Hey David, I think it's a great idea. Anything that can help the movement of QGIS into the government sector is a good thing.
I would find it hard to see that we wouldn't want to post it on the site if it is completed. Happy to be one of the devs to lead a hand if you need any questions answered/reviewed. I have added the qgis-developer list and qgis-psc to the topic as you will get more people looking over it. PSC what are your thoughts? Regards, Nathan On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 6:21 AM, David Saeger <saegeri...@gmail.com> wrote: > After recently getting QGIS approved for use at the federal agency that I > work for, a couple things came to light that could make it easier for users > in the federal IT environment to utilize QGIS. Namely the fact that QGIS > has not made efforts/publicized efforts to prove that it is Section > 508<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973>compliant. > > Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which deals > with electronic and information management technologies. It contains > technical standards against which products can be evaluated to determine > if they would unduly disadvantage disabled peoples through their use. While > not meeting these standards is not necessarily a dead end for using getting > software approved in the USG IT environment, meeting it can certainly > smooth the process. > > I know that there are a lot of users in various government agencies who > would love to use QGIS if it was generally approved by there CIO's, > especially in these times of budget austerity. It strikes me that it would > not be too difficult to try and meet this standard and make it easier to > make the case for approval. > > Here is a general guidelines for Section 508 compliance: > http://www.uspto.gov/about/offices/cio/section508/14e.jsp > > Am still researching but I think that all that would need to be done is > check to see if QGIS meets the criteria in the standard, note the specific > instances where it does not, and post these findings on the QGIS website > using a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The form can be > found here: > http://www.state.gov/m/irm/impact/126343.htm > Here is an example of what other proprietary GIS software has done to > express its Section 508 compliance: > > http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/legal/section508/vpats/vpat-arcgis-for-desktop-and-extensions-v101-(2).pdf > > I am willing to do a bit more research into this subject and start the > process of evaluating QGIS against the criteria listed in Section 508 if I > can get some buy-in from this community. > > I would need: > -A couple QGIS developers who would be willing to let me bounce questions > off of them as they come up. > -An assurance that my results would be reviewed by someone with authority > within the community (somebody who knows a lot about QGIS) > -Some indication that the results will actually be posted on the QGIS > website once green-lighted by somebody who knows more about the software > than I (Or else it would have been a waste of my time). > > I think that this could be a good opportunity to set an example for the > rest of the FOSS community on efforts that can be done to expand the user > base, beyond developing stellar products that is. > > Let me know what you all think > > > > -- > David Saeger > 305.984.5539 > > _______________________________________________ > Qgis-community-team mailing list > qgis-community-t...@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-community-team > >
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