Proposal

[michael caron couturier]

Hello everyone,

I'm not the big speech man and since I'm french first excuse if some errors occur.

Being a 109k members Linux community admin for over 5 years, I had a Linux distribution project thinked on the side including accessibility, some concepts of it could be used for Sonar/Vinux but it wouldn't benefit as it should, I did some tests and I may have a mockup for a graphical interface for colorblinds, dyslexics and impaireds that performed in real life testing, I also may have something that could allow to blend Sonar and Vinux into one distro without breaking too much the ideas of both.

I came across a blind developper that made a project to refurb and give computers to blinds and I'm currently preparing my division of the project in my area since we are in differents towns but close enough to met sometimes and we did once for now, we have a small sponsor but I may grab a massive sponsor, the main project have a room to teach weekly to blinds and work, my expansion if done well should give us access to teach in all villages and towns of Quebec in no time.

Our main issue is having a stable supported distro to work with, we currently use a custom Archlinux with either Gnome/Lxde/Mate, since Archlinux may be a bit troublesome and not friendly while an Ubuntu base may be too heavy, I may have a middleway idea for that to discuss later, with Lxde becoming Lxqt, I'm not safe staying puting our users on since heavy development could bring issues, it leave Gnome 3 being a bit heavy while not the most friendly so I think Mate would be best.

I have mostly accessibility experience on Windows and will move slowly to Linux for that, some testing with Ubuntu mate is planned in the future on my side, since I want mostly to be a crash dummy hunting accessibility issues accross Linux desktop environments and window managers in the future.

On my side, I should have a programmer to help me do a few Linux presentations before launching the project for blinds in my area, I may reach 2 workers for 2 of the main distributions for help in the process and gatter my Linux community to support the Linux users in my areas that will probably be helpful for blinds later, remember Linux is nothing without having a community.

To get back on my distribution project, I could go away a bit from usual ideas of Sonar and Vinux but in the way you were heading at with the Linux-a11y, I may be not been was clear since I keep some wild cards but feel free to ask about what you didn't understood.

Have a good day !!!

[Fernando Botelho]

Hey Michael,

Congratulations on your initiative.

I do not understand why you say that you will no longer use ARCH as a
base. I am responsible for the F123 project, and we are extremely happy
with ARCH. Nobody likes having to re-install an operating system, and
that is doubly true for beginners. Having a rolling distro saves people
from those headaches.

Anybody who wants less frequent updates, for whatever reason, can simply
not update or blacklist certain packages to ensure no interference with
accessibility.

Best,

Fernando

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[michael caron couturier]

I understand your point for Archlinux but I have something similar but better in my sleeves that I tested a bit over time.

Ubuntu Mate will be used for various tests for my first use of Linux for blinds, it won't be used more than in live session.

[Alex ARNAUD]

Le 05/04/2017 à 13:09, Fernando Botelho a écrit :
> I do not understand why you say that you will no longer use ARCH as a
> base.

Dear Fernando,

How to do you ensure no acceptability regressions with Arch ? How do you
maintain stability and quality if packages are not tested before to be
released to the user ?
Do you check the quality of Arch every day to maintain the high quality
of your distro ? How do you deal with hardware regressions or bugs in
the Linux kernel and related firmware ?
Do you really think you can trust people that upload packages from the
AUR repository ?

> Nobody likes having to re-install an operating system

I'm agree with you it's why we like Debian, it has a long-term support
of 5 years.

> Anybody who wants less frequent updates, for whatever reason, can simply
> not update or blacklist certain packages to ensure no interference with
> accessibility.

Do you think that a beginner can do that ?

Best regards.
--
Alex ARNAUD
Visual-Impairment Project Manager
Hypra - "Humanizing technology"

[Fernando Botelho]

Hi Alex,

I agree that there are issues that need to be resolved, I am just saying
that this can be managed.

I am not suggesting that beginners should blacklist key packages. I
think we can do that and then notify beginners when and how those can be
updated, without being forced to wait years.

The technical team can periodically test and give the greenlight when
updates are safe for blind users. That way non-technical users need not
wait so long for improvements to acccessibility and can avoid updates
that introduce regressions.

You mentioned that Debian has a 5-year support cycle. I do not have
experience with Debian, just Ubuntu. but in my experience, having
support from the distro just means security updates. Usually key
accessibility improvements cannot be accessed unless one does his own
updates, which then means that other than security, one does not benefit
really, from the "support" beyond securrity fixes.

I might be wrong there. This is why I emailed earlier. I sincerely want
to understand the reasoning behind the choice of Debian.

Thanks,

Fernando

[Fernando Botelho]

Well, I look forward to hearing about it. Best of luck.


Please share it here when it is ready for testing.


