[Foundation-l] VPAT

[Nathan]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Christine Moellenberndt
> <cmoellenberndt at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> The answer is, to the best of our knowledge, no. But we'd like to
>> improve that.
>>
>> i took it off-list as it seemed to be a question that was more
>> Media-Wiki centered, and not as much Foundation centered.
>>
>>
>> -Christine
>>
>> ---------
>> Christine Moellenberndt
>> Community Associate
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>
> Hmm..  strikes me odd and worries me than Community Associate doesn't
> seem to differentiate between software "Media-Wiki" (sic), and
> Foundation/Community issues (Wikimedia).
>
> Opening post was about if Wikimedia (as organization) complies with
> regulations I don't see what software has to do with it.
>

At some point WMF employees might just stop posting here altogether,
to escape the unfounded criticism. The post asks if there is a VPAT,
which pertains to the software (it is, seemingly, product specific),
not the organization itself. It's therefore not a "community issue" --
accessibility itself might be, but that wasn't the question asked
(that might take the form "How does the MediaWiki software accommodate
people with disabilities, and what is the opinion of the WMF on making
such accommodations?""). The VPAT, from my reading, is a way to help
software vendors who want to sell or provide services to the federal
government demonstrate compliance with this particular regulation
(which applies to federal agencies, not vendors themselves).