28 Mar
2013
28 Mar
'13
5:35 p.m.
Hi,
Here are the meeting minutes from the board call this past Monday. As
always you can find the minutes in the wiki
(https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_meeting#Meeting_2013-03-25) and
if you have questions, or concerns you may raise them on this list or
contact the board directly on the board list.
Regrads,
Your openSUSE Board
Board Meeting 2013-25-03
Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert
Excused: Raymond - Company Meeting
Vincent - Customer call
Will - MIA
1.) Review Action Items
- No board report :(
- CLT issues followed up
2.) Face to Face Meeting Agenda
- Items collected, ready to post first draft of the agenda to the wiki
3.) Accessibility issue
- The proposal raised on the board list is to add a new category to our
Bugzilla to clearly mark accessibility issues as such.
There are two main concerns, one is that this is a technical issue and
thus the board should keep its fingers out of this issue. The second
concern is that creating a specific category may make it easier for
people to "pass the buck" by expecting someone in the non existent
accessibility team to fix the problem.
Having a separate category for accessibility (a11y) on the other hand
will send a clear message that we as the openSUSE community care about
people with disabilities. While we have no specific resources to address
a11y issues it is important to acknowledge that an a11y issues can
easily make the system unusable for a handicapped person.
While adding to the bug category list is definitely a technical issue,
the a11y topic has a very large community component and thus the board
thinks it is appropriate to act in this area. We can certainly not
dictate any action, however a message will be sent to the -factory
mailing list asking for consideration of the topic by the developers.
The argument was made that a11y bugs should fit into the categories we
already have and that we might easier fall into a "pass the buck"
situation with a new category. It is the consensus that we should be
able to address the "pass the buck" issue with a policy/procedure. As
far as using existing categories is concerned the problem might be that
we get into a priority flip flop situation if we do not have a separate
category. A person with a disability might mark a bug as Critical, but a
developer not fully understanding the consequences might relabel it as
category 2 or 3. Having an a11y category would address such priority
flip/flop issues.
The board will, after additional discussion on the board list, send a
proposal to the -factory list for consideration by the developer
community. The proposal will recommend the addition of an a11y category
to Bugzilla and a proposal on how to handle the bugs.
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29 Mar
29 Mar
8:15 a.m.
Robert,
Thank you for adding my proposal to the Board's agenda regarding
accessibility. Having read the minutes, I think I need to clarify some
things.
First of all, my proposal isn't about the creation of an a11y team, and
I do agree with you that things should not be where the buck gets
passed. However, I think it is a misnomer to assume that all things
a11y-related have to be dealt with by an a11y team.
My proposal is to create a new severity level that addresses a11y as a
severity, rather than creating a new category. Too often, reporting a
bug as normal, major, or critical oftentimes does not fit into the
severity impact of an accessibility bug.
In fact, *most* of what we provide for a11y in our distro isn't
necessarily something we would handle. It would more often than likely
be something that would be handled by upstream. Some of the few things
that we would have to be concerned with is accessibility of our own
products, such as YaST.
Also, not all things a11y are assistive technology-dependent. Some
things are simply changing how the UI works so that it is more
universally accessible, without having to have intimate knowledge of
such things as AT-SPI.
I don't see how creating a severity level called "Accessibility" would
end up passing the buck to another team. If I'm filing a bug, for
example, against YaST regarding accessibility, it would and should go to
the YaST team. It would still be up to the YaST team to decide whether
they feel it is worth their time to address the bug itself.
I know there are several people on the YaST team that have at least some
level of expertise in a11y matters. Accessibility may not be their top
job priority, but giving an a11y severity level should make it easier
for those who do have some knowledge to quickly assess the number of
bugs that they may decide one day to address.
Yesterday, someone reported inability to access YaST via Orca in 12.3,
when it was working fine in previous openSUSE versions. Other than
reading the comments itself, how does someone on the YaST team quickly
pull up a report for all YaST a11y-related bugs that they may be able to
fix?
I recognize that simply marking the severity level as Accessibility
doesn't guarantee that the bug gets fixed. That's still up to the team
to decide, and I am not asking the Board to get into some kind of
enforcement mode to try to force teams to address a11y bugs. I'm merely
asking that we establish an easier way for users to report a11y bugs
more comfortably as well as an easier way for teams to be aware of the
existence of a11y bugs. I hardly think that's a technical matter the
board would be advocating here. Only simply a one-addtional item in the
severity list.
The Board has addressed bugzilla ease-of-use questions in the past, so
there is precedent here for this narrow proposal.
