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These ideas and most of the descriptions are taken from the Fedora Documentation Project The original text and illustrations in this document are licensed by Red Hat under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license ("CC-BY-SA"). You can find more about on the first site.
Why should people choose an accessibility solution?
Linux offers an inexpensive and efficient solution for the disabled community. Open source software costs far less compared to tools that run on other operating systems and Linux tools are often freely downloadable.
While the Graphical User Interface (GUI) is convenient for sighted users, it is often inhibiting to those with visual impairments because of the difficulty speech synthesizers have interpreting graphics. Linux is a great operating system for users with visual limitations because the GUI is an option, not a requirement. Most modern tools including email, news, web browsers, calendars, calculators, and much more can run on Linux without the GUI. The working environment can also be customized to meet the hardware or software needs of the user.
Most industry professionals are familiar with one of an Linux distribution, making it relatively straightforward to find assistance if necessary.
Most of them issues regular and frequent updates and enhancements, and computers that have a Linux Distribution installed can download and install these automatically and without cost. It is therefore easy and economical to keep computers secure and up to date.
The Section 508 Mandate
In the United States, the Section 508 Mandate is an addendum to the Rehabilitation Act made in 1998 that requires federal agencies to use accessible electronic and information technologies so that people with special needs have the same opportunities as everyone else.
For detailed information about the requirements of the Section 508 Mandate, see [[1]]
The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)
The VPAT template details how a particular product or service conforms to Section 508 criteria. The VPAT helps federal personnel adhere to Section 508 by helping them determine whether they are buying the most accessible IT products and services available. The VPAT template participation by private vendors is voluntary. These templates are hosted on the individual vendor websites. The vendors maintain their own information and the government does not endorse this information in any way.