Fernando

[michael caron couturier]

Actually, Debian has many gains, 3 branches of various stability, stable for servers using frozen packages for stability, testing for end-users and unstable for developpers being a rolling release like Archlinux, you could also lock a package version if needed.

It use contrib and non-free repositories for packages that aren't free and open source softwares so I could help target softwares to create alternatives for ...

There's also a little unofficial trick I in my sleeves also that would make both Sonar and Vinux able to develop on the same base but there's no point to talk about it if you barely answer when I tell that I seek for some changes to have a few contributions to do later, seem that I will have to waste efforts to make a 3rd accessibility distro when 3 projets could gater into one without massives changes.

[Luke Yelavich]

Hi Michael, thank you for your email.

My replies are inline.

On Wed, Apr 05, 2017 at 02:30:43PM AEST, michael caron couturier wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm not the big speech man and since I'm french first excuse if some errors
> occur.
>
> Being a 109k members Linux community admin for over 5 years, I had a Linux
> distribution project thinked on the side including accessibility, some
> concepts of it could be used for Sonar/Vinux but it wouldn't benefit as it
> should, I did some tests and I may have a mockup for a graphical interface
> for colorblinds, dyslexics and impaireds that performed in real life
> testing, I also may have something that could allow to blend Sonar and
> Vinux into one distro without breaking too much the ideas of both.

Sounds interesting. The colour blindness and dislexic related stuff is not
something that I have experience with, but I can't vouch for any others on
the Vinux team.

As for the distro ideas, I am curious, but am not sure such a thing could
easily be accomplished without a lot more development resources than we
already have.

> I came across a blind developper that made a project to refurb and give
> computers to blinds and I'm currently preparing my division of the project
> in my area since we are in differents towns but close enough to met
> sometimes and we did once for now, we have a small sponsor but I may grab a
> massive sponsor, the main project have a room to teach weekly to blinds and
> work, my expansion if done well should give us access to teach in all
> villages and towns of Quebec in no time.

That sounds great. You probably have some experience that you could share
with us, as the Vinux project is looking to pursue hardware related ventures
as well.

> Our main issue is having a stable supported distro to work with, we
> currently use a custom Archlinux with either Gnome/Lxde/Mate, since
> Archlinux may be a bit troublesome and not friendly while an Ubuntu base
> may be too heavy, I may have a middleway idea for that to discuss later,
> with Lxde becoming Lxqt, I'm not safe staying puting our users on since
> heavy development could bring issues, it leave Gnome 3 being a bit heavy
> while not the most friendly so I think Mate would be best.

We plan to produce images based on Fedora, which we feel is a good middle
ground between Arch and Ubuntu. We will produce images based on Mate as well,
but will also produce a GNOME image for those who want it, and I do agree,
GNOME is a little heavy in parts, but I think that can be resolved in time.

> I have mostly accessibility experience on Windows and will move slowly to
> Linux for that, some testing with Ubuntu mate is planned in the future on
> my side, since I want mostly to be a crash dummy hunting accessibility
> issues accross Linux desktop environments and window managers in the future.

Awesome. If you want to work with the Mate upstrea more directly, I think we
can put you in touch with mate developers upstream, and you could work with
them to get your ideas implemented.

> On my side, I should have a programmer to help me do a few Linux
> presentations before launching the project for blinds in my area, I may
> reach 2 workers for 2 of the main distributions for help in the process and
> gatter my Linux community to support the Linux users in my areas that will
> probably be helpful for blinds later, remember Linux is nothing without
> having a community.

Indeed. If the programmers you know are willing to help out with more
accessibility development, particularly with upstrea projects, I would be
happy to work with them to get them up to speed and working with other
upstream developers as well.

> To get back on my distribution project, I could go away a bit from usual
> ideas of Sonar and Vinux but in the way you were heading at with the
> Linux-a11y, I may be not been was clear since I keep some wild cards but
> feel free to ask about what you didn't understood.

I think we are all interested in hearing more details about what you have in
mind, as I think in turn we can advise as the best way forward to implement
some of them, particularly from a technical/programming point of view.

Thank you very much for contacting us, and I look forward to hearing more
from you.

Luke
Vinux Project Lead Developer.

[kendell clark]

hi
I second luke's replies. The mate guys could always use willing helpers.
They do have a dedicated guy on their team from the hypra project, so
mate does have a paid accessibility developer, but he focuses
specifically on blindness. We could definitely use ideas for helping
other disabilities, especially magnification and the like.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

[Fernando Botelho]

Hi Michael,

I do not know what you mean when you say that I barely answer. My
response was friendly and I believe touched on every major point you
brought up.

Maybe it is a language thing. In any case, since you seem to be
communicating well with Luke, and F123 has never had any problems
cooperating with Vinux, I will stop here and let you and the Vinux team
figure things out.

