It's 2028. The year of the Linux desktop happened 2 years ago. Well it began 4 years ago, but whatever. Microsoft turned on Recall for every single Windows PC, running their language model no matter how much RAM it needed to take up, which CPU you have, and if you don't have enough space, deleting "old" files to make room. Local news started talking about alternatives, and computer repair shops started advertizing that they could easily give people a system that doesn't spy on them or use AI, and it'd work with even very old computers. Rich people jumped on MacOS of course, but people who already had a PC switched to Linux.

Now, the only people who use Windows are blind people. We've tried to switch, and more people successfully have switched to versions of the Mate desktop that don't rely on Wayland. But when people try to use Wayland, they start uncovering the issues of an unfinished system of accessibility. In 2024, there was this new accessibility system, Neuton, being developed, but the creator's contract ended before he could finish it, and no one has taken it up ever since. Oh, and when you press Alt + F1 in Gnome, it still just says "Window". When I'm helping new Linux users, who understand the issues but still need to be away from Microsoft for privacy or work-related reasons, I always have to tell them what "Window" means, how to navigate that interface, all that mess. And it stresses me out, each and every time.

Now, when we bring up accessibility issues, FossBros, enboldened by the year of the Linux desktop, now loudly fire back at us that we just don't want to. They say that we, blind people, just choose not to use Linux, that we're just too lazy to learn a new system, and that everything has been proven thousands of times to work correctly. When we point at issues that users spent an hour or so learning how to use GitLab in order to create, they tell us that Linux was created so that people can scratch our own itch, and to do so, and that since the FossBro does not suffer that itch, they cannot fix it.

The biggest issues right now are the desktop environment and the web. The Neuton system has pretty much made Wayland work, but it can't connect to the core of the Gnome desktop, so Orca has to use Wayland more directly. So, the Alt + F1 screen, the notification panel, all that, is still how it's been for the last 10 years. A few days ago, no one was surprised to learn that since no one uses the Mate desktop anymore, it's being retired. Blind people who have been using Linux for the past 20 years crowed that at least they know how to build from source and tape the shaky foundation together. I just sighed and continued playing Pokemon Emerald on Windows. Linux folks still don't have all the scripts and mods for games that we Windows users have. Oh, they also still have to check the Assistive Technologies checkbox to enable all the environment variables blind people need. Isn't that nice?

#FutureSight #accessibility #Linux