RE: 19 October 2000 minutes

This is entirely beside the point I was making when discussing Narrator.  I
was discussing the definition of "free", not whether technology is available
in a particular language.  If we are going to have the word "free" as part
of the requirement for support, it is essential that we define the term.
Narrator is simply an example.  If you prefer, we can use the magnification
software that's available in Windows as an example instead.

So, I repeat the question:  Can a component which is included in an
operating system be considered "free" if the operating system is not?


-----Original Message-----
From: Claus Thøgersen [mailto:thoeg@get2net.dk]
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2000 2:50 AM
To: Wendy A Chisholm
Cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Sv: 19 October 2000 minutes


    Hi,

As I stated with regard to the comment about Narator beeing a free
screenreader in a commerciel sold product, this is again a case of
ednocentricity or a english-centered remark. As I said in the meeting MS has
not currently decided when Narator will be included in Win2K for what they
term third tire countries, and yes you have guessed it Denmark is such a
country. This means that Narator is not availalbe in general but in certain
countries or for people running certain language versions of Win2k. Since
the comment about Narator is not as I see it important I would suggest that
it is removed from the minutes.

Claus
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Wendy A Chisholm <wendy@w3.org>
To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 4:20 PM
Subject: 19 October 2000 minutes


> available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2000/10/19-minutes.html
> 
> 19 October 2000 WCAG WG telecon
> 
> Summary of action items
> ·       Action JW: Propose text to cover the issue about associating text 
> equivalents with what they represent.
> ·       Action GR: Try to abstract JW's proposal.
> ·       Action WC: rework proposal for checkpoint 3.1.
> ·       Action JW: Take issue of maintaining info about assistive 
> technology and alternative browsing to Education and Outreach via the 
> Coordination Group.
> ·       Action CS: write up a browser profile for what authors should
support.
> 
> Participants
> ·       Claus Thøgersen
> ·       Marshall Jansen
> ·       Matt May
> ·       Jason White
> ·       Dick Brown
> ·       Loretta Guarino Reid
> ·       Cynthia Shelly
> ·       Charles McCathieNevile
> ·       Kynn Barlett
> ·       Gregg Vanderheiden
> ·       Gregory Rosmaita
> ·       William Loughborough
> 
> Next face to face
> Two Day Preference: Mon/Tues or Thurs/Fri. (Feb. 26-27 or March 1-2)
> Will your group be flexible about the meeting days: If you choose
Mon/Tues; 
> would Thurs/Fri be acceptable?
> The number of people in your group that will attend the f2f meeting __
> Will folks in your group attend the Wednesday Plenary?
> What other W3C groups, specifically, would your group like to meet?
> Are there other groups with significant membership overlap with yours
which 
> should NOT be scheduled on the same days?
> GV I teach on Monday, so I prefer Thurs/Fri.
> About 10 - 15 people will attend.
> Mobile, device independent authoring, other WAI groups, XHTML, XForms, 
> Voice Browser, XLink, XPointer.
> 
> New draft
> WC Not out yet. It's close.
> JW Then we'll vote on the list. I'll take a stab at finishing up proposal 
> for checkpoint 1.1. Please raise remaining issues with checkpoint 1.1.
> GV If you post wording and know there are things that were not addressed, 
> please mention this.
> WC That discussion is in the minutes from the face to face.
> 
> Text equivalents be identified in markup
> JW Impressions of whether people want a requirement. A separate
checkpoint?
> LGR Is the concern that it is hard to confirm that text equivalents exist?
> JW It is hard to generate something with text equivalent, especially if a 
> document generated for user preferences.
> GV For example?
> GR In UA context, the ability to embed text descriptions into clip art.
You 
> can also find copyright info. If UA has a way to extract, and AT's are 
> being encouraged to do that for clip art they are distributing.
> GV If no alt-text why wouldn't the tool look inside? If it's there, it can

