Heather BuchelApr 10, 2024

I'm going to rant about open source a little, I am so sorry.

So much of open source favors people that ~ have time ~ That usually means:

- They aren't caretakers (i.e. they don't have children or elder family that have care needs) or can rely on a partner to do all of that in their stead.
- They can work long hours outside of their 9-5 jobs which excludes many Disabled people or those that have chronic pain.
- They already have a high paying job, they have health insurance.

Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024

- OR you work for a company that values open source for one reason or another (there are some very cynical reasons you can think of there, obviously, the potential for unpaid labor).

But ultimately, at the root, because we live in this hellscape where people can't have healthcare and it's a race to the bottom for wages, it's incredibly exclusionary to Disabled people or any one who considers themselves a caretaker.

Show threadHeather Buchel

it just feels like we're never going to live up to the baseline that open source needs to actually thrive. I don't see the current landscape of burnt out maintainers, especially those that are unfortunate enough to have very popular libraries with no corporate backing, as succeeding? People need healthcare. People need UBI. They need childcare. They need elder care.

Not saying we should give up on OS, but sometimes I'm overwhelmed at what we're missing.

Apr 10, 2024 at 12:13amWeb
Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024

I think about this a lot when I see maintainers who shrug off accessibility requests as "Well make a pull request! It's open source!"

The very people that are experts that you need contributions from aren't included or welcomed in this community.

Then, throw in the complicated mess that is "modern" javascript or just frontend development in general. You expect people to be experts at accessibility, to have the bandwidth to contribute, AND to navigate that landscape?

Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024
The amount of incredibly detailed Github issues I've seen where someone has taken the time to do a manual accessibility audit and give suggestions, even to write the expected HTML, but because it's not wrapped up in a PR with proper Typescript and accompanying unit tests and broken down into 5 different components for "potential" reuse it gets no movement. This is why you get no contributors for these things.
Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024
So much of the core of tech leaves out Disabled people and that's ultimately why we can't have nice things. It's why everything ends up being just a little bit worse for everyone. It starts there, then it reaches out to other groups of people that aren't overrepresented in tech, then FINALLY to everyone else who all throw up their hands and say "Who could have seen this coming?"
Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024
To the people replying to this that are all "you're describing people that have time for hobbies": I'm going to give some of you the benefit of the doubt that you know nothing about open source software, but to the others that are intentionally missing the point so they can be dismissive in a conversation regarding the inclusiveness of the OS community, you can kindly go fuck yourself.
Show threadeyrea 🇨🇦Apr 10, 2024
@hbuchel Ouf. Yeah, hobbies are totally different from OS work. I can knit for 5 minutes waiting at a bus stop. 5 minutes isn't much of anything for a software project.
Show threadMoritz Poldrack Apr 10, 2024
@hbuchel I fortunately don't need accessibility tools to use my PC, but at the same time this also makes it somewhat hard to develop accordingly. For web stuff, there is https://wave.webaim.org/ which helps but with other types of applications, I don't know of any kind of linter.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

Show threadNoah GibbsApr 10, 2024

@hbuchel Yup. Open Source doesn't get to ignore the awful system of incentives and privilege.

It just has a slightly different system of incentives and privilege.

I'm really glad there's an alternative at all, but it only gets to "cheat" a little, not a lot.

It still favours people with money and time, like so much of all current human endeavour.

Show threadAlexander 😷Apr 10, 2024
@hbuchel "meritocracy" 😬
Show threadhighly principled invertebrateApr 10, 2024
@hbuchel I'm to the point in this realm, because I keep seeing this "choice" of big tech with spying & privacy invasions galore with a sizable amount of disability accessibility vs open source where there's less spying & privacy invasions of smaller entities as mostly I get data repeatedly lost ( instead of stolen & purposefully deleted as with big tech)& close to no accessibility, where when I can, I'm going plunge in, for redesigns, mainly of hardware because so far there's no open source operating systems for phones that are Rugged (durable enough to withstand the messes those of us with neuropathy dish out). I can't say when it'll be though, as on your track, I'm already a almost 2 years behind on my project lists.😬 #DisabilityAccessibilty
Show threadShrouded ScribeApr 10, 2024
@hbuchel I wonder if there's an initiative out there for accessibility templates for different frameworks, languages, etc. If there is, it obviously needs more exposure. If there isn't, it'd be cool to see.
I remember interacting with some visually impaired people over IRC maybe 10 years ago who were very thankful for Orca in Ubuntu. (This was a long time ago so some details may be off.) OSS can do great things for accessibility, and I'm hopeful that won't end.
Show threadHeather BuchelApr 10, 2024
@shroudedscribe It'd maybe be helpful to have accessibility specific contribution guides. I see so many people say they don't have expertise in that area and they'd love to have contributions. But I think outlining the ways people can contribute and how you plan on helping guide them through contributing, would be helpful. There are a lot of folks in web accessibility for instance that don't know specific frameworks like React, but they know the DOM well enough to give maintainers a start
Show threadPontusApr 10, 2024
@hbuchel In enterprise software, it's easier to get regular expressions past code review than it is to get to rewrite a badly inaccessible component from an external library. I've written React for close to a decade professionally and don't have any problem conforming to the conventions, but it honestly feels like simply being able to write CSS and HTML prevents me from participating in front end dev. I just focus on other areas and let people who hate it do the things I love to do. It's weird.
Show threadPatrick H. LaukeApr 10, 2024
@hbuchel good lord, flashing back hard to that time years ago when I just wanted to make a very small a11y fix to a project, hadn't touched git/github until that point...and had to persevere for weeks to basically learn how to do it etc, all just to add an extra `:focus` style to a control. "luckily" this was just around the time i was let go from my job, so i had plenty of time to devote to this...
Show threadMast0b1tApr 10, 2024
@hbuchel Truth.
Show threadJames AkersApr 10, 2024

@hbuchel as some have mentioned previously, this affects many fields, artists among them. I think a big reason many arts conferences skew young (or elderly) is that without proper financial support (paychecks) the grind is so tough that many burn out after 5 or 10 years.

Life can be tough for freelancers. I see the same thing in volunteer radio DJs and other "hobbies". It's a volunteer effort for the greater good.

Show threadJames AkersApr 10, 2024

@hbuchel I would like to see a large marketing effort made to pay the people who write the FOSS applications that many depend on.
I think many consumers value the type of work FOSS contributors are doing. By repeatedly nudging them to financially give to those who freely provide their time and resources, they would be paying the workers directly- and not some profit hungry exec who pays the workers just enough to get by.

I believe that sentiment would resonate with a lot of unaware consumers.