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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:02:35 JST Aral Balkan

   • GNOME

   So @gnome is removing the x11 session, leaving just the Wayland one.

   If this goes out before Orca, the GNOME screen reader, is fixed to work on Wayland, it will mean that people who rely on screen readers will have no way to use one on GNOME. And thus on the major Linux distributions.

   So I’m hoping the plan is that this change will not land until GNOME has a working screen reader.

   #accessibility #a11y #gnome #linux #openSource #foss #wayland #x11 #orca https://peoplemaking.games/@ailepet/112077559713299711

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   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:13:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • GNOME
     • Michael Bacon
     • Job

     @vanderZwan @MichaelTBacon @gnome Wayland doesn’t have a functional screen reader. So people who rely on screen readers cannot use Wayland-based sessions.

   • Embed this notice
     Job (vanderzwan@vis.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:13:19 JST Job

     in reply to

     • GNOME
     • Michael Bacon

     @MichaelTBacon @aral @gnome I'm not sure what your point is. Is the existence of x11 stopping you from using wayland?

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Bacon (michaeltbacon@social.coop)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:13:20 JST Michael Bacon

     in reply to

     • GNOME

     @aral @gnome

     As much as I loved X11 30 years ago its time has long since come and gone. Absolutely sucks about the screen reader though.

   • Embed this notice
     Matt Campbell (matt@toot.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:37:28 JST Matt Campbell

     in reply to

     • Sonny

     @aral GNOME folks are well aware of the problems with Orca on Wayland, and actively working to fix them. There's even funding for this work, thanks to the Sovereign Tech Fund. I'm personally working on a new Wayland-native accessibility stack that aims to eventually replace AT-SPI and support sandboxed apps, but there are also efforts to fix problems in the existing stack in the short term. cc @sonny

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   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:38:16 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sonny
     • Matt Campbell

     @matt @sonny That’s great. So will the x11 session not be removed until this work is done and there is a functional screen reader for Wayland then?

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 16:06:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • GNOME
     • Tobias Frisch

     @thejackimonster @gnome Hi Tobias, a screen reader is much more than just text-to-speech. That part of Orca actually works (the robotic voice is a throwback to the early days of speech synthesis but it is functional at least; and this is something they’re looking into improving). It’s the modifier key / keyboard control that’s broken, which is an essential part of a screen reader (which is an interactive control).

   • Embed this notice
     Tobias Frisch (thejackimonster@wehavecookies.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 16:06:29 JST Tobias Frisch

     in reply to

     • GNOME

     @aral @gnome What might be already quite usable is using piper as text to speech software and piping marked text into it via `wl-paste` using a hotkey. Can be a bit of hassle to setup but otherwise quite useful, I assume.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 16:19:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • slembcke

     @slembcke Shipping a broken screen reader by default is already unacceptable. Making it even more difficult than it already is for disabled people who rely on screen readers to use the major Linux distributions is unconscionable. Thankfully, it looks like that won’t be happening but the status quo is nothing to be proud of. It represents a systemic/cultural failure in FOSS whereby lack of accessibility is not seen as a showstopper. That must change.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     slembcke (slembcke@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 16:19:02 JST slembcke

     in reply to

     @aral Pretty sure they aren’t deleting x11 from the repository, just not installing it by default. It will still be seconds away for anyone that wants or needs it.

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Bacon (michaeltbacon@social.coop)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 18:02:22 JST Michael Bacon

     in reply to

     • GNOME
     • Job

     @aral @vanderZwan @gnome

     I agree and that needs to be fixed pronto. I fully agree with your comment. Relying on X11 support to keep major functionality going forward is a really, really bad work around and is unfair to people who rely on screen readers.

     (EDIT: slightly misread your angle on this the first time, we're in either full or almost full agreement, I think.)

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