Over this year and last, I have kept a watchful eye on the state of accessibility in Linux, especially in the Ubuntu distribution using
the Gnome desktop environment. Until now, there has been a steady progression (especially this year) of access and assistive technology among most Linux distributions.
On October 25th, however, Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical announced that their own shell - "Unity" - will be used instead of Gnome in Ubuntu's 11.04 release, slated next year.

While I see some simplistic advantages to this decision, disastrous accessibility policy also comes to light.

Let's look at the facts of Unity:

Unless you've got the right hardware, the automatically-configured Compiz part of Unity will make it hard to operate. Older hardware and drivers may face a tough time running Ubuntu on their shell - and you can't turn it off, since Compiz is slated to be an integral part of the Unity shell. Canonical is wanting to do this for many reasons, but again, according to Mark Shuttleworth, it mostly came down to differing opinions (http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-natty-narwhal-unity-gnome-default-shell/) and touchscreen support.

Regardless of the opinions that differed, ditching GNOME is simply bad accessibility policy - for a number of reasons.

GNOME has a growing Accessibility community (http://projects.gnome.org/accessibility/index.html), of which has brought together developers that have produced Orca, MouseTrap, MouseTweaks, and other applications. GNOME is also a very accessible desktop environment; you can easily configure it to your AT specifications within minutes. Also, the people working on the project haven't abandoned it - on the contrary, they're bringing ideas to the table. While KDE does have some programs (and I won't knock 'em for what they've done), GNOME seems to be a big player for many years in FOSS accessibility.

One clear example that shows GNOME's commitment to accessibility is MouseTrap (http://live.gnome.org/MouseTrap), an application that "allows users with physical impairments to move a mouse cursor. It uses a webcam to track the motion of any object visible by the camera and moves the mouse cursor according to the path of the tracked object (a user's head, for example)". Normally, proprietary software similar to this would cost hundreds - maybe even thousands - of dollars, and that's not including the equipment or setup fees. MouseTrap is in version 0.4, and there still is work to do (movement is a little choppy), but the point is that IT WORKS!

I've put together a video here that shows it in action.

(download)

When one of the most-used distributions fails to see just how essential GNOME is when approaching assistive applications, choices are made that may leave out some of the most loyal users.



*Of course, all conclusions won't be drawn until closer to the debut of Ubuntu 11.04, when we can get a closer look at just how the Unity shell will be handled as the main shell by Canonical. Users who are installing Ubuntu for the first time will be given a choice over their shell next year.

(Cite: http://blogs.computerworld.com/17224/ubuntu_changes_its_desktop_from_gnome_to_unity
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/10/shuttleworth-unity-shell-will-be-default-desktop-in-ubuntu-1104.ars
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/05/exclusive-hands-on-with-ubuntus-new-unity-netbook-shell.ars
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/67880
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/system-76-starling-netbooks-wont-ship-with-slow-confusing-ubuntu-unity/
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-natty-narwhal-unity-gnome-default-shell/)