Standard Will Help Developers Support Assistive Technology for the Disabled on Multiple Platforms

The Free Standards Group (FSG), the standardization and certification authority for Linux, today announced that it will be developing and maintaining software interfaces donated by IBM as an open standard, available for all to use. The standardized interfaces, IAccessible2, make it far easier for application developers to provide accessible applications to computer users with disabilities, regardless of their OS platform. IAccessible2 will become a crucial part of the FSG AccessibilityWorkgroup and is available immediately.

IAccessible2 makes it easier for assistive technologies to provide those with disabilities access to advanced features in software programs — such as editing functions, tables, hyperlinks, charts and menus — found in rich Browser applications based on AJAX, DHTML, and WAI-ARIA, and desktop applications based on the OpenDocument Format (ODF). The interfaces will be housed within the FSG?s Accessibility Workgroup, which has been standardizing interfaces to make applications on the Linux platform accessible to those with disabilities since 2004. This effort was accelerated by the need to produce accessible productivity software based on ODF to meet the needs of municipalities such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which has mandated the use of open standards such as ODF.

The new interfaces work on Microsoft Windows and are designed to dramatically reduce the effort to support assistive technnologies, such as screen readers on other platforms, such as Linux, making multi-platform enablement much easier. Assistive technologies (ATs) enable individuals who are blind or visually impaired to read online text, and provide the means for individuals who do not have the use of their arms and hands to write and correspond. ATs also enable individuals who cannot speak or hear to participate on today?s teleconferences. For Windows developers, IAccessible2 may be added to their existing Microsoft Active Accessibility-enabled applications in order to support richer functionality. Another advantage of a standardized interface is that supporting AT vendors will be able to access new applications with dramatically less effort.

?The Free Standards Group and the Accessibility Workgroup is the perfect place to standardize and develop this new technology,? said Richard Schwerdtfeger, Accessibility Architect and Strategist at IBM. ?Their mission of improving access and choice for all computer users and developers fits perfectly with this initiative. We chose the FSG to develop and maintain this technology as an open standard because they have the greatest amount of experience maintaining open source standards, especially for those with disabilities, and have proven they can rally the industry to their projects. With the combination of Linux and Windows accessibility API open standards we see the FSG as an established hub for accessibility interoperability standards which are harmonious across the platforms. IBM is a proud member of the FSG, and we look forward to working with them on enhancing access for all computer users.?

?We are extremely proud IBM has chosen the Free Standards Group, out of the many standards setting organizations available, to house and develop these donated software interfaces,? said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group. ?This donation is extremely important to application developers and the disabled community. Our mission is to provide the greatest amount of access to all computer users: open standards like the ODF and LSB enable unfettered access to technology and data. IAccessible2 will ensure those who are disabled get access to the widest number of
applications.?

Freedom Scientific, GW Micro, IBM, Mozilla Foundation, Oracle, SAP and Sun Microsystems are among those to first to back the technology, and will be involved in developing it as an industry standard, or use it in products with which they are associated. The technology makes browsers such as Firefox, and formats such as ODF — used in open source productivity suites like OpenOffice.org and commercial messaging environments such as
IBM Workplace — relate more automatically and more fully to assistive technologies such as JAWS, MAGic and Windows Eyes.

More information on the FSG Accessibility Workgroup and the new interfaces can be found at http://freestandards.org/en/Accessibility.

About the Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group is a non-profit member-supported organization dedicated to strengthening and promoting Linux as a platform for application development. Its Linux Standard Base (LSB) standardization and certification programs deliver interoperability between applications and the Linux operating system,...

New Testing Initiative Will Solve Incompatibility Issues and Make the Linux Platform More Attractive to Software Developers

The Free Standards Group (FSG), the standardization and certification authority for Linux, today announced a new testing framework that will link compatibility tests to code development, enhancing the quality and interoperability to the Linux platform. The new Linux Standard Base (LSB) Test Framework, jointly developed with the Institute for Systems Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences, will interlink the various moving parts that make up the Linux platform to an unprecedented degree.  This will provide upstream package developers and downstream distribution vendors with a powerful set of tools for coordinating their work and improving the quality of the platform, as well as giving Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) a more effective way to provide feedback to both parties. The new testing framework will be free for anyone to use under the Gnu Public License (GPL), and the associated database will expose APIs so that other web services can integrate with the framework.

One of the most challenging aspects of maintaining a standard for the Linux community is tracking all the moving parts. A typical Linux distribution is made up of hundreds of independent “upstream” open source components, each of which evolves at its own pace. The LSB tracks the independently evolving Linux distributions to guarantee cross-distribution portability, which adds a third dimension to an already complex task. This coordination is crucial to ensure the Linux platform?s long term success.

Even though Linux is developed in a highly decentralized manner, in order to be attractive to the ISV community, Linux must provide the same long-term compatibility guarantees and comprehensive compatibility testing as proprietary platforms such as Microsoft Windows. The LSB Test Framework enables cross-distribution interoperability for applications targeted at LSB 3.0 and higher and will provide backward compatibility so that these applications will continue to run correctly on distributions compatible with future versions of the LSB.

The multi-million dollar testing framework being developed by the FSG and the Institute for Systems Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences represents hundreds of man years of development. The Russian Academy of Sciences has a wealth of knowledge and experience in developing testing frameworks, including work with HP, Intel, Microsoft, Nortel and others, and the development of the Open Linux Verification Project at the Linux Verification Center.

Through their generous support of the Free Standards Group, the platinum members of the FSG ? HP, IBM, Intel, Novell, and Oracle ? are jointly funding the initial work on this project to benefit the greater Linux ecosystem.

?A platform is only as good as the applications that run on top of it,? said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group. ?Linux and its web of independently moving parts present application developers with specific challenges. Now for the first time, upstream project maintainers and Linux distributions can make use of a world-class testing framework that integrates their work, tests it immediately for compatibility, and in the process, reach the largest number of software developers.  This degree of coordination and cooperation will make it hard for monolithic, proprietary operating systems to compete.?

Why Tests Matter

Tests prevent bugs that break compatibility and cost time and money for upstream maintainers, distribution vendors, ISVs, and end users. Unfortunately, tests are often one of the last pieces of the software puzzle to be funded and can become a competitive advantage for proprietary platforms, in effect locking software vendors and end users into a well-tested solution. The LSB Test Framework ? freely available for the entire Linux community to use ? levels that playing field and allows all members of the Linux ecosystem to ensure that Linux remains an attractive option for software developers.

In a recent example of why a comprehensive Linux test framework is needed, a bug in the 2.6 version of cpio (a standard backup utility) broke internationalization. No one in the Linux community caught the bug: neither the upstream developers nor the Linux distribution vendors who package cpio with their products. The FSG tests identified the bug and an FSG engineer fixed it, providing the internationalization support needed for Linux to be used throughout the world, but this was not rectified until the buggy version was already shipped by several distributions. Now it will take months to be incorporated in the next releases of the Linux distributions. The new LSB Test Framework will allow the cpio team to find and fix the bug during...