I keep receiving contradictory information from both web resources and uni subjects: some people consider IETF's RFCs popular but actual de facto standards and then some consider IETF an official standarization organization thus capable of emitting de iure standards.
So, are IETF, W3C and similar actually official standardization entities? Would, for example, IETF's SIP protocol considered a de iure standard?
Standards are voluntary, unless there is a law that says that a specific standard must be used for specific products, services, procedures, etc. Even standards by official standardisation organisations are voluntary unless there is a law that enforces them.
What is an official standardisation organisation or not depends on the jurisdiction you are talking about. For example, in 1998 the European Commission published a Council Directive that declared CEN, CENELEC and ETSI as official standardisation bodies for the European Union. This had several consequences, e.g. that their standards can be referred to in European law. This is not the case for W3C recommendations or IETF RFCs.
This is why, for example, the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines needed to be integrated into European standard EN 301 549 published by ETSI, since an ETSI standard can be referenced in European law (e.g. the European Accessibility Act).
Related
I know a lot of programming languages now. Back when I was 18 I almost joined the US Air Force and there was a test on Ada. That was over a decade ago. Is the Ada programming language still relevant in the military as it once was?
I'm wondering if new military software projects are still programmed using Ada as their go to language.
There are still new projects being developed in Ada today. The mandate requiring Ada was scrapped years ago, but for some applications, Ada is the only reliably ("trusted") option.
Ada the Language: Alive and in Flight - October 10, 2016 Excerpt:
The Changing Context for DOD Software Development For nearly two
decades, the Ada programming language has been a cornerstone of
efforts by the Department of Defense (DOD) to improve its software
engineering practices. DOD created Ada in the 1970s to serve as a
department-wide standard that would satisfy its special requirements
for embedded and mission-critical software, and would also encourage
good software engineering. Both the new language and the new software
engineering ideas associated with it met with some criticism, and both
have evolved as a result. Today, Ada is the most commonly used
language for mission-critical defense software, which includes weapon
systems and performance-critical command, control, communications, and
intelligence (C3I) systems. DOD's inventory contains nearly 50 million
lines of Ada code in these applications (Hook et al., 1995). Given the
long operational life of such systems, DOD has made a significant
investment in Ada technology. Ada is the second most commonly used
language (after Cobol) for DOD automated information systems, which
include payroll and logistics programs. The DOD inventory contains
more than 8 million lines of Ada code in these applications (Hook et
al., 1995).
In November 2016 the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the report NIST-IR-8151 "Dramatically Reducing Software Vulnerabilities". The report is available at https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8151.
The following is an excerpt from that report:
Two presentations at the Software Measures and Metrics to Reduce
Security Vulnerabilities (SwMM-RSV) workshop, Andrew Walenstein’s
“Measuring Software Analyzability” and James Kupsch’s “Dealing with
Code that is Opaque to Static Analysis,” point the direction to new
software measures. Both stressed that code should be amenable to
automatic analysis. Both presented approaches to define what it means
that code is readily analyzed, why analyzability contributes to
reduced vulnerabilities and how analyzability could be measured and
increased.
There are subsets of programming languages that are designed to be
analyzable, such as SPARK, or to be less error-prone, such as Less
Hatton’s SaferC. Workshop participants generally favored using better
languages, for example, functional languages, such as F# or ML.
However, there was no particular suggestion of the language, or
languages, of the future.
We note that with few exceptions, such as Ada 2012 [Barnes13], which
has SPARK, new languages have poor tool support. Supporting the
construction of tools is vital for the adoption and safe use of new
languages.
Yes, since Ada is used where mission critical devices can cause major disasters in case of a software bug (like in avionics, air traffic control and of course military), it is still used in those industries and I doubt they will change.
I just found out that there's some countries(UK, CANADA and some more) that actually have a LAW about the web-site accessibility. I was shocked, because one thing when there's some RECOMMENDATIONS and another thing is a LAW, witch means anyone can sue you for not being 'standard'.
I'm interesting in your professional opinion about why is it bad to use LAW based on WCAG 2.0 recommendations to make web-site accessible to disabled people. If you may, please provide a good examples with proper comments. There's not so many people who're fluent in WCAG 2.0 standards.
