[thelist] Is this a list?

[Mark A. MacInnes]

>
>
>On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 07:17 -0500, Jay Blanchard wrote:
>  
>
>>Linux *is* an operating system. Here are some definitions...
>>    
>>
>
>No, it is not, it is a kernel that needs to boot into an operating
>system to be useful. Please read
><http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>.
>

Who cares??? You have your definitions, other people people have theirs. 
It doesn't make any difference whatsoever. You need to live in the real 
wold, not 'Exact-Definition Land'. Language changes. People call things 
different names and those names are inherited. By constantly having this 
ridiculous and completely pointless argument, all you achieve is scaring 
non-techies away from Linux. Stop having this pointless argument that 
you've been having for god knows how long. Obviously no-one is going to win!


And about accessibility. Accessibility is not just a 5-minute jobbie 
that can be done by following some old guidelines or chucking a site 
through a validator - a computer can only follow rules. Accessibility 
needs full-scale testing by many different people. As the old saying 
goes, 'time costs money'. Do you really think a small company can afford 
the extra is costs to make their website fully accessible? I think not!  
If company A spends an extra £3000 making their website more accessible 
than company B, but it is vastly unlikely to make any difference to 
sales, company A has just wasted £3000. Companies are not made of money! 
Of course, in a perfect world, every website would be fully accessible. 
This is far from a perfect world so get off ya pedestal and look around you.

Secondly, if I build a website, I can decide if it is accessible or not. 
It is my choice, not yours. I can decide if a screenreader can view it 
or if 3-year old browsers can view it. It is entirely my choice. 
Equally, if I do want to make my website fully accessible, do you really 
think I have access to hoardes of different people on completely 
different systems available to test it? The answer is no.

Yes, I completely agree that every website should be fully accessible to 
everyone. Everyone should be able to get to every single bit of 
available (i.e. free) information that exists on the Internet. However, 
this is simply not possible.