[Access-activists] Re: Next Set of Tasks for GAI

[Richard Stallman]

    Another thing to keep in mind: what is the charter of GNU?  GNU 
    regularly addresses abuse of FLOSS, regularly speaks out against DRM, 
    etc.  But where should GNU come down on a website which may or may not 
    be using FLOSS tools (e.g. Apache), which may or may not support FLOSS 
    user agents (e.g. Firefox), but has a bad accessibility story/support.  
    Should GNU accessibility only speak to accessibility, separate from 
    where an organization stands on FLOSS/freedom support?

This is a good point.  The GNU Project should address accessibility in
the context of freedom.  If a site uses restrictive interfaces, that
pressure people to use nonfree software, we want it to change.  But
access technology is not the only area those sites cause problems.
For instance, sites cause problems with nonfree Javascript code.  That
may not impede accessibility, but it is a serious issue for free
software.

Shaming is not the first step, or even the second step, in approaching
a site.  The first step is a friendly private request.  The second
step is asking lots of people to make that same friendly private
request.