Re: Written Direct Testimony of Chris Hofstader in MS case

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, David Poehlman wrote:

> the testimony is now available.

" For example, users can bypass the mouse altogether by taking advantage
of  a feature known as MouseKeys"

Erm, yes, quite.  Anyone recollect a cartoon of a dad constructing
a swing on a tree, ending up sawing through the trunk and propping
the tree up?  Or, in other words, what a convoluted process, first
requiring the mouse, then making a virtue of offering an alternative.

"While there are a number of good accessibility aids available for
the Linux operating system, none of those aids relies on any functionality
in the Linux operating system itself."

That, to my mind, is extremely telling.  It tells me what I already know:
that Linux (in common with most other OSs) is altogether more modular
than Windows, and that users can use what they want without interference,
overhead and not least bugs from altogether irrelevant parts of the
system intruding on them.  It is indeed one of the design features that
makes Windows inherently so massively insecure, and leaves every little
bug having the capacity to bring down the entire system.


"The Document Object Model ("DOM") is a standard published with the W3C, a
recognized standard setting body. Microsoft's implementation of the DOM in
the Windows operating systems is first-rate. DOM is a platform- and
language-neutral interface that permits programs and scripts to access and
update the content, structure and style of a document. For example, JAWS
uses the DOM to communicate with Microsoft Excel files. Using the DOM, ..."

Again, telling.  He is using a standard API, so his software should
be inherently cross-platform.  True, he is also using system-specific
APIs, but working downwards from the highest-level one, a port of
system-specific calls is generally extremely straightforward.



-- 
Nick Kew

Received on Thursday, 18 April 2002 18:49:36 UTC