I found at wikipedia criticism about wcag here what it says:
Criticism of WAI guidelines
There has been criticism of the W3C process, claiming that it does not
sufficiently put the user at the heart of the process.[2] There was a
formal objection to WCAG's original claim that WCAG 2.0 will address
requirements for people with learning disabilities and cognitive
limitations headed by Lisa Seeman and signed by 40 organisations and
people.[3] In articles such as "WCAG 2.0: The new W3C guidelines
evaluated",[4] "To Hell with WCAG 2.0"[5] and "Testability Costs Too
Much",[6] the WAI has been criticised for allowing WCAG 1.0 to get
increasingly out of step with today's technologies and techniques for
creating and consuming web content, for the slow pace of development
of WCAG 2.0, for making the new guidelines difficult to navigate and
understand, and other argued failings.
*I may be wrong, but I think CODE should not be restricted by any law at all. It's a godamn CODE ffs
I think governments should encourage web-site owners(businesses!) to make they sites accessible, but not restrict them to some wcag for example.
Thanks!
I think there is a basic misunderstanding about how the law aspect works, it isn't based on WCAG.
In the UK, most of the EU, Canada and Australia there is no mention of WCAG2 or any particular standard for website accessibility in the law itself.
The law in the UK and in other countries like Australia says (and consider this an extreme paraphrase) that any product or service you provide should not discriminate against people with disabilities.
Whether you rely on a website to be accessible is up to you, you just have to provide your product/service in an accessible way somehow, you could do it on the phone and in a physical place.
NB: Most countries have "advisory notes" that do talk about WCAG, but see those as a means of making things accessible, not the core legal requirment.
Given that the website is generally the easiest way to provide something accessibly, WCAG2 is the most recognised set of guidelines and if you use that and make a "reasonable effort", any legal complaints will be easier to deal with.
Taking the book example (from the comments elsewhere), a paper book may not be accessible to someone who is blind, but the publisher is obliged to either make the digital copy available as an ebook (which can be read out by a computer or other device) or make the content available to services that create audio versions. They don't loose out on sales, and it is not a hardship to provide an accessible version.
There are lots of ways to make products and services available and thanks to the web being created as accessible-by-default, it is a very good channel for that.
Also, WCAG does not say "you have to do it this way or you are not standard", it says things like "All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose". It doesn't define the code you use (although there are obvious ways to acheive that), the guidelines are written so there there a multiple ways of acheiving the aim.
Some people complain about that and think it should be clearer and easier to implement!
Bottom line: If you are paid to make a website, making it accessible is part of a professional job.
Accessibility is not just "code", accessibility is about discrimination.
And fortunately, there are laws to sue people, not for not being standard, but for removing access to people with disabilities.
Within the standards that W3C create, do they have a set of states they go through before they are a standard and what are those states?
For example HTML 5.1 currently is in Working Draft.
The process is typically linked in the section "Status of This Document".
For HTML 5.1, it says:
This document is governed by the 1 August 2014 W3C Process Document.
This links to the World Wide Web Consortium Process Document from 2014-08-01 (the latest version is always accessible from http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/).
For technical reports that should become Recommendations, this is the process:
Publication of the First Public Working Draft,
Publication of zero or more revised Public Working Drafts.
Publication of a Candidate Recommendation.
Publication of a Proposed Recommendation.
Publication as a W3C Recommendation.
Possibly, Publication as an Edited Recommendation
However, it’s also possible to go steps back:
The Director […] may require the specification to return to a lower maturity level.
Ahh I think I literally just found the answer on Consortium/Process, too many tabs open!
The W3C Recommendation track:
Working Draft
A Working Draft generally represents work in progress and a commitment by W3C to pursue work in a particular area. The label "Working Draft" does not imply consensus within W3C about the document.
Candidate Recommendation
A Candidate Recommendation is a stable Working Draft that the Director has proposed to the community for implementation experience and feedback.
Proposed Recommendation
A Proposed Recommendation is a Candidate Recommendation that has benefitted from implementation experience and has been sent to the Advisory Committee for review.
