## page was renamed from MeetingLogs/Accessibility 2006-02-15
== Summary ==
 1. Live CD boot parameters. See: Accessibility/LiveCDsettings
 1. Updating Accessibility/Documentation for Dapper
 1. Writing a quick intoduction to Ubuntu AT (describing the features on the Live CD and how to upgrade)
 1. Live CD testing -- UbuntuExpress should be ready for testing this week.

== Log ==
{{{
08:05 TheMuso    Do you know whether anybody else is coming?
08:05 heno       No. Anybody here? :)
08:06 heno       we might be able to catch dholbach
08:06 dholbach   hello
08:06 Seveas     don't drop him
08:07 dholbach   i thought the meeting was thursday :)
08:07 heno       Jason was writing on the list earlier today. What's his nick?
08:07 heno       dholbach: it's thursday fror TheMuso
08:07 TheMuso    jgrieves I think, but he is not currently online.
08:08 heno       ah, ok. well, we can keep it short
08:08 TheMuso    At approx 6:10 AM. :)
08:08 heno       I think things are comming together fairly well, technically
08:09 dholbach   sorry, was just on the phone
08:09 heno       we even have an agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Team/MeetingAgenda
08:09 dholbach   rock n roll! :)
08:10 dholbach   i suppose it's too late for jsgotangco :)
08:10 heno       I keep pushing on about the Live CD, but I think it's very important
08:10 dholbach   (tried to remember who else attended our meetings the last times)
08:10 TheMuso    mhz, kjcole I think it was.
08:10 dholbach   heno: I think it'S important as well.
08:10 dholbach   TheMuso: right.
08:11 heno       It's the main vehicle for distribution now, and so it's 100% mainstream
08:11 heno       (to the extent Linux is mainstream ...)
=== mruiz [n=mruiz@www.3ie.cl] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
=== TheMuso is burning the latest daily atm.
08:11 heno       I think if we get this one right we will attract lots of users and contributors for the next
                 cycle
=== mvo [n=egon@p54A64D4A.dip.t-dialin.net] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
08:12 TheMuso    I agree.
08:12 heno       It may not be scratching each of our personal itches perfectly, but I think strategically is is
                 key
08:12 dholbach   I just had a look at the LiveCD page, what is the flite reader?
08:13 dholbach   Oh, I never realized we had that one.
08:13 heno       dholbach: we had to go with flite instead of Festival due to disc space
=== lucasd [n=lucas@ubuntu/member/lucasd] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
08:13 heno       8mb vs 40mb
08:13 dholbach   Right. :-)
08:13 TheMuso    Flite is an alternate speech synthesizer which is smaller than festival. However, it can not be
                 used with gnopernicus and gnome-speech at this time, unless someone writes a driver for it.
08:14 TheMuso    Unless there is something I don't know about.
08:14 heno       TheMuso: really? gah! it doesn't work with gnopernicus?
08:14 heno       that's bad news
08:14 TheMuso    No. There is no flite driver in gnome-speech.
08:14 TheMuso    We could get it to work if we were to add the latest speech-dispatcher release, as well as the
                 speech-dispatcher gnome-speech driver, which could use flite that way.
08:15 heno       And I assume it's not a 2-day job
08:15 dholbach   I keep trying on getting gnome-orca in, but python-at-spi didn't hit the archive yet. :/
08:15 TheMuso    No, I certainly don't hink so, as the gnome-speech drivers are not very simple.
08:16 TheMuso    dholbach: Maybe were should leave that for another release, as it is still being developed, and
                 IMO it needs a better user interface before it can be considered an option.
08:16 dholbach   Althought I'm not sure, how much better orca would be or if it'd do the job we wanted it to.
08:16 dholbach   TheMuso: ok.
08:16 heno       So, that's a fly in the ointment. How big are the speech dispatcher things?
08:16 dholbach   TheMuso: I'll still try to get it in, it can't hurt to have it in Universe and people testing
                 it.
08:17 TheMuso    dholbach: True.
08:17 heno       Orca is the future I guess though. So Dapper+1 should be good
08:17 TheMuso    heno: Speech dispatcher is not very big as far as I know, but we need the 0.6 branch, as well
                 as the gnome-speech driver, which as far as I know, should be in GNOME CVS.
08:17 dholbach   TheMuso: On the NewSoftware page you pointed out you were working on some other packages - do
                 you want me to look at those?
08:18 TheMuso    ?
08:18 Mithrandir heno: can we touch bases at some point wrt accessability and the live cd?  I know I should do
                 something to enable it, but I can't remember what.
08:18 heno       so it might be fairly instable stuff, and it's getting late in the cycle ...
08:18 TheMuso    dholbach: Packages?
08:18 TheMuso    heno: Yeah.
08:18 TheMuso    I know.
08:18 dholbach   TheMuso: wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/NewSoftware
08:19 heno       Mithrandir: sure. Press F4 for a start
08:19 dholbach   TheMuso: "Speech Dispatcher" and "gnome-speech driver for speech-dispatcher"
08:19 Mithrandir heno: tomorrow, possibly?