Bryen
On Thu, 2013-03-28 at 17:35 -0400, Robert Schweikert wrote:
Hi,
Here are the meeting minutes from the board call this past Monday. As
always you can find the minutes in the wiki
(https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_meeting#Meeting_2013-03-25) and
if you have questions, or concerns you may raise them on this list or
contact the board directly on the board list.
Regrads,
Your openSUSE Board
Board Meeting 2013-25-03
Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert
Excused: Raymond - Company Meeting
Vincent - Customer call
Will - MIA
1.) Review Action Items
- No board report :(
- CLT issues followed up
2.) Face to Face Meeting Agenda
- Items collected, ready to post first draft of the agenda to the wiki
3.) Accessibility issue
- The proposal raised on the board list is to add a new category to our
Bugzilla to clearly mark accessibility issues as such.
There are two main concerns, one is that this is a technical issue and
thus the board should keep its fingers out of this issue. The second
concern is that creating a specific category may make it easier for
people to "pass the buck" by expecting someone in the non existent
accessibility team to fix the problem.
Having a separate category for accessibility (a11y) on the other hand
will send a clear message that we as the openSUSE community care about
people with disabilities. While we have no specific resources to address
a11y issues it is important to acknowledge that an a11y issues can
easily make the system unusable for a handicapped person.
While adding to the bug category list is definitely a technical issue,
the a11y topic has a very large community component and thus the board
thinks it is appropriate to act in this area. We can certainly not
dictate any action, however a message will be sent to the -factory
mailing list asking for consideration of the topic by the developers.
The argument was made that a11y bugs should fit into the categories we
already have and that we might easier fall into a "pass the buck"
situation with a new category. It is the consensus that we should be
able to address the "pass the buck" issue with a policy/procedure. As
far as using existing categories is concerned the problem might be that
we get into a priority flip flop situation if we do not have a separate
category. A person with a disability might mark a bug as Critical, but a
developer not fully understanding the consequences might relabel it as
category 2 or 3. Having an a11y category would address such priority
flip/flop issues.
The board will, after additional discussion on the board list, send a
proposal to the -factory list for consideration by the developer
community. The proposal will recommend the addition of an a11y category
to Bugzilla and a proposal on how to handle the bugs.
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org
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4:18 p.m.
On 03/29/2013 08:15 AM, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
<snip
> I recognize that simply marking the
severity level as Accessibility
> doesn't guarantee that the bug gets fixed. That's still up to the team
> to decide, and I am not asking the Board to get into some kind of
> enforcement mode to try to force teams to address a11y bugs. I'm merely
> asking that we establish an easier way for users to report a11y bugs
> more comfortably as well as an easier way for teams to be aware of the
> existence of a11y bugs.
Well, it is technical in a sense that the bugs should be addressed. All
board members o the call were in agreement that this is a technical
issue. Additionally, just providing window dressing does not really
help. Meaning, if we add an a11y severity and than treat it as severity
0.5 we all know that those bugs will not get fixed. In that case why
bother? Just to improve the filing experience and pretend we care? I am
personally not in favor of a window dressing approach.
IMHO we either make a commitment that these bugs are important and
reflect the importance in bugzilla, or we decide they are not important
and people that need a11y are on their own. I'd prefer a commitment by
the development community that these bugs are "somewhat special" and
deserve a high priority.
Robert,
Thank you for adding my proposal to the Board's agenda regarding
accessibility. Having read the minutes, I think I need to clarify some
things.
First of all, my proposal isn't about the creation of an a11y team, and
I do agree with you that things should not be where the buck gets
passed. However, I think it is a misnomer to assume that all things
a11y-related have to be dealt with by an a11y team.
I don't think we suggested the creation of an a11y team, only pointed
out that we do not have one.
My proposal is to create a new severity level that addresses a11y as a
severity, rather than creating a new category. Too often, reporting a
bug as normal, major, or critical oftentimes does not fit into the
severity impact of an accessibility bug.
Ooops misunderstanding. Anyway, the mail to -factory has been sent and a
discussion has been started.
Personally I think having an a11y severity might be confusing unless it
would be defined to be equivalent to one of the existing levels. For
better or worse people have been trained that we have the existing
levels and thus would inevitably ask is a11y severity more or less than
critical, or major, or ....
I hardly think that's a technical matter the
board would be advocating here. Only simply a one-addtional item in the
severity list.
Well, "only simply one additional item in the severity list" could
possibly be achieved by filing a bug report against bugzilla. But is
that what you really are after, a "we pretend it matters" entry?
Later,
Robert
--
Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU
SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center LINUX
Tech Lead
rjschwei(a)suse.com
rschweik(a)ca.ibm.com
781-464-8147
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2850
days inactive
2851
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2 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
-
Bryen M Yunashko -
Robert Schweikert