Recommendation
A Recommendation reflects consensus within W3C, as represented by the Director's approval. W3C considers that the ideas or technology specified by a Recommendation are appropriate for widespread deployment and promote W3C's mission.
Is it mandatory in some countries to make all websites accessible?
If so, what would happen if someone in country with this mandate does not make a website accessible?
Can the government remove or block the IP if the site is not accessible?
How could the government know if any website is not accessible? Do they check every single website?
Does only the people/company who make the inaccessible site get any notice from the government?
Why are there so many accessibility guidelines -- WACG 1, WCAG 2.0, DDA, Section 508, etc.? If the whole world follows W3C for XHTML and CSS, then why have some countries made their own guidelines?
Is it mandatory in some countries to make all websites accessible?
Yes, particularly the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.
This is in order to comply with legislation that prevents discrimination against disabled people. While this is, or can be, seen as a burden I find it helps to think of it as widening your audience, consumer or user-base.
If so, what would happen if someone in country with this mandate does not make a website accessible?
Being a legal requirement means that a court is/will be able to impose sanctions, depending on their interpretation of the local laws, that might involve enforced compliance with the laws, a financial penalty (fines, etc) or some other punishment until compliance is established.
Can the government remove or block the IP if the site is not accessible?
That depends on which government and the specifics written into the laws. It seems unlikely that they would block the website because of non-compliance with accessibility legislation. It seems far more likely, though I am biased because of where I live (the United Kingdom), that reparations would be sought through the judicial system.
How could the government know if any website is not accessible? Do they check every single website?
In the United Kingdom it seems that complaints would be brought by disabled users that are prevented from successfully using/accessing the site or service. These complaints would likely be taken to the court system, see above.
It is even more likely that the user would inform the owner of the website directly, before bringing a complaint to court, in order to give you/the owners a chance to apologise (never underestimate the power of a sincere apology) and enhance the site.
[Do] only the people/company who make the inaccessible site get any notice from the government?
I would imagine, and this is why this isn't necessarily a great place to ask the question, that the owners would be notified. It is, however, quite likely that, as the site developer, you would quickly receive complaints from the owner of the site since you made it/designed it. But the legal burden of responsibility is likely to depend upon the contract under which you were employed/contracted.
If you feel that accessibility would add an undue burden upon yourself, it's always worth specifying to the client the costs of adding compliance with accessibility requirements, and telling them of the specific laws under which they are requirements.
But, for this, you need to speak to a lawyer.
Why are there so many accessibility guidelines -- WACG 1, WCAG 2.0, DDA, Section 508, etc.? If the whole world follows W3C for XHTML and CSS, then why have some countries made their own guidelines?
Because all laws are set locally, or, in some cases, internationally via treaties. The W3C can make suggestions and guidelines, but it is not, thankfully for IE, illegal not to comply with CSS2.1. It is, however, illegal not to comply with the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) in the United Kingdom.
All the above is not the advice of a qualified legal representative, or counsel. For specific advice consult a lawyer who practices the law in the country/region in which your client is based, or in which your website/product will accessible.
This would imply a lawyer from the United Kingdom for a British local government website, for a German authority website it would, of course, imply the services of a lawyer from Germany.
Is it only mandatory to make site accessible for Govt. own website and for stock exchange listed corporate sites. or for all type of sites?
I can't speak as to the exact requirements, since I'm not a lawyer. However a quick Google turns up the following web-page that seems to address this question: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml
To paraphrase the linked page:
The DDA makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service that it provides to members of the general public.
I read this to mean that all websites that provide a service to the public are required to be accessible under the terms of the DDA. This would include Government websites, but also home-shopping websites (from, for example, Sainsbury's, Asda, Tesco's, etc) and the Royal Mail or cinema ticket-reservation sites.
From 01/10/1999 service providers must take reasonable steps to change any practice that makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services
The key term here, I think, is 'reasonable steps.' I presume, from this, that if the website/service generates an income of £10000 per annum, and the cost of compliance with accessibility would be in excess of £10000 then you could argue that it exceeded any reasonable effort/cost to become compliant.