08:20 TheMuso    Yeah I see it. Trouble is, that the newer driver is probably in GNOME cvs now.
08:20 heno       Mithrandir: sure that'd be good
08:20 dholbach   TheMuso: which gnome module is that?
08:20 TheMuso    gnome-speech
08:20 heno       btw, there is a screenshot here:
                 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GreatFeaturesOfUbuntu?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=AT-boot-menu.png
08:20 dholbach   TheMuso: i make a note to look at it
08:21 TheMuso    dholbach: I am going to check the latest gnome-speech source in dapper as well, and then check
                 CVS.
08:21 dholbach   TheMuso: cool
08:23 heno       So, you guys who know this better TheMuso, dholbach what are the chances we can get a screen
                 reader working on the CD for dapper?
08:23 dholbach   I'll try to have a look at the other packages on NewSoftware too, because we'll have to have
                 them in for Feature Freeze (Feb 23rd)
08:23 heno       Do we need a backup plan?
                 heno: I am thinking we might, because there is a chance that others won't agree in firstly
08:24 TheMuso    pushing a new release of a universe package up to main, and then requesting the addition of
                 what seems to be only CVS code at the moment.
08:24 dholbach   What are screen reader alternatives we have?
08:25 TheMuso    For GNOME, none really. It is the gnome-speech package that is giving us these problems at the
                 moment.
08:26 TheMuso    dholbach: I am just checking gnome-speech out of CVS now.
08:26 TheMuso    As it is not in the latest dapper package.
08:26 heno       The good new is that if the software isn't perfect it doesn't affect a large number of people
08:26 mjg59      Fixing gnome-speech to use a sensible TTS would also help dasher
08:26 TheMuso    There is a chance that the GNOME devs may hold off including it in gnome-speech for a while
                 anyway.
08:26 heno       if you see what I mean. It's not the kernel
08:26 TheMuso    I know what you mean. We will still certainly be able to fulfill the other profiles.
08:26 heno       mjg59: so you will help :) ?
08:26 TheMuso    dholbach: What is the story on the XDamage extension bug for gnome-mag that I submitted?
08:27 TheMuso    I don't remember seeing anything about it being added.
08:27 mjg59      We're not bound by upstream decisions. If there's a compelling functionality reason to include
                 unreleased upstream code, we should do so
08:27 mjg59      heno: I'm short on time right now, I'm afraid
08:27 dholbach   TheMuso: The problem was, that for some video drivers it made gnome-mag completely unusable
08:27 mjg59      (And have to go for food now, back later)
08:27 dholbach   TheMuso: i can check it with a new version again
08:28 dholbach   TheMuso: daniels said that it surely might be an X problem
08:28 TheMuso    dholbach: That might be a good idea, as it makes it work much better.
08:28 dholbach   Ok
08:28 dholbach   I'll do that
08:29 TheMuso    Looks like the speech-dispatcher driver is indeed in CVS.
=== jbailey [n=jbailey@modemcable139.249-203-24.mc.videotron.ca] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
=== TheMuso is checking out new live CD now.
08:29 dholbach   TheMuso: that sounds promising
08:29 dholbach   hi jbailey :)
08:30 jbailey    =)
08:30 jbailey    Sorry I'm late. =)
                 OK, so in reference to this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/LiveCDsettings that
08:30 heno       means there there is still full uncertainty about #3, but we should be able to settle the other
                 5 quite easily
08:30 heno       jbailey: hi :)
08:30 TheMuso    heno: That sounds about right,.
08:31 heno       So in my last testing of the Live CD it didn't actually do any AT stuff
08:31 TheMuso    Right.
08:32 heno       that depends on us completing that page and communicating it to Kamion
08:33 heno       Shall we skip to point #3?
08:33 heno       It's related to the CD
08:33 heno       It would be helpful to have some introductory info on it
08:33 heno       for those who are using these features
08:33 TheMuso    heno: I also think we need something about just what is possible with the accessibility tools,
                 as there will be people who haven't used them before.
08:34 heno       I've made a start here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/doc/Intro
08:34 dholbach   heno: a "start"! That looks good! :-)
08:35 heno       right. I think it should be clearly divided though into 'What is currently available on the CD
                 you are using"
08:35 heno       and "What can be istalled later"
08:35 TheMuso    Yeah.
08:35 dholbach   yeah, that sounds good
08:35 dholbach   heno: you think we should talk to the doc team to get this into ubuntu-docs as well?
08:35 TheMuso    One thing I am not sure about in relation to flite, is whether flite itself is multilingual.
08:35 TheMuso    ...I don't think it is, but I could be wrong.
08:35 heno       dholbach: That's probably a good idea
08:36 heno       TheMuso: AFAIK it's not
08:36 TheMuso    I understand about size, but how will that help non-english speakers while installing?
08:36 heno       https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/doc/Guide is much more detailed, but also needs more work
08:37 heno       it needs to be updated for dapper and fleshed out
08:37 heno       that is where doc vteam help would be most useful
08:37 dholbach   I'll talk to mdke about it
08:38 heno       How many languages does festival have? 8-10?
08:38 TheMuso    I don't know, but it has more than flite does.
