[Accessibility] Re: Perhaps a different "call to arms" is in order (was Re: [orca-list] Firefox 4.0 and Tabbing to Links)

[Christian Hofstader]

Krishnakent,

So, should we start an "upstream bugs" team and put you in charge? In 
the limited time I have for programming, this is the team I will 
personally work with most closely as I really enjoy finding and fixing 
bugs in other people's code.

Also, please join the address@hidden mailing list by sending an 
email to address@hidden with subscribe in the subject 
line. This list is a superset of orca, vinux and a few others as well as 
having people on no other accessibility related list.

cdh

On 07/25/2010 12:47 PM, hackingKK wrote:
> Just one quick tip.
> I can take up the coordination work on high priority.
> I am a software engineer by profession but have not studied Orca or ff 
> code in details.
> But I can very well understand the technicalities and can make things 
> work.
> I will take some time to actually start coding in myself, but my 
> students have all the time in the world to work on it full-time.
> happy hacking.
> Krishnakant.
>
>
>
> On Sunday 25 July 2010 07:32 PM, Christian Hofstader wrote:
> > Krishnakent,
> >
> > So, in order to help me keep things organized and avoid superfluous 
> > redundancy, are you saying that you and your students will be working 
> > on the Firefox code base? The orca code that works with Firefox or 
> > some combination of the two?
> >
> > Do you intend to work on new feature/enhancement requests in FF or 
> > only fix bugs?
> >
> > Would you be the Accessible Firefox Maintainer who works with Joanie, 
> > Bill and fills the liaison between vinux, orca and GNU so all are 
> > kept abreast of your accomplishments?
> >
> > I'm fairly certain that GNU can help you find testers for FF with 
> > orca so do not hesistate to ask for help.
> > HH,
> > cdh
> >
> > On 07/24/2010 04:59 PM, hackingKK wrote:
> > > On Sunday 25 July 2010 02:11 AM, Joanmarie Diggs wrote:
> > > > Hey Krishnakant, all.
> > > yes.
> > > Joanie.
> > > thanks to bil,
> > > I am getting into firefox code slowly.
> > >
> > > I am also going to have a team of 4 students under me and we are 
> > > thinking of assisting in fixing firefox bugs.
> > > I have just recently started to understand orca code although far 
> > > from knowing enough to code.
> > > I will need ur help as well because firefox bugs are getting to us 
> > > like water over rising over head.
> > > So we have to do this at war footing.
> > > Bill can't be left alone in this work and so can't you be expected 
> > > to do all the work.
> > > Happy hacking..
> > > Krishnakant.
> > >
> > > > > I know the mozila team is very serious about accessibility.
> > > > Indeed. The Mozilla Foundation has been quite generous over the 
> > > > years in
> > > > terms of supporting Orca specifically and GNOME a11y in general. 
> > > > Through
> > > > their funding a number of years ago, we had additional contributors
> > > > (Eitan Isaacson and Scott Haeger). And they have made it possible for
> > > > core GNOME a11y developers to attend hackfests and other GNOMEish 
> > > > events
> > > > where we can sit down and work together to solve the very real 
> > > > problems
> > > > we face. In other words, it's very clear to me that Mozilla is 
> > > > concerned
> > > > with accessibility.
> > > >
> > > > Having said that.... I'm afraid we do not always get very timely
> > > > responses to the Mozilla bugs which impact us. :-( I regularly have to
> > > > go through the bugs I've opened and add comments like "Hi. It's 
> > > > been six
> > > > months and this bug really impacts Orca users. Any updates?" And then
> > > > repeat the process six months later -- often on the very same bugs.
> > > >
> > > > Here is the "dependency tree" of bugs blocking 374212 (i.e. the Orca
> > > > metabug in Mozilla's bugzilla) [1]. You'll notice at the top that it
> > > > says "Bug 374212 depends on 409 open bugs." 409!?! Mind you, most of
> > > > those bugs are not bugs I filed. Instead, they bugs which must be 
> > > > fixed
> > > > in order for bugs I've filed to be fixed. Nonetheless, there are an
> > > > awful lot of Mozilla bugs we need fixed in order for Orca users to 
> > > > have
> > > > compelling access to Firefox.
> > > >
> > > > And as for why Orca + Firefox is so slow. I'm sure that there are many
> > > > improvements that can be made in Orca w.r.t. performance. However, a
> > > > non-trivial part of the performance problem is that there are so many
> > > > bugs and other issues in Mozilla that we have to hack around that we
> > > > jump through hoops just to locate the next line and more hoops to put
> > > > together the contents of the line and we do a bunch of checking
> > > > throughout the process because we cannot always trust what Mozilla
> > > > exposes to us via AT-SPI, etc., etc., etc.
> > > >
> > > > Therefore, if a "call to arms" is indeed in order, perhaps this 
> > > > sort of
> > > > thing would be a candidate for its focus.
> > > >
> > > > --joanie
> > > >
> > > > [1] 
> > > > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=374212&hide_resolved=1 

--
Happy Hacking,
cdh

Christian Hofstader
Director of Access Technology
FSF/Project GNU
http://www.gnu.org, http://www.fsf.org
GNU's Not Unix!