Good luck with your ideas,

Fernando

[michael caron couturier]

I would have needed that both project merge using Debian and a little twist I have in my sleeves, it would allow to have the same focus that they had before while improving the development with rollback feature and so on, we would have some testing and a script to do but it would futureproof both teams and joined forces won't be wasted, both teams could still have their own focus with being in the way of the other team but I feel that you will propably make one team since the idea give you the best of both worlds without wasting efforts ...

For the colorblind/high contrast/dyslexic graphical interface, it's a matter of theme, cursor, wallpaper not really a big deal.

Seem that you have someone submitting an idea we were planning for the speech so no need to talk about it.

[Rob Whyte]

Hi Michael,

firstly thank you for contacting us on IRC and then again as asked on
this dev list.

I spoke with you on IRC under the handle Fudge.


Our future is moving forward into Fedora but I see no reason why we
couldn't still help each other.

If you have your heart set on a Debian flavour that is by all means your
call, we have quite some experience with Debian/Ubuntu and there are
others in the community that should chime in here that are just as
passionate as well.


I am very interested however to learn about the project you used to
lead, I believe that was also Debian and the Linux community you manage.


I know you are just starting out again, so if you can give some basics
about your direction and what you need to tackle next hopefully we can
assist in some way.


Warm regards

Rob Whyte

[Samuel Thibault]

Hello,

Fernando Botelho, on jeu. 06 avril 2017 14:03:36 -0300, wrote:
> You mentioned that Debian has a 5-year support cycle. I do not have
> experience with Debian, just Ubuntu. but in my experience, having support
> from the distro just means security updates. Usually key accessibility
> improvements cannot be accessed unless one does his own updates, which then
> means that other than security, one does not benefit really, from the
> "support" beyond securrity fixes.

Well, it's a matter of pushing changes. There *have* been accessibility
updates in Debian stable, and backports. I don't know if they have
reached Ubuntu.

Samuel

[Marcus Brown]

I figure I'm one of the "others that should chime in", as suggested by Rob Whyte.

I totally encourage the use of Debian as a base, not just because of it's vastly superior package management, but because of the quality assurance built through the entire development system. There is simply no other distribution that does this as effectively, and it's obvious to me that this is why many successful distros use Debian as a base.

I could equally deride the other options suggested, including Ubuntu and Fedora/Redhat, and provide examples of why they are weak choices for development of any distro AND for a varied user base (both by ability and experience), but I'd really prefer to avoid a distro war, and/or be dismissed as a Debian fanboy.

Short version: if you want a stable base, use Debian, and I don't recommend dividing or diluting your efforts by producing multiple images based on different distributions.

Regards,

Marcus Brown.

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[michael caron couturier]

The idea is to avoid having 3 distros for accessibility when it could have only one that does what the 3 distros teams would want to do, benefits from a single setup with 3 teams as one would weild massive gains ...

[Rick Leir]

Hi Samuel, Fernando
Ubuntu also works to improve accessibility. Last year I saw some interesting development in MIR when I was trying to help my almost-blind father. He liked Window's pointer trails and large pointer. I searched in Ubuntu MIR and found some not yet finished work to support pointer trails.

So, much as I like Debian's stability, I would also have a look at new developments in the Ubuntu world.
HTH --Rick

--
Sorry for being brief. Alternate email is rickleir at yahoo dot com

[michael caron couturier]

Well I just need to have an accessible installer for my custom Debian but I know that the teams may want to move in my path if I reveal the trick I plan to use and making a 3rd accessibility would weaken the support overall, something I hope to avoid at all costs.

For my previous distro project, I had some ideas that could lower Linux fragmentation without harming the bazaar way for example, we did the interface mockup and a tool to repair systems in the process, it's dormant now but I merge it in the current accessibility project as much as I can ...

Our Linux community is above 100k members and pretty active, I manage it for over 5 years now, so I did get my grasp on various jewels that may be useful and sharpen my skills a lot.

If everything goes well, this tuesday I will reach a few spots for rooms to held Linux training sessions first for everyone, then dedidacted for blinds, the plan is to have a Linux community in town and the one I manage online to watch over the blind users.

[Alex ARNAUD]

Le 08/04/2017 à 08:29, kendell clark a écrit :
> hi
> I second luke's replies. The mate guys could always use willing helpers.
> They do have a dedicated guy on their team from the hypra project, so

> mate does have a paid accessibility développer, but he focuses
> specifically on blindness.

Thank you to mention us :). We try to improve various accessibility
things into Mate but it's not only on blindness features. We have work
on the interface to switch between pointer and size.
We improve low-vision capabilities in working into Compiz 0.9 (available
only on Debian and Ubuntu) and that is used with Mate to provide in my
opinion the most flexible and accessible desktop environment for
visual-impaired in the GNU/Linux world.