aaron

I’m aaron, a #blind person from #England, #Uk. Interests include #tech, #gaming, #reading, #music, #science, and #writing. Only accepting follow requests from accounts with bios (must interact first)

pronouns: he/him
discord: aaron_h
XMPP: fireborn@conversations.im
Blog: https://fireborn.mataroa.blog

Last Notes

2025-06-26 07:58:26 UTC

I woke up to a comment so smug, so perfectly soaked in gatekeeping and faux-righteous posturing, it earned its own blog post.
You want freedom? You want GNU/Linux to mean something?
Then maybe start by not telling disabled users to go fuck themselves with a smile.
This commenter thought they were defending "software freedom." What they were really doing was kicking people out of the room. Dismissing accessibility. Mocking effort. Pretending that cruelty is some kind of rite of passage. They quoted Stallman like it was scripture, ignored real-world experience like it was noise, and wrapped it all in condescension dressed as virtue.
I’ve spent over a decade in this ecosystem. Writing patches. Rebuilding broken stacks. Helping blind users boot systems upstream doesn’t even test. I didn’t "just install Arch and whine about the terminal." I lived in it. I survived it. I held it together when maintainers disappeared and no one else gave a damn.
But apparently, because I didn’t call it GNU/Linux™ and because I dared to talk about how this OS chews people up and spits them out, I’m lazy. I’m weak. I should "get a dog."
So I wrote a response. Line by line. No mercy. No euphemisms.
This isn’t just about one comment. This is about every time someone’s been told they don’t belong because they couldn’t learn fast enough, code well enough, or survive long enough. It’s about everyone who was pushed out while the gatekeepers patted themselves on the back for "preserving the spirit of free software."
You want a free system? Start by making it livable. Because freedom that demands you crawl bleeding through a broken bootloader isn’t freedom. It’s abandonment dressed in ideology.
And if this kind of gatekeeping is your idea of community?
You can keep it.
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/you-dont-own-the-word-freedom-a-full-burn-response-to-the-gnulinux-comment-that-tried-to-gatekeep-me-off-my-own-machine/
#Linux #GNU #FOSS #Accessibility #BlindTech #FreeSoftware #Gatekeeping #DisabilityInTech #OpenSource #Orca #ScreenReaders #ArchLinux #BurnItDown #blogpost

2025-06-19 15:13:15 UTC

I didn’t plan to write about Wayland yet. But Xorg is dying — not eventually, but now. GNOME’s dropping X11 support. RHEL already removed it. Ubuntu and Fedora are next. And if you rely on accessibility, you don’t get to wait this one out.
So here’s Post 4 of I Want to Love Linux. It Doesn’t Love Me Back.
I’m using Wayland now. Primarily. Not because I love it. Because the fallback is disappearing, and I want to be there helping fix what comes next. GNOME with Orca actually works. KDE and COSMIC are making progress. I’ve talked to the people involved. They care.
But a lot is broken.
MATE — the desktop most blind users preferred — isn’t on Wayland.
ocrdesktop doesn’t work. xdotool is gone.
wlroots compositors still don’t reliably support Orca’s keybindings, especially on laptops.
This isn’t GNOME’s fault. They’re the only reason accessibility on Wayland works at all.
But the old excuses are gone. “Just use Xorg” isn’t going to be an option much longer.
So yeah. I’m a Wayland shill now. Because I’m using it. Because I have to.
And I want to make sure we’re not excluded from what comes next.
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-4-wayland-is-growing-up-and-now-we-dont-have-a-choice/
#Linux #Wayland #Accessibility #Orca #GNOME #KDE #COSMIC #FOSS #a11y #BlindTech #xorg

2025-05-25 12:05:59 UTC

- reply

I fully understand they want purity. That's fine. If they want that, then they need to propose the solution.