08:39 heno       how well do the speech engines read out other languages? Can it be grokked at all?
08:39 heno       Sounds like that would need to go on a DVD?
08:40 TheMuso    heno: I don't know, as I have had no reason to use other languages.
08:40 dholbach   American English, British English, Italian, Castilian Spanish, general multi-lingual speech
                 synthesis    judging by   apt-cache search festival
08:41 heno       It is a problem, but we have to start somewhere. Operating systems need to improve on both AT
                 and translations
08:41 TheMuso    Yeah true.
08:41 dholbach   Yeah.
08:41 heno       but I think including what we have is what we have to do
08:42 heno       we could try to make a case for the 40mb Festival of course
08:42 heno       but I'm not very optimistic
=== dholbach neither.
08:42 TheMuso    Thats understandable.
08:43 heno       Of course with our own live derivative we can put whatever we want on there
08:43 dholbach   at least it'll be on the DVD
08:43 heno       That would be extremely easy
08:43 dholbach   althought that's not going to be available via shipit
08:44 TheMuso    heno: I have a few ideas for the derivative as it is.
08:44 heno       just dump some WinFOSS and add Festival
08:44 heno       TheMuso: cool
08:45 heno       I think it's important to keep in mind that people like Kamion are spending time on this
                 because vit's going into the main version
08:45 TheMuso    Yeah
08:45 heno       which makes for great features that we can then easily use other places
08:46 heno       So a minimal offering may not be a bad thing i the overall picture
08:46 heno       because the infrastructure gets put in place
08:47 dholbach   I just had a look at "Live CD Testing"
08:47 dholbach   do we have kind of a Test Plan?
08:48 heno       dholbach: not explicitly, no
08:48 heno       weneed to test each of those 6 features on the CD
08:48 dholbach   If we had at least some things we want people to look at, I'd link it from
                 http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing
08:49 heno       we've been testing the actual apps on installed dapper systems so far
08:49 dholbach   I'll forward your gok bug to upstream later. :)
08:49 heno       OK, so: fire up the CD 6 times, and see if it does ABC ...
08:50 heno       dholbach: did you confirm it?
08:50 TheMuso    We may have to wait until the CD is more stable to do testing. I can't boot it atm. It freezes
                 during bootup.
=== mruiz [n=mruiz@www.3ie.cl] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
08:50 heno       dholbach: is it a gok or gnome bug?
08:50 dholbach   heno: it did work for me - so I asked you back for the versions
08:50 dholbach   heno: I think it'd important to get in touch with upstream asap about it.
08:50 heno       dholbach: yep. I'll fit it in thanks. Latest dapper though
08:50 dholbach   heno: so they'll tell us, what to test next
08:51 dholbach   heno: ah ok, that suffices
08:51 heno       TheMuso: hm. I guess fligh4 should be better
08:51 heno       expected vthis week
08:51 TheMuso    Is that due any time soon?
08:51 dholbach   yes
08:51 TheMuso    Ah right.
08:51 dholbach   although there's no fixed date i know of
08:52 heno       I'll write a simple testing plan page before then
08:52 dholbach   heno: That's great
08:52 heno       (unless it's in a few hours ...)
08:52 dholbach   heno: I already added Testing/ to the dapper flight 4 announce, I'll make a special note about
                 a11y additionally
08:53 heno       yay!
=== Toadstool [n=jcorbier@maisel-gw.enst-bretagne.fr] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
08:53 heno       I've added it to the flight4 info page as well and Great Features of Ubuntu
08:53 dholbach   Cool. :-)
08:53 heno       so it should feature on the flash demo if that gets made
08:54 heno       Right. So I think we've covered some good ground
08:55 dholbach   Just to check back: is there any other software I should have a look in and package?
08:55 heno       there is quite a bit of stuff we should catch up on amongst ourselves, by ML, email, phone
08:55 dholbach   You'd need to tell me before Feb 23rd. :-)
08:55 dholbach   Yeah.
08:56 dholbach   Thanks TheMuso and heno for your initiative and involvement.
08:56 heno       so that means completing this page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/LiveCDsettings is
                 quite urgent
08:56 heno       dholbach: thanks for your involvement and packing!
08:57 TheMuso    The profiles look good to me, it is just the speech implementation that could be sticky as far
                 as I can see.
08:57 dholbach   I didn't do much for the a11y team in the last days, but I'm very happy about our team - the
                 amount of subscribers to the mailing lists is still rising, so there's a lot of interest
08:58 heno       There is still some work to be done in identifying the right config settings in the various
                 files
08:58 TheMuso    heno: Yeah true.
08:59 dholbach   We're 35 people on the ML.
08:59 raphink    still one minute to get here
08:59 heno       dholbach: what's the best way to track down config flags?
08:59 raphink    :)
08:59 raphink    yeah
08:59 dholbach   heno: config flags like what?
08:59 TheMuso    heno: Do you mean gconf?
08:59 dholbach   heno, TheMuso: maybe we should move to #ubuntu-accessibility
08:59 heno       ok
08:59 TheMuso    Fine by me.
}}}
CategoryAccessibilityTeam