<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> <!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 --> <title>GNU AccessibilityStatement</title> <style type="text/css"> #conversation { width: 300px; background-color: #bdf; border: 1px solid #999; float: right; padding: 12px; margin: 12px; } #conversation h5 { font-size: 24px !important; text-align: center;} #conversation li { margin-bottom: 0.5em; } </style>Statement - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> <!--#include virtual="/accessibility/po/accessibility.translist" --> <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> <h2>GNU Accessibility Statement</h2> <p><a href="/gnu/">Project GNU</a> urges people working on free software to follow standards and guidelines for universal accessibility on GNU/Linux and other free operating systems. Multi-platform projects should use the cross platform accessibility interfaces available that include GNU/Linux distributions and the GNOME desktop. Project GNU also advises developers of web sites to follow the guidelines set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative.</p><div id="conversation"> <h5>Join<blockquote class="note"> <p><strong>Join theconversation</h5> <ul> <li><aconversation</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility">GNU accessibility mailinglist</a></li> <li><alist</a> <br /><a href="http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Group:Accessibility">LibrePlanet accessibilitygroup</a></li> </ul> </div>group</a></p> </blockquote> <p>According to the United Nations in 2005, there were 600 million people with disabilities in the world. To use computers, many of them need special software known as “access technology”. Like other programs, these can be free software or proprietary. Those which are free software <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html"> respect the freedom of theirusers;users</a>; the rest, proprietary programs, subject those users to the power of the program'sowner.</p>owner. Programs for accessibility ethically must be free software, like other programs.</p> <p>In order for access technology to work, the other software in use must interoperate with it. The majority of computer programs and web sites (85% in one estimate) do not comply with accessibility standards and guidelines, so they do not work with access technology. They provide a frustrating experience, and can bar users from job or school activities.</p> <p>Proprietary file formats that require proprietary reading programs are poison to both accessibility and to the freedoms that we as free software activists hope to establish. The biggest offender is Flash format; it usually requires proprietary software that doesn't cooperate with accessibility. Microsoft Silverlight is similar. <acronym title="Portable Document Format">PDF</acronym> is also difficult; though there is free software to view it, it does not support free access technology software.GNU PDF aims to do better.</p>Improving this is an important project.</p> <p>People with disabilities deserve to have control of their own technological destinies. When they use proprietary access technology, they have little or no way to correct whatever is wrong with it. Virtually all major decisions of the proprietary developers are made by people who do not have the disability; 20 years' experience shows that people with unusual combinations of disabilities, who require relatively unusual software, or who encounter a bug that keeps them from doing their job have no way to obtain the changes they need. These products are only changed or improved when the vendors see a business reason for doing the work; this leaves many users behind. As a secondary problem, proprietary access software is far more expensive than a PC. Many users cannot afford to give up their freedom in this way.</p> <p>For users with disabilities, as for all other users, free software isthe<a href="/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html">the only way the users can control their owncomputing,computing</a>, their only chance to make software fit their needs rather than passively accepting whatever developers choose to offer them.</p> <p>Nations with large populations also have large numbers of people with disabilities. Countries including Brazil and Russia are discussing whether to standardize government purchases on GNU/Linux platforms. These nations are all signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and include technology in their agenda for providing such rights. This will require them to hire programmers to work on accessibility software for their populations. If it is free software, the rest of the world will be able to use it too. The hackers who work on free access technology will provide tools that people with disabilities can use to expand their horizons enormously.</p><p>Ensuring that your application or web site is<p>Making a program accessible isthe right thing to do. Andno substitute for making itfitsrespect users' freedom—these are separate issues—but the two fit naturallywith free software.</p>together.</p> <h3>Recommendations</h3><p>Application<ul> <li>Application software developers should learn how to use the accessibility features of the <acronym title="Integrated Development Environment">IDE</acronym> or toolkit they employ to build their userinterface. Programmersinterface.</li> <li>Programmers who need to implement access technology, or work on a desktop or OS-level accessibility problem, will need to understand the appropriate accessibility <acronym title="Application Programming Interface">API</acronym>, and should choose the one that is compatible with free OS/desktops. These include the <a href="http://library.gnome.org/devel/accessibility-devel-guide/stable/index.html.en">GNOME accessibility API</a> (GNU/Linux platforms only), the <ahref="http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/accessibility/docs/jaccess-1.3/doc/core-api.html">Javahref="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/access/jaapi.html">Java accessibility API</a> (GNU/Linux and Windows) and <a href="http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/accessibility/iaccessible2">iAccessible2</a> (GNU/Linux andWindows).</p> <ul>Windows).</li> <li>Web developers should follow the <a href="http://www.w3c.org/wai">W3C web accessibility guidelines</a> and, for complex web applications, the developers should follow the <a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria" title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">ARIAstandard</a>.</li> <li><astandard</a>. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.standards-schmandards.com/projects/fangs/">FANGS</a> enables web developers to see how a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader">screen reader</a> will handle the web pages they are developing.</li> <li>Outside of the web, developers should follow the <a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag2ict">relevant W3C accessibility guidelines</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>Remember GNU Principles</h3> <p>Reminder: Always follow these two principles to respect users' freedom.</p> <ul> <li><a href="/philosophy/javascript-trap.html">NontrivialJavascriptJavaScript code distributed to the user</a> should be free software.</li> <li>Please don't invite users to <a href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">do something on a server that they could conceivably do on their own computers</a>.</li> </ul></div></div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> <div id="footer"><p> Please<div class="unprintable"> <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF.<br /> Please send brokenBroken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <ahref="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>. </p> <p>href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, replace it with the translation of these two: We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of our web pages, see <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a>. --> Please see the <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations of thisarticle. </p>article.</p> </div> <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should be under CC BY-ND 3.0 US. Please do NOT change or remove this without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the document was modified, or published. If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 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To view a copy of this license, visit <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/"> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/</a> or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.</p>License</a>.</p> <p>The Recommendations section may also be used under the Creative Commons Attribution license, and may be relicensed to the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 or later.</p> <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --><p>Updated:<p class="unprintable">Updated: <!-- timestamp start --> $Date: 2015/05/19 06:00:23 $ <!-- timestamp end --> </p> </div> </div> </body> </html>