Matt: ubuntu-desktop metapackage request

[Joey Stanford]

Hi Henrik and Matt (and perhaps by copy the rest of the Accessibility
Team if my email goes through),

Thanks for the replies.  I didn't realize we had a team dedicated this
(which is fantastic) ergo my email to Matt who was listed as the package
maintainer.

I certainly had no intent of causing any discord.  I was simply making a
request for something that made no sense to me until now.  And,
certainly, it was not a request for Dapper which is due out in a few days.

Now that I know why the decision was made, it makes more sense to me (as
well as the unattended install requirement I saw on launchpad).  For the
future (etch+), I would encourage the Accessibility team to consider an
accessibility metapackage (e.g. ubuntu-access, kubuntu-access,
xubuntu-access, or something similar) which would install items like
brltty, gnome-accessibility-themes, etc, instead of including them in
the desktop metapackages.   I occasionally do installs for special needs
folks and this would help me and the people I'm assisting by making the
install a little easier. Although I will admit that Dapper now installs
most of the important things automatically (at-spi, gnome magnifier, etc.).

Anyway, not trying to cause trouble. It was just a friendly note that I
see now should have gone direct to UA team.

Thanks for your patience and understanding and I apologize if I got
anyone's temper going,

Joey




Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>> On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 01:22:04PM -0600, Joey Stanford wrote:
>>  
>>> I would like to voice a request to have brltty removed from the
>>> ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, edubuntu-desktop metapackages
>>> please. It's needed for a relatively small number of users (even
>>> those with
>>> visual impairments use magnification utilities most of the time rather
>>> than a Braille reader).
>>>     
>>
>> The accessibility team felt that it was appropriate to include this
>> tool.
>> Please discuss it with them before requesting such a change.
>>   
> It is true that the brltty package is only used by a small group of
> people, but to that group it is extremely important. A typical desktop
> app like Gaim will have many more users, but it has less of an impact
> on those users if it is missing because it can be installed.
>
> The key point is that certain user groups *cannot use their computer
> at all* if the assistive technologies they need are not installed. Not
> being able to use the computer means not being able to install those
> things either, a catch 22.
>
> There are not many disabled users on Linux ATM, in part because the
> accessibility has so far been poor. This is what we are trying to
> change by adding these applications. We are (hopefully) moving towards
> a more inclusive society in general and Ubuntu wants to be in the
> forefront of that. You might want to read this:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility
>
> It is true that many visually impaired users use speech output (in
> part because braille devices are very expensive -- a separate
> problem). However, many find braille more useful because they work in
> an office with other people or because their hearing is poor as well (!).
>>  
>>> We might consider creating an ubunut-accessibility metapackage (just as
>>> KDE and Gnome have done) that would put things like this in it.
>>>     
>>   
> There are different ways to organise the tools in terms of packaging,
> but I would not support removing this functionality from the default
> install for the reasons given above.
>
> - Henrik


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