Programmers from all over the world work on their free time on projects, some foundations exist supported by individual donations and companies' funding. Some companies release their code as F/LOSS.
There is no single entity that dictates what software is built and moreover people working on F/LOSS are (I would say) on average more aware/sensitive of their work's impact. I know for example that GNOME people are actively trying to better accessibility and would welcome the help (your time and skill or donations, or both).
Also, I am contributing to F/LOSS code since about 20 years. You might think I am "fundamentally misunderstanding" things. I believe I just have a different opinion on things then you. Lets leave it at that.
You can be the owner of a publishing house and advocate free speech and still you might not have the resources to publish every worthy book.
If there are more contributors then the accessibility will improve, but unlike a commercial project you can't just oblige/order someone to do it. You have to motivate people - with the right skill set - to donate their private time to this cause over all the other causes (or non-programming activities they could support).
So great to be idealistic but you have to accept your own limitations. Maybe getting something to work for most people is simply a more achievable mid-term goal than addressing each special case, no matter how important.
Thanks for this comment. I hear this a lot from people who actually know about F/LOSS but were not able (or interested) to switch from proprietary solutions because their needs are simply not handled in an appropriate way by F/LOSS.
In the past, when I was still more enthusiastic about free software, I heard their words but they somehow didn't really sink in. These days when all I hear if funding and the lack thereof, I start to get what they were saying, and I am actually pretty concerned about this. The worst outcome we could have is that free software advocacy actually works and these inaccessible solutions dominate the market. This would mean that free software actively pushs disabled people out of our society. Thinking about this, I stand to my massively downvoted comment. This would be a horrible outcome. So as long as there is no solution to the "why should I think about these fucks" or "nobody is paying me to care for disabled people" it would be a bad thing to further advocate free software.
Where did you get the impression that anyone is "unwilling"???
Do you have an example of this, or is it, as other comments point out, just a resourcing issue?
Chicken and egg thing.
Why do you act like I want to take technology away from anyone?
Go ask Microsoft, Google and Apple how much money they spend on accessibility and then compare that to the income of /e/OS.
How would you fix that resource problem if not by trying to get better funding?
Please explain. Why was Steve Jobs able to explain to Apple that in the case of Accessibility, ROI has to be ignored, because it is a social responsibility to build a platform that works for everyone. Why, to the contrary, is the free software movement trying to argue that this is absolutely impossible because of lack of funding?
