[to all candidates] Accessible software in Debian
Hi. To make a rather complicated and long story short: Accessibility of graphical user interfaces in Debian has taken a slight step backward with the GNOME 3 rewrite. Squeeze was more stable regarding this. While discussing this topic on IRC with other Debian people I was kind of shocked to read that basically every feature can be dropped anytime, and since accessibility is for a very small user group, that user group suffering from big rewrites is "normal" and acceptable. I'd like to know your opinion on this. Are people with disabilities something that we want to support, or is it just luck if "they" get a working system. As a Free Software community, should we make sure that the digital divide is not going to increase, or is accessibility just margin topic which we as a community do not really care about? If you think we should make sure to provide maximum accessibility to our users, do you have any idea what to do to ensure that? I realize the provokativeness of this mail. However, I feel I really have to ask this question publicly. When I read the reactions "quoted" above on IRC, my heart felt heavy, and I was seriously considering for a moment to leave Debian, since the attitude I've read there was really very discouraging to me personally. Actually, I didn't expect a rteaction like this from fellow DDs. I realize that accessibility is suffering from the same lack of manpower issues that most other free software projects have. But I am still enthusiastic enough to hope for some sort of solution that will work around the "small margin group" problem in one or another way. Do you have any ideas what we could do to raise awareness of accessibility issues, and maybe motivate developers who are currently not into accessibiility work in any way, to start caring about various issues around accessibility for people with disabilities. After all, we will all grow old, and our eyes and ears will eventually start to fail slightly. I guess at least then people will enjoy if their favourite desktops on Linux would help them to still be able to do quality work with their computers. And I dont mean just reading and replying mail, I mean everything else that people without diminished vision or hearing or mobility would want to do. If you wait until your body fails you, it might be too late to catch up then. -- CYa, ⡍⠁⠗⠊⠕ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ppyxhrbo@fx.delysid.org
Re: Nomination
Marc Haber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 12:02:11AM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: >> On 10576 March 1977, Ted Walther wrote: >> > I nominate myself for DPL in this 2006 election. >> >> You havent learned from the worst-result of a DPL candidate ever? >> Even "None of the above" was better than you. > > I find that response utterly inappropriate. It would be inappropriate > even during the campaign. I guess we are reaching new heights of censorship and removal of freedom of speech in Debian this year. I found the response utterly appropriate. -- CYa, Mario -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: A(nother) question to the candidates
"Benj. Mako Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 02:14:39PM +0100, Mario Lang wrote: >> I have seen lots of discussions about CDD and splitting up Debian >> into a core and more-or-less independent topic specific sections >> recently. While I can perfectly understand the motivation behind >> these discussions, I have one particular "fear" in this direction. >> To the candidates: What do you think how we should determine which >> software components go into the core system, and which have to go >> into separately provided "distros"? On which criteria, in our >> opinion, should we base those decisions? > > I'm not sure who is advocating this vision of CDDs your question seems > to be related to. > > AIUI the dominant CDD vision (the one being pushed by > Debian-Edu/Skolelinux, Debian-NP, and some others) is a framework that > allows people to create Custom Distribution *fully* within a Debian > system through two types of work (the technology people are using > right now is different but we all think it would be great to work on a > common infrastructure as well): > > (1) Custom package selection: some people are big on tasks; others > like Meta-Packages; others are happy with a list of packages > passed to the installer and never referred to again. > > (2) Custom package configuration. The only compelling solution I've > heard of to do this within Debian is the addition of low-priority > or un-asked Debconf questions to existing packages. > > Now obviously, achieving these goals is going to take some time and > those of us that would like usable distros in the near future are > going to need to find (and in fact have found) interim solutions. > > More information is on our wiki page: > http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?CustomDebian Thanks for this clarification. It definitely sounds good to me if the long-term goal at least is to integrate the results of such work back into Debian. > In any case, I don't know know of any CDD developers who are > advocating breaking up Debian into a core system and other bits. I > have heard something like this discussed in terms of making releases > more easy by limiting a release to a small core part of the > distro. CDDs may have been brought up in this regard. Yes, it seems I fell victim to the confusion you mentioned above. I should really get it into my head that CDD is a kind of a trademark, not just a name for a concept. I tend to think abut all the splitting ideas as CDD, simply because "Custom" is a good word for any kind of customisation, not necessarily limited to the ones that are fed back into the original tree. > Quite honestly, I think there's *way* too much overlap between different > CDDs to make this sort of division very practical. Thats what I've read other people say too. OK, thanks to you and Gergely for taking the time to reply, and my appologies to all others for even raising this issue at such an inappropriate point of time. I had no evil intentions, I can assure you. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgpN75EA1pNLE.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: A(nother) question to the candidates