2025-05-25 11:49:21 UTC

- reply

But what I’m saying is, could they not post it on the third-party source, and then, at install time, prompt the user to check a box if they are okay with, require, or otherwise want to install the specific component from the specific third-party source? Like certain Linux distributions do with non-free applications and firmware. See debian/ubuntu/mint installers. I'd say just "not caring" as they are doing currently, is malicious. Everything they've said at the moment is passing the torch onto someone else. Someone needs to make an engine. Someone needs to update a component. Someone needs to configure it. They are accepting absolutely none of the responsibilities themselves.

2025-05-25 11:10:12 UTC

- reply

They allow gpl v3 in the app store though. So surely they could: upload espeak to the app store. Install it as a standard system component (from the app store) that could be uninstalled. It could even be a choice at flash time via their website via a checkbox (do you want this or not?) they have much more experience with negotiating complex licenses than myself, and they have decided that via the app store they can distribute gpl v3. It took me all of 2 seconds to come up with a flow that would allow people to still have the choice to not include it, but would enable those that need it to simply check a box to get what they need. As for the configure it by default bit, talkback will use the first detected d-boot enabled speech engine installed, unless they broke it in their fork. No configuration needed.

2025-05-25 10:30:01 UTC

GrapheneOS: Where Licenses Matter More Than People
GrapheneOS could have shipped real accessibility support. They had a screen reader. They had a libre speech engine — one they requested a feature from. They got that feature.
And then they said no.
Because the license was GPLv3.
They’ll ship sandboxed Google Play Services.
They’ll let you install GPLv3 software from their app store.
But a working screen reader for blind users?
Blocked. On principle.
This isn’t a technical limitation.
This is not a matter of priorities.
This is cruelty by ideology — and they’re proud of it.
So here it is. My full public dissection of the excuses, the hypocrisy, and the sheer contempt they’ve shown to the people who need privacy and security most: the disabled.
They chose licensing purity over basic humanity.
I chose to write this.
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/grapheneos-where-licenses-matter-more-than-people/
#GrapheneOS #Accessibility #FOSS #Blind #DisabilityTech #Inclusion #GPLv3 #espeak #a11y #Security #FreeSoftware #DisabilityRights #Android #Rant #TechShame

2025-05-12 12:10:46 UTC

Here it is. Post 2 in my series on #Linux #accessibility. This time, I'm digitally screaming about the audio stack.
As always, feedback is encouraged and welcomed, and subscribe via rss or email to receive plane-text versions of what I write, the day after publishing at 10 am UTC
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-2-the-audio-stack-is-a-crime-scene/
#a11y #linuxAudio #linuxAccessibility

2025-05-11 15:10:09 UTC

- reply

This just works now. As seemlessly as it does under x11, at least with Gnome. Not with anything else though.

2025-05-11 10:06:18 UTC

- reply

I'm not saying you did; sorry if I came across that way. I was just informing you that since that other post about fedora shipping with a broken screen reader was made, it has been fixed. For the gnome version.

2025-05-07 09:21:44 UTC

The irony of people using reply-all to tell other people to not use reply-all has just resulted in over 1000 emails to my inbox in the span of about 20 minutes.

2024-08-28 19:23:29 UTC

- reply

It's kind of hard to do when the issue is that I don't know what the issue is and can't boot to flash an update.

2024-08-28 19:21:33 UTC

- reply

I agree. If I could fix my charging issues I'd have no problem.

2024-08-28 19:15:31 UTC

- reply

This company make great hardware, it's just a shame that the firmware side of things seems to be very buggy, at least in my experience.

2022-10-30 19:42:48 UTC

It's been way long, so I should probably do a #introduction post again. Maybe I'll even remember to pin this one!
Anyway, hi, and welcome to my corner of Mastodon.
I like games, terrible jokes, tech and music. Also books, mostly sci-fi and the odd fantasy thing thrown in now and then.
Oh. Sometimes I also make stuff.
https://github.com/aaron-gh
and also
https://aaron-gh.github.io/Mac-Accessibility-Hub
I like accessibility, too!
Please interact before requesting to follow, and descriptive bios are always appreciated!