Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Free software and disabilities

[Daniel Pocock]

On 13/12/15 15:09, Andrés Muñiz Piniella wrote:
> El 10 de diciembre de 2015 23:50:42 GMT+00:00, John Sullivan <johns@fsf.org> 
> escribió:
>> amunizp <a75576@alumni.tecnun.es> writes:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Speaking to someone the other day they mentioned that there wasn't a
>>> central place to go get disability supported solutions. Short from
>>> putting 'disability' in a package manager, is there any central place
>>> where one can look for faif supporting people with disabilities?
>>>
>>> Sadly my search only brought this article from 9 years ago [1].
>>>
>>> BTW I heard about sonar Gnu/Linux [2] which is an incredible project
>> a
>>> project and Jasper and Mycroft could be used as well. What I was
>>> looking for is where all these options are listed as well as the
>> stand
>>> alone faif packages that can be used in proprietary platforms.
>>>
>> You can try the categories/properties at https://directory.fsf.org. If
>> they aren't sufficient, then I'm sure directory-discuss@gnu.org would
>> like to hear suggestions for improving them. :)
>>
>> -john
> Yes, this is great! Extactly what me and my friend where discussing. I had 
> heard about the directory and the hard work of people behind it but I kept 
> forgetting about it.
> Using disabity search term
> https://directory.fsf.org/wiki?search=disability&title=Special%3ASearch
>
> Brings me to two projects that seem to be incredible: ATK and skipper. But 
> Sadly both project links go to 404.
>
> I have ccd directory-discuss@gnu.org but I guess I will need to subscribe to 
> it first.
>
> Hopefully I can find where the projects are now.
>
> PS: Thanks for #fsfbulletin


There was some discussion about this on a FOSDEM list recently. 
Somebody expressed an opinion that if software doesn't support users
with disabilities then the developers are discriminating against those
people.

It is not so simple though.  Developers don't actively discriminate, we
simply don't have time to do everything we would like to do if time and
money were unlimited.

One thing we should be more conscious of is that there are funding
programs and grants available to make the world better for people with
disabilities.  It would be very interesting to try and ensure that some
of that money is going to free software rather than proprietary
software.  Developers don't typically have a disposition for filling out
application forms so if there are other volunteers who would like to
help look for such programs and match them to relevant free software
projects and help with paperwork it could give interesting results and
it may indirectly benefit other parts of the free software ecosystem.

Regards,

Daniel