Peter Korn's Weblog

Last November I noted that Microsoft and Novell would be working together to make some of their technologies accessible on UNIX, and I welcomed them to the UNIX accessibility neighborhood. Today it is time to welcome them to another neighborhood - that of the OASIS and ISO standard OpenDocument Format. It is also time to issue an invitation...

In their press release today Microsoft stated that Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 - to be released in the first half of 2009 - would support reading and writing OpenDocument Format v1.1. Microsoft further states in this release that it will join the OASIS OpenDocument Format Technical Committee, as well as the ISO/IEC working group engaged in ongoing maintenance of OpenDocument Format. Some choice quotes from the press release:

When using SP2, customers will be able to open, edit and save documents using ODF... It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007. To also provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office (Office XP and Office 2003), Microsoft will continue to collaborate with the open source community in the ongoing development of the Open XML-ODF translator project on SourceForge.net.

Microsoft will join the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) technical committee working on the next version of ODF and will take part in the ISO/IEC working group being formed to work on ODF maintenance.

This means that sometime in 2009, users with disabilities will have yet another application option for reading and writing ODF files - they will be able to use Microsoft Office as shipped by Microsoft. This will supplement the options already available to people with disabilities for using ODF, including: IBM's Lotus Symphony on Windows with a variety of Windows AT applications, StarOffice and OpenOffice.org on Windows with several Windows AT applications, StarOffice and OpenOffice.org on UNIX systems with all of the UNIX AT applications, and the newly announced OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta on Macintosh with VoiceOver and other Macintosh AT applications. For folks who want to use Microsoft Office 2007 with ODF prior to their release in 2009 (as well as folks wanting to use an earlier version of Microsoft Office), there is also the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office, now at version 1.2.

And so it is time to issue an invitation. As co-chair of the OASIS OpenDocument Format Accessibility subcommittee, I would like to warmly we.come Rob Sinclair, Reed Shaffner, Gray Knowlton, and anyone else at Microsoft involved in accessibility and Microsoft Office to attend our subcommittee meetings and participate in our ongoing efforts in ODF accessibility. As a board member of the OASIS, Microsoft has always been able to participate in any OASIS technical committee or subcommittee. But in light of this recent move, I want to be sure they feel particularly welcome to do so!

Appeals court ruling: U.S. currency is discrimatory to the blind

On November 28, 2006, Judge James Robertson ruled in favor of the American Council of the Blind in the case "AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury Defendant". Judge Robertson found that the inaccessibility of U.S. currency to the blind is a violation of Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. Key language from Section 504 in this matter is:

No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States...shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency, or by the U.S. Postal Service.

Yesterday the D.C Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Robertson's ruling. Writing for the majority opinion, Appeals court Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote (emphasis added):

The current design of paper money springs from the world of the sighted... Upon casual inspection anyone with good vision can readily discern the value of U.S. currency; yet even the most searching tactile examination will reveal no difference between a $100 bill and a $1 bill... Where the plaintiffs identify an obstacle that impedes their access to a government program or benefit, they likely have established that they lack meaningful access to the program or benefit... Where the basic task of independently evaluating the worth of currency in excess of 99 cents is difficult or impossible, the visually impaired are forever relegated to depend on 'the kindness of strangers' to shop for groceries, hire a taxi, or buy a newspaper or cup of coffee... The government might as well argue that there's no need to make buildings accessible to wheelchairs because handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask passers-by for help.

Furthermore, Judge Rogers noted that the Treasury Department's failure to produce currency that can be independently identified by blind and visually impaired Americans was an example of the very "thoughtlessness and indifference" that Congress sought to prevent when it subjected the federal government to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federal government programs.


	Peter Korn's Weblog The collected occasional commentary by Peter Korn, Accessibility Architect at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Microsoft, welcome to the OpenDocument Format neighborhood!

Appeals court ruling: U.S. currency is discrimatory to the blind