Thread Subject: Re: AT Interoperability

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From: Randy Marsden
Date: Tue, Aug 14 2007 1:50 PM

That was not the point I was making (but nice try) :-)

My point is that a technical interoperability standard doesn't exist
today. And yet we are trying to come up with something that is
"testable" for interoperability in Section 508. In my opinion, you
can't have one without the other. That's why we are all having such
difficulty with this issue.

My suggestion for something better is that until a generally accepted
technical standard exists, leave it the way it currently is: simply
state that IT should work with AT. Is that vague? Yes. Will it
require interpretation at the agency level? Yes. Is that anything
new? No.


-Randy


On Aug 14, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Peter Korn wrote:

> Hi Randy,
>
> The "consensus" I was referring to was that we weren't going to
> require
> AT to support an API, or make any other explicit requirements on AT in
> Section 508. This was something I understood was particularly
> important
> to ATIA. What I see you saying now, below, is that you hope to be
> able
> to change the wording of Section 508 to place a requirement on AT (you
> wrote: 'Someday, I hope we will be able to change the wording of
> Section
> 508 to say something like "AT and IT products must conform to the
> ABC123XXX interoperability standard".'). Doing that would essentially
> mean that AT that didn't conform to your theoretical ABC123XXX
> interoperability standard could NOT be acquired by agencies under 508.

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