However, this is the reason that progressive enhancement is popular in Javascript and CSS. If the service, at its most basic, is accessible then Javascript and CSS can be used to make it prettier and shinier (whatever that means to you), but it should degrade back to a functional UI when JS or CSS are disabled. In this situation the site is compliant, but a disabled person might not have the same shiny, moving buttons.
Accessibility means that they must be able to access the service/site without unreasonable difficulty. It does not mean that the site has to look/behave exactly the same.
A direct quote from the linked page:
2.13 - 2.17 (p11-13): “What services are affected by the Disability Discrimination Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the act.”
In addition to above answers:
The W3C has a page listing relevant laws in different countries, including links to the relevant laws (often in the language of that country though):
http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/
As I said, it's very hard to answer in general. I guess you will be getting a list of answers specific to countries - maybe a good idea to make it Community Wiki.
For Germany, according to Wikipedia and other sources:
Newly built web sites of federal administrative bodies in Germany have to be accessible by law since 2006. The accessibility guidelines are defined in a directive named BITV (german text here). BITV follows the WCAG 1.0 Guidelines very closely.
Similar laws exist for the country's sixteen states ("Länder").
The creation of accessible web sites is encouraged by a number of government and EU initiatives and private initiatives like the BIENE Award (German only).
To my knowledge, no plans to enforce accessibility in non-government websites exist at this time.
As to why countries implement their own guidelines, among other things, language certainly is an issue: To put guidelines into a law, you need the guidelines in your native language, double-checked by lawyers.
There is an ISO standard, ISO 23026 for reccomended practices for website engineering and website lifecycle management and this does not vary for country specific guidelines. This std includes clauses for website accessibility as well. This standard touches upon guidelines for website accessibility, usability and security, etc.
Why are there so many accessibility guidelines -- WACG 1, WCAG 2.0, DDA, Section 508, etc.?
Just on this point (and assuming “DDA” refers to the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act), the Act doesn’t contain any guidelines on web accessibility in particular.
It makes a legal requirement for companies to provide equivalent service to disabled and non-disabled customers, and that requirement applies to websites just like any other service.
But the Act doesn’t count as another set of guidelines in itself.
I believe Section 508 was based on, and is almost identical to, WCAG 1.
That just leaves WCAG 1 and 2, both of which are from the W3C, and version 2 now supersedes version 1. So there’s actually just one set of guidelines, unless you’ve got any more examples.
I researched at google and found many confusing, looooong explanations for Section 508! made me even more confused.
very simply, what is this Section 508?
A fairly simple explanation can be found here; summed up nicely by this snippet:
Section 508, an amendment to the
United States Workforce Rehabilitation
Act of 1973, is a federal law
mandating that all electronic and
information technology developed,
procured, maintained, or used by the
federal government be accessible to
people with disabilities. Technology
is deemed to be "accessible" if it can
be used as effectively by people with
disabilities as by those without.
This page also offers another good, simple explanation:
Section 508, in simple terms, requires
that when Federal Agencies develop,
procure, maintain or use electronic
and information technology,
information and data should be
accessible to people with disabilities.
Obviously there's lots more involved in this process, but you already knew that. Hopefully this clarifies things a little bit!
What is Section 508 Accessibility Law?
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973, is a US law requiring the
federal government to make all goods
and services-including web sites and
intranets fully accessible to people
with disabilities. It identifies
specific standards for Internet and
Web accessibility, which are often
used as a basis for evaluating whether
or not Web sites meet accessibility
requirements.
I gave a talk about this at the last PyCon:
http://djangocon.blip.tv/file/3261238/
508 compliance is about making your site accessible to everyone, no matter their handicap. While much of 508 is focused on people using screen readers, you also have to consider those that are physically handicapped (and may have trouble mousing over tiny areas), or those that are deaf (and would love to play your Flash game, but can't hear the beeps required to win!).
Google harder! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508 first paragraph is a pretty straight forward summary.
The idea is the following: unless your product is fully Section 508 compliant you may be unable to your product sell to the US Government organizations.