RE: 'Non-economic' rationale for backward compatibility

Well using this theory, then I doubt that people having English as a
second language can be defined as a disability - isn't it more a
'problem people encounter in life'?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: charles [mailto:charles@w3.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, 19 March 2002 12:42 AM
> To: Gian Sampson-Wild
> Cc: goliver; w3c-wai-gl
> Subject: RE: 'Non-economic' rationale for backward compatibility
> 
> 
> Well, in your own work you should be avancing whatever is relevant
> information for your clients, and typically that would go beyond "pure
> accessibility".
> 
> For WCAG, the requirement is that this helps people solve the 
> problems that
> they encounter which are related to a disability. This 
> doesn't normally
> include all the problems people encounter in life - there are 
> bureaucracies
> taht are difficult to deal with for everyone, poorly designed 
> systems that
> cause real problems for people with and without disabilities in equal
> measure, and things that are problems because someone has a 
> disability. It is
> the last category of things that WCAG is designed to address.
> 
> So an argument based purely on "people ca't afford to upgrade" isn't a
> sufficiently strong one. It needs to explain why people can't 
> afford to
> upgrade, and what level of support people do have - do we 
> need to cater for
> Netscape 1? For people using email-based access to the Web? 
> (People are still
> doing this, for good reasons) Do we need to assumme that people have
> telnet-only browser access and need to work with very old 
> browsers, or that
> they may have text-only systems, but have modern SSH and XML capable
> software?
> 
> This is an open issue for WCAG, and one that won't go away on its own.
> 
> cheers
> 
> chaals
> 
> On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 gian@stanleymilford.com.au wrote:
> 
>   With regards to below.
> 
>   If this argument holds true, then why can't Graham and I use the
>   economic rationale to enforce backwards compatibility?  
> Surely if a site
>   doesn't work for someone because that someone can't afford 
> the latest
>   hardware/software/etc, then we would fail the making things work for
>   people.
> 
> 
>   > Graham
>   >   3. It takes time for non-English (internationalised)
>   >   versions of software to be produced.
>   >
>   > Gian
>   >   I don't think this falls under our charter.
>   >
>   > Chaals
>   > well, our charter requires us to make things work for people.
>   > It doesn't say
>   > "for people who speak english", and we would fail to get past
>   > the i18n review
>   > in last call if we don't recognise this.
>   >
>   > chaals
>   >
>   >
>   >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  
> phone: +61 409 134 136
> W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI  
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> 
> 
>