question 
as to how much more functional Solaris 10 is.  But we certainly have a good 
distance to go before we can rival JAWS 5.x, or ZoomText 8.x, or...  And a 
user who is very comfortable and productive in the Linux console will probably 
  find they prefer that environment - at least for many/most things.  One 
blind user data-point to counter that: someone on one of the GNOME 
accessibility mailing lists said he has moved over to Gnopernicus and Mozilla 
exclusively for web browsing now, and no longer uses lynx.  As they say, your 
mileage may vary...


Janina Sajka wrote:
> I wonder if the new, "open," license of Solaris will now allow us to put
> Speakup and/or Brltty into the Solaris kernel? That would certainly lead
> the way to an accessible installation for blind users. As you point out,
> Michael, that's a critical componant for community acceptance.

This - or something like it - would be great!  High availability is one of 
Solaris' key value propositions, so getting things into the kernel will 
involve much discussion with the opensolaris team (though what you do with 
your own build is of course up to you!).  I've cc-ed Rich Burridge, who did 
the work to get BrlTTY onto the Solaris Companion CD, and who may have 
insights into this issue.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team

P.S. please cc- me on this thread; I'm not on the mailing list.




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