Libre Software Meeting
Bordeaux July 6 - 10 2004
Bordeaux July 6 - 10 2004
This topic consists of 2 main parts :
Talks about each project and sub-topic (july 7th and 8th) Mixed workshops and coding parties (july 9th and 10th)
This Accessibility Workgroup (http://www.a11y.org/) has the following goals :
Develop and promote a set of accessibility standards within the LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org); Provide a mechanism for LSB runtime environment accessibility certification; Provide a mechanism for LSB application accessibility certification; Provide advice, information and recommendations to other, non-LSB entities regarding accessibility requirements in the full free and open software stack.
GNOME Accessibility (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/) is defined as the suite of software services and support in GNOME that allows people with disabilities to utilize all of the functionality of the GNOME user environment.
Peter Korn will talk about the current status of core technologies and infrastructure, such as AT-SPI and gnome-speech as well as applications, such as Gnopernicus (a screen reader for the GNOME Desktop).
Thomas Friehoff will complement this presentation.
The KDEAP (http://accessibility.kde.org) is an on-line community of developers and other volunteers dedicated to ensure that the KDE desktop is accessible to all users, including those of us with physical handicaps.
Harald Fernengel will present the Qt accessibility module and the Qt <-> AT-SPI integration.
The Debian Project consists entirely of volunteers who have made common cause to create a free operating system.
Mario Lang is going to talk about recent activities which aim at increasing the Accessibility of Debian for people with disabilities.
He will also talk briefly about his motivation to choose Debian as development platform for Accessibility related work (http://delysid.org/a11y.html).
Free(b)soft laboratory (http://www.freebsoft.org) coordinates a number of Free Software projects in a constant effort to improve the accessibility of a GNU based system for blind people.
The current status of its key projects will be presented :
Speech Dispatcher ... a device independent high level interface for speech synthesis speechd-el ... Emacs speech support based on an Emacs Lisp library providing Speech Dispatcher interface Speechd-Up ... an interface allowing Speakup to use Speech Dispatcher as a speech synthesis backend Festival Czech ... Czech language support for Festival festival-freebsoft-utils ... Festival extensions and utilities Free(b)soft CDROM ... CD-ROM with a working blind friendly GNU system.
The Gnome On-screen Keyboard project (http://www.gok.ca) aims to enable users to control their computer without having to rely on a standard keyboard or mouse.
Many individuals must control the computer using alternative input methods. Using innovative dynamic keyboard strategies, and leveraging gnome 2’s built-in accessibility framework, the gok will make control more efficient and enable use of the gnome 2 desktop. With the right hardware support and the gok individuals will have full access to applications that support the AT SPI, and therefore, full access to the functionality these applications provide.
Brltty is the base software that people absolutely need to use a Braille display with their favourite free Linux-like operating system.
Samuel Thibault will introduce BrlAPI (http://www.mielke.cc/brltty/doc/BrlAPI-HTML/BrlAPI.html) which can be used to interface a Braille display with Gnopernicus.
Based on the Knoppix live-CD GNU/Linux distribution, Oralux (http://oralux.org) is designed for a new blind or visually impaired user.
Coupled with one of the compliant Text-To-Speech softwares such as Festival, or an external synthesizer, Oralux provides an audio interface to read or create documents, use internet applications and so on. The current languages are English , German , Spanish , Russian or French.
Oralux 0.6 proposes Emacspeak and Yasr. Other technologies are also wished . Gnopernicus integration is under work.
Lia_Phon is a french phonetizer originally created in the university of Avignon. This free software is nowadays maintained by volunteers from the BigLux project (http://culte.org/projets/biglux/) whose goal is to help visually impaired people to use computers and information technologies.
Light-Lia_Phon is already interfaced with Festival and Emacspeak.
The various stages which form a Text-To-Speech software will be discussed through the numerous issues the french language arises.
Andreas Tille has proposed introducing "how to build an operating system using Debian with minimum effort for specialized users in general using the Custom Debian Distributions method".
This sub-topic goes beyond the extent of our specific topic but we would welcome Andreas as Oralux and the Free(b)soft CDROM are close to this.
Matthieu Faure would talk - from his consulting experience - about the benefits of developing an accessible web site.
Janina Sajka and Peter Korn would try to give keys to get a boss invest employees time upon impoving accessibility.
Janina Sajka would introduce accessible telephony devices.
Frédéric Bechet - Lia_Phon’s author - would explain the issues encountered in developing a speech recognition software.
Jan Buchal would talk about his Open Accessibility Meeting initiative.