> easily find.
> GR The request is from an authoring standpoint. I think this was raised
for 
> clarification. How do people believe we should deal with this issue?
Should 
> we throw it to UA or ATAG? Gets to the heart of "web content" is it the 
> component or document or application.
> CT This idea of section 5 is problematic wrt UA.
> GV If it's something like a picture you could grab the info from the data 
> format, but if you have turned graphics off, then the UA would not know to

> fetch it.
> CT I understand the issue to be: how much do we want to know about a
structure.
> JW Who wants this requirement? Each text equivalent must be marked up as 
> per guideline 2 from the accompanying text.
> CMN Yes, I would like to see such a proposal.
> DB Still having troubling understanding it? Must be distinguished?
> JW Can do in SVG or in HTML w/alt. However, this needs to be distinct in 
> the markup.
> CMN Example is: alt in HTML - this is an alt for this image. an example of

> not doing it: having a chart w/alt that says, "great britain chart" and 
> then in the content a description. no way to associate them.
> DB If someone has in the text that would not be explicitly linked. In HTML

> 4 could use longdesc.
> GR In another application, they use captions to describe photos. The 
> alt-text is then usually "photo" or "black and white photo."
> CS An interesting idea, sounds like a feature to add to HTML.
> WC I think that it is clear from 1.1
> GR It can be interpreted to mean that if you do OCR.
> JW Or if you generate something with descriptions with no markup, you're 
> rendering it as text.
> GV Two parts:
> alternative text not distinct from text
> marked up but not obvious
> alt-text will be distinct from, if not always rendered and not alt.
Knowing 
> that it is there is what we need to focus on. "If alt-text provided, it 
> must be obvious from the markup to indicate its presence."
> Action JW: Propose text to cover the issue about associating text 
> equivalents with what they represent.
> Action GR: Try to abstract JW's proposal.
> CS This does not work for all interfaces. If a voice interface, it doesn't

> matter if a graphic button exists somewhere.
> CT What if you can turn it off?
> CS That will cause problems for people with cognitive disabilities.
> CT You can not decide for the user.
> KB This assumption comes with the idea that there is an optimal 
> presentation. From our work, there are different ways of presenting 
> information. I don't need to present to a visual user if they have said, 
> "don't play me sound" to let them know that there is sound here. I spoke 
> with Ian about this because it sounded odd. He specifically said it has to

