Re: [board-discuss] Looking forward, not backwards (was: Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online)

Hi Michael!

On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 10:34 AM Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn@posteo.de>
wrote:

> I think tendering works best for items where the scope is clear
> beforehand, while here it would be much easier to say:
> "Here is a ranked list of a11y issues, spend X days on fixing as many as
> you can.", which to my knowledge doesn't really fit the tender model
> particularly well.
>
> Maybe others have better ideas on potential a11y topics to tender or
> there are better ways to handle this, that's just the story behind the
> above-mentioned proposal... (which is the one clearly related to a11y in
> the list of proposals that ESC was voting on, [2]).

You are right that TDF's current tendering approach is designed for
well-understood tasks that the ESC members know is needed but do not want
to do. I too was always disappointed how few of the accessibility tasks on
the list fell into that category while I was on the Board. It seemed that
things needed sufficient specialist experience that writing a satisfactory
tender was sometimes the first task that needed doing!

Thus (and as you imply) the best approach might be for TDF to have an
accessibility specialist define the work and then execute on it, instead of
having the ESC do so directly. While this doesn't fit today's tendering
process well, maybe we need to retain an accessibility expert, give them a
budget and have them specify tasks (with ESC agreement) and then either
perform them, lead a team performing them or select a contractor to perform
them.

Cheers,

Simon
-- 
*Simon Phipps*
*TDF Trustee*