"Benj. Mako Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 02:14:39PM +0100, Mario Lang wrote: >> I have seen lots of discussions about CDD and splitting up Debian >> into a core and more-or-less independent topic specific sections >> recently. While I can perfectly understand the motivation behind >> these discussions, I have one particular "fear" in this direction. >> To the candidates: What do you think how we should determine which >> software components go into the core system, and which have to go >> into separately provided "distros"? On which criteria, in our >> opinion, should we base those decisions? > > I'm not sure who is advocating this vision of CDDs your question seems > to be related to. > > AIUI the dominant CDD vision (the one being pushed by > Debian-Edu/Skolelinux, Debian-NP, and some others) is a framework that > allows people to create Custom Distribution *fully* within a Debian > system through two types of work (the technology people are using > right now is different but we all think it would be great to work on a > common infrastructure as well): > > (1) Custom package selection: some people are big on tasks; others > like Meta-Packages; others are happy with a list of packages > passed to the installer and never referred to again. > > (2) Custom package configuration. The only compelling solution I've > heard of to do this within Debian is the addition of low-priority > or un-asked Debconf questions to existing packages. > > Now obviously, achieving these goals is going to take some time and > those of us that would like usable distros in the near future are > going to need to find (and in fact have found) interim solutions. > > More information is on our wiki page: > http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?CustomDebian Thanks for this clarification. It definitely sounds good to me if the long-term goal at least is to integrate the results of such work back into Debian. > In any case, I don't know know of any CDD developers who are > advocating breaking up Debian into a core system and other bits. I > have heard something like this discussed in terms of making releases > more easy by limiting a release to a small core part of the > distro. CDDs may have been brought up in this regard. Yes, it seems I fell victim to the confusion you mentioned above. I should really get it into my head that CDD is a kind of a trademark, not just a name for a concept. I tend to think abut all the splitting ideas as CDD, simply because "Custom" is a good word for any kind of customisation, not necessarily limited to the ones that are fed back into the original tree. > Quite honestly, I think there's *way* too much overlap between different > CDDs to make this sort of division very practical. Thats what I've read other people say too. OK, thanks to you and Gergely for taking the time to reply, and my appologies to all others for even raising this issue at such an inappropriate point of time. I had no evil intentions, I can assure you. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
A(nother) question to the candidates
Hi. OK, I admit I am late. I wanted to ask this some days ago, but apparently forgot about it, and now, the voting period already started. If you feel for some reason that it is inappropriate to answer this question after the voting period has started, I'll have to accept this. Please accept my apologies for asking this so late, but I cant resist to still try it: I have seen lots of discussions about CDD and splitting up Debian into a core and more-or-less independent topic specific sections recently. While I can perfectly understand the motivation behind these discussions, I have one particular "fear" in this direction. To the candidates: What do you think how we should determine which software components go into the core system, and which have to go into separately provided "distros"? On which criteria, in our opinion, should we base those decisions? I'd like to explain in more detail what I am trying to get at, but I am a bit afraid that this would tell everyone what I am actually wanting to hear, so I'll wait for the first replies before I go into more detail. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgpUCV6zQuWBu.pgp Description: PGP signature
A(nother) question to the candidates
Hi. OK, I admit I am late. I wanted to ask this some days ago, but apparently forgot about it, and now, the voting period already started. If you feel for some reason that it is inappropriate to answer this question after the voting period has started, I'll have to accept this. Please accept my apologies for asking this so late, but I cant resist to still try it: I have seen lots of discussions about CDD and splitting up Debian into a core and more-or-less independent topic specific sections recently. While I can perfectly understand the motivation behind these discussions, I have one particular "fear" in this direction. To the candidates: What do you think how we should determine which software components go into the core system, and which have to go into separately provided "distros"? On which criteria, in our opinion, should we base those decisions? I'd like to explain in more detail what I am trying to get at, but I am a bit afraid that this would tell everyone what I am actually wanting to hear, so I'll wait for the first replies before I go into more detail. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: integrity of elections
Glenn McGrath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:03:41 -0600 > Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> My original point was that people who do not actually >> exercise their franchise are unlikely to be one of the active set -- >> and need to be looked at to see if they are indeed inactive. Having >> inactive members is not itself unhealthy, except it does inflate >> quorum a trifle, which can be bad in supermajority votes. >> > > I would like to see NM'ers who have been in the queue for more than 6 months > be able to vote. And why do you think this should be allowed? I think we should investigate why they are so long in the queue, but giving them voting rights per se is not a good idea IMHO, as someone else already said, they could actually face an rejection, and in that case they should obviously not be allowed to vote. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44
Re: integrity of elections
Glenn McGrath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:03:41 -0600 > Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> My original point was that people who do not actually >> exercise their franchise are unlikely to be one of the active set -- >> and need to be looked at to see if they are indeed inactive. Having >> inactive members is not itself unhealthy, except it does inflate >> quorum a trifle, which can be bad in supermajority votes. >> > > I would like to see NM'ers who have been in the queue for more than 6 months > be able to vote. And why do you think this should be allowed? I think we should investigate why they are so long in the queue, but giving them voting rights per se is not a good idea IMHO, as someone else already said, they could actually face an rejection, and in that case they should obviously not be allowed to vote. -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
