[Qgis-community-team] Section 508 compliance for QGIS

[Nathan Woodrow]

Hey David,

I think it's a great idea.  Anything that can help the movement of QGIS
into the government sector is a good thing.

I would find it hard to see that we wouldn't want to post it on the site if
it is completed.

Happy to be one of the devs to lead a hand if you need any questions
answered/reviewed.

I have added the qgis-developer list and qgis-psc to the topic as you will
get more people looking over it.

 PSC what are your thoughts?

Regards,
Nathan



On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 6:21 AM, David Saeger <saegeritup at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 Section 508<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_Amendment_to_the_Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973>compliant.
>
> Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which deals
> with electronic and information management technologies. It contains
> technical standards 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Here is a general guidelines for Section 508 compliance:
> http://www.uspto.gov/about/offices/cio/section508/14e.jsp
>
> 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:
> http://www.state.gov/m/irm/impact/126343.htm
>  Here is an example of what other proprietary GIS software has done to
> express its Section 508 compliance:
>
> http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/legal/section508/vpats/vpat-arcgis-for-desktop-and-extensions-v101-(2).pdf
>
> 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.
>
> I would need:
> -A couple QGIS developers who would be willing to let me bounce questions
> off of them as they come up.
> -An assurance that my results would be reviewed by someone with authority
> within the community (somebody who knows a lot about QGIS)
> -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).
>
> 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.
>
> Let me know what you all think
>
>
>
> --
> David Saeger
> 305.984.5539
>
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>
>
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