'Advocates for disabled wary of open source'

So says a headline at CIO.com, referring to open source efforts on Massachusetts. Some concerns about OpenOffice and the like:

1. The accessibility community has invested years in getting Microsoft products to work with the disabled.

2. Third-party adaptive technology vendors have based their products around Microsoft's.

3. The states deadline for OpenDocument format is Jan. 1, 2007, and right now it looks as if accessibility could suffer in favor of the deadline being met.

Open Source advocates respond that their approach will be more flexible and greatly speed up the usefulness of tech to the disabled, and they're open to the state pushing back the deadline. I'd take their side, as long as they mean this; it would help for Massachusetts to be flexible as well. Within e-books, open source and open standards can go a long way. Proprietary formats can add horrendous complexity to the reading process for those with, say, speech synthesizers. An OpenReaderish approach will be a blessing for people with disabilities.

Detail: Microsoft contributes to adaptive tech activities. Will this influence some accessibility advocates? I don't know. I'm just raising the inevitable question.

Text by David Rothman