Hey David,<div><br></div><div>I think it's a great idea. Anything that can help the movement of QGIS into the government sector is a good thing. </div><div><br></div><div>I would find it hard to see that we wouldn't want to post it on the site if it is completed.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Happy to be one of the devs to lead a hand if you need any questions answered/reviewed. </div><div><br></div><div>I have added the qgis-developer list and qgis-psc to the topic as you will get more people looking over it.</div>
<div><br></div><div> PSC what are your thoughts?</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>Nathan</div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 6:21 AM, David Saeger <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:saegeritup@gmail.com" target="_blank">saegeritup@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">After recently getting QGIS approved for use at the federal agency that I work for, a couple things came to light that could make it easier for users in the federal IT environment to utilize QGIS. Namely the fact that QGIS has not made efforts/publicized efforts to prove that it is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973" target="_blank">Section 508</a> compliant. <div>
<br></div><div>Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which deals with electronic and information management technologies. It contains technical standards <font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px">against which products can be evaluated to determine if they would unduly disadvantage disabled peoples through their use. While not meeting these standards is not necessarily a dead end for using getting software approved in the USG IT environment, meeting it can certainly smooth the process. </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px">I know that there are a lot of users in various government agencies who would love to use QGIS if it was generally approved by there CIO's, especially in these times of budget austerity. It strikes me that it would not be too difficult to try and meet this standard and make it easier to make the case for approval. </span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px">Here is a general guidelines for Section 508 compliance:</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><a href="http://www.uspto.gov/about/offices/cio/section508/14e.jsp" target="_blank">http://www.uspto.gov/about/offices/cio/section508/14e.jsp</a></span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px">Am still researching but I think that all that would need to be done is check to see if QGIS meets the criteria in the standard, note the specific instances where it does not, and post these findings on the QGIS website using a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The form can be found here:</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><a href="http://www.state.gov/m/irm/impact/126343.htm" target="_blank">http://www.state.gov/m/irm/impact/126343.htm</a><br></span></font></div>
<div>
<font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">Here is an example of what other proprietary GIS software has done to express its Section 508 compliance:</font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><a href="http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/legal/section508/vpats/vpat-arcgis-for-desktop-and-extensions-v101-(2).pdf" target="_blank">http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/legal/section508/vpats/vpat-arcgis-for-desktop-and-extensions-v101-(2).pdf</a><br>
</font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">I am willing to do a bit more research into this subject and start the process of evaluating QGIS against the criteria listed in Section 508 if I can get some buy-in from this community. </font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">I would need:</font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">-A couple QGIS developers who would be willing to let me bounce questions off of them as they come up.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">-An assurance that my results would be reviewed by someone with authority within the community (somebody who knows a lot about QGIS)</font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">-Some indication that the results will actually be posted on the QGIS website once green-lighted by somebody who knows more about the software than I (Or else it would have been a waste of my time).</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">I think that this could be a good opportunity to set an example for the rest of the FOSS community on efforts that can be done to expand the user base, beyond developing stellar products that is.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif">Let me know what you all think</font></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><span style="font-family:sans-serif"> </span><br>
</div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:19.200000762939453px"><br clear="all"></span></font><div><br></div>-- <br>David Saeger<br>305.984.5539<br>
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