> be clear in the markup or the data model. It may be on my server - an 
> explicit representation between this image and this text. He said that as 
> long as in the data model, I would be covered. This does not have to be 
> sent to the user.
> GR That is a basic underlying principle.
> KB Then the requirement is still odd to me.
> CS I agree with Kynn there are other ways to get around the problem.
> JW There are still issues.
> CS I think we are talking about 2 issues.
> Should things be associated
> Informing the user of other forms of the information
> 
> Errata to 3.1
> CS As long as not a paragraph.
> CMN Problem for magnifiers.
> WC Can use Opera to magnify the alt-text of images.
> CS Section headings are usually large fonts.
> WC Text in images to create logos? Does anyone disagree?
> CMN I am not convinced.
> JW One could avoid the implication that you can interpret to mean it does 
> not exclude every image.
> GV If you can't do something so it will work with the browsers on your 
> site, does 3.1 say "it doesn't matter, AA means you must use markup
language."
> JW Did we add into the Errata, Ian's proposal in 11.1? That would take
care 
> of it.
> WC No.
> CMN It rules out things that can be done using images that should be done 
> in markup. Use MathML to represent math. What can't be done using markup? 
> You don't have strong control over button appearance - how good is css
support?
> WC /* restate my proposal */
> KB Does proposal cover WAI logo?
> WC Yes.Let's keep checkpoint as is, but write a clarification that image
ok 
> for logo, navigation buttons, image maps.
> GV "until widely supported" - what if 2/3 of browsers support it. Does
that 
> mean we switch? We have a question for how long it is that people are 
> required to do things.
> WC Since 1.0 errata, i think we can use the until user agent language 
> because 2.0 should be out before until user agent is met.
> JW Don't think resolve in 1.0 w/errata change, therefore "when an 
> appropriate markup language exists" means "when supported by user agents."
> MM: A lot of companies won't want to put SVG out for public consumption. 
> Once it's out there it can be stolen. A lot of companies use graphical 
> content to protect info so that things can't be perfectly copied. Would 
> people want to adopt SVG?
> CMN I don't think that holds. If someone puts an imperfect logo out there 
> is making that logo available whether it is SVG, or gif, or whatever.
> GR A legal issue.
> CS What about the word "appropriate." What CMN finds appropriate is 
> different than what a legal person finds appropriate.
> KB I think most people will want to do specific things that CSS and HTML 
> will not be acceptable solutions. MathML is not acceptable. There are 
> things you can't do.
> GV Will be a list or tie back to 11 - where possible to do that using xyz 
> then you must. The word appropriate is vague. It is not from the rule but 
> the explanatory text underneath it.
> CMN The alternative interpretation is for cases where CSS works on
Netscape 
> and Explorer etc. then the answer is to apply 11.4 and supply 2 versions. 
> That clearly meets the guidelines as written.
> Action WC: rework proposal for checkpoint 3.1.
> 
> Until user agents proposal
> CMN How do we know when user agents are sufficient. I have proposed a set 
> of conditions.
> ·       Things have to work in 2 browsers. One browser must be free and 
> work across MacOS, Linux, Windows, etc.
> ·       It must work with X number of assistive technologies.
> One issue is, how will this pan out internationally. There were two 
> approaches proposed.
> say that X number of months after these are available and have been shown 
> to work we expect people to use them. is it 6 months after they become 
> available or localized to a language? we need input on that from 
> non-english speakers. from the european blind union, i hear that there are

> whole countries where people who are blind use DOS. Therefore, not 
> supporting DOS is an issue.
> CS If designing for English, then only concerned about English tools?
> CT Who will document what is being used in different countries? And keep
it 
> updated?
> CS Someone launching a site in a particular area would do that research.
> GR in U.S., baseline is DOS or Windows 95. Discussed with RNIB, people 
> upgrade to Windows NT.
> CMN Available technical support is a major issue.
> DB I could not find anything in the existing guidelines where we mention 
> that products are free. Do we really want to do that? What about the
hardware?
> CMN That's another issue.
> CT The only thing that is free is unix things (re: AT)
> CS The Narrator that ships with Windows 2000 is free, but Windows is not.
> CMN Should we be requiring that if you need something free that you live
on 
> a linux system. or we require that there be one free solution per 
> platform.. Or does everyone pay the same.
> WC What info will help us answer this info?
> CMN There are some things that we should just answer.
> JW We need to do it in a neutral way to suppliers.
> CT We need a way to collect data. Can EO help here?
> CMN Probably. They maintain a policy page and an assistive technology and 
> alternative browsing page. We should ask them because they have wider 
> international contacts. The I18N is in a sense simple. There are only a
few 
> questions about how to apply the rules we decide on. Then we have to
answer 
> the same questions in different languages.
> Action JW: Take issue of maintaining info about assistive technology and 
> alternative browsing to Education and Outreach via the Coordination Group.
> GR An opportunity for EO to contact disability groups to collect
information.
> CMN We could look at the components people are using and say "yes" or
"no".
> CS Like Javascript?
> CMN Right: we require CSS Font, don't require CSS positioning, yes 
> JavaScript, etc.
> CS That seems a lot easier.
> WC Create a profile.
> CS Then people pushed to meet that reference.
> JW That's UA.
> CMN They don't specify technologies.
> Action CS: write up a browser profile for what authors should support.
> 
> $Date: 2000/10/19 23:10:58 $ Wendy Chisholm
> 
> --
> wendy a chisholm
> world wide web consortium
> web accessibility initiative
> madison, wi usa
> tel: +1 608 663 6346
> /--
>

Received on Monday, 23 October 2000 14:01:50 UTC