CW: Controversial accessibility take from a GTK dev
I'm going to get straight to the point with this one.
I am in a room named #a11y:gnome.org. It's on Matrix, you can access it yourself, anyone can due to it's public nature.
During the latest conversation, Matthias Clasen is quoted as saying: "one thing to keep in mind is that the w3c stuff is just somebody writing down some made-up rules"
This is after a Ubuntu developer requested an improvement to gtk, highlighting some inconsistencies with combo boxes and other things. The conversation is far too long to post here, but you can easily read it yourself.
Regardless of the conversation, or agreements or disagreements, this is an utterly unacceptable thing to say, particularly if this individual is endorsed by Gnome.
It's unacceptable for three important reasons: It completely invalidates the accessibility work that is being conducted to improve the Gnome desktop (discarding the hard work of other devs who contribute their efforts towards these supposedly nonsensical guidelines).
It is extremely disrespectful to blind and visually impaired people and others with disabilities who, at the end of the day, just want to use open source software like anyone else. I have definitely witnessed disagreements regarding the w3c and respect that it can't be implemented to the letter. I have never ever before heard anyone dismiss it entirely, as if it were nothing more than a spec of dirt.
Finally, it makes constructive conversation extremely difficult, how is someone supposed to work with a developer on accessibility, when they possess such an unconstructive attitude?
I feel obligated to call this out, even though I do worry that it may cast doubt on other Gnome developers, but no, too much is too much.
I would like to thank those who are striving to make Gnome and it's applications more accessible and those who choose collaboration over ignorance.
I'd appreciate if people could make an effort to keep replies constructive, I am doing this as advocacy and challenging what I believe to be a harmful attitude. Linux accessibility won't improve while people like this are in control of it's components.
Edit: I have just determined through research that Matthias is actually a manager of Red Hat's desktop team, making his statement even more damaging.
@gnome
@redhat
#redhat
#gnome
#linux
#a11y
#accessibility