France is rolling out Visio, a homegrown secure videoconferencing platform, to all government employees by 2027.

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

@Yoshi @androcat

I hate customer service chatbots as much as everyone else does. We're stuck with them, and I've had to learn how to work with them since there's simply no other option anymore. Many firms have moved to Messenger, WhatsApp, even Telegram for support.

But @androcat, your point about transparency is exactly right, and I just experienced it done well.

My bank recently changed their system to do precisely what you described: the chatbot does a quick FAQ check (and the LLM is actually quite effective at this), and if that doesn't resolve it, immediate escalation to a callback system - no waiting on hold, no runaround. A real human calls you back within minutes.

It respects your time instead of trapping you in conversation loops. The chatbot handles what it's actually good at (matching questions to FAQs), then gets out of the way for human support.

So it CAN work when designed with user needs in mind rather than just cost-cutting. The technology isn't the problem - it's whether companies have the will to implement it properly.

[mihamarkic@mastodon.social]

@i47i Slovenia? You sure? We don't even distinguish Word from word processor app.

[androcat@toot.cat]

@i47i @Yoshi

Yeah, everything Pattern Recognition flavored is pretty good.
Everything actually generative (let alone Agentive) is utter horsecrap.

[tomstoneham@dair-community.social]

@i47i
"The Tchap code is publicly available and is based on the Matrix protocol. The development of the application thus benefits from advances in the Matrix community, in terms of functional improvement and security."

But how do they *give back* to the @matrix #Matrix Foundation and Community?

[number6@fosstodon.org]

@i47i

Hard to believe Microsoft didn't trademark the name "Visio" inside France.

I see Dassault Systèmes listed as a contributor.

Reminds me that the one area in which the U.S. is dependent on European technology is CAD. Boeing and thus most other aerospace companies use CATIA and Solidworks for their primary modeling tools.

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

@mihamarkic

You’re right—my initial claim about Slovenia was....

While Slovenia is part of the EU’s Digital Commons EDIC initiative, a 2025 report shows no systematic open-source adoption and a low Digital Sovereignty Index score (13.33). Participation in EU groups doesn’t equal meaningful domestic action. Thanks for the correction.

[number6@fosstodon.org]

@i47i

It would be ironic if there were no strong alternatives to MicroSoft Visio (tm).

I suppose Inkscape, though maybe not quite the same.

[tomstoneham@dair-community.social]

@i47i The partners using Teams/Zoom etc is a big issue. The beauty if Jitsi is that they don't need to install any software to use it (assuming they have a browser!), so you can ask them to switch to it for your meeting *whatever* their institutional policy.

[mihamarkic@mastodon.social]

@i47i I wish it was different but that is the product of Microsoft infiltration and stupid politicians who don't see beyond word, x and Facebook.

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

@elettrona @matrix

You've identified the critical gap in digital sovereignty discussions.

Microsoft has genuinely led accessibility development for decades, and this deserves recognition. Their achievements include Narrator, the built-in Windows screen reader that has improved significantly with each release, industry-leading Office accessibility features including comprehensive alt-text support and keyboard navigation that sets standards for document accessibility, Azure AI vision APIs that have proven revolutionary for blind developers working with computer vision, the Xbox Adaptive Controller which demonstrated hardware accessibility innovation, and Soundscape for 3D audio navigation.

Crucially, NVDA—the free, open-source screen reader that many consider the best Windows screen reader—is developed and maintained by the independent non-profit NV Access, not Microsoft.

However, Microsoft has provided significant financial and technical support to NV Access over the years, and NVDA runs optimally on Windows due to deep integration with Windows accessibility APIs. This represents genuine industry leadership worth acknowledging.

1/5

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

@elettrona @matrix

The Linux ecosystem faces measurable accessibility challenges.

Orca, the primary community-driven screen reader for Linux, encounters documented real-world problems that blind users consistently report.

These include inconsistent performance with complex web applications especially those using dynamic JavaScript frameworks, limited and uneven support across different desktop environments like GNOME versus KDE, steeper learning curves due to less centralized and comprehensive documentation compared to commercial alternatives like JAWS or the well-documented NVDA, and a smaller community of blind users sharing practical tips and workarounds.

Organizations like the American Foundation for the Blind have documented that Linux offers a narrower range of mature, professionally-supported accessibility tools compared to Windows or macOS.

This isn't about theoretical capability—it's about the lived experience of blind users who need reliable, well-documented tools with robust community support. The gap is real and significant.

2/5

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

@elettrona @matrix

3/5

This creates an urgent legal problem for digital sovereignty initiatives. French law through the RGAA (Référentiel Général d'Amélioration de l'Accessibilité) and the EU's European Accessibility Act (EAA) impose strict, enforceable digital accessibility requirements on public sector organizations and key service providers.

These aren't guidelines—they're legal mandates with real enforcement mechanisms and substantial penalties for non-compliance.
France's digital sovereignty migration, including the rollout of platforms like Visio and the broader La Suite numérique to hundreds of thousands of government employees, must meet these accessibility standards from day one.

Any deployment that excludes or marginalizes blind users would violate French and EU law, expose organizations to legal liability, and fundamentally fail the ethical test.

Accessibility cannot be an afterthought or future enhancement—it's a legal requirement that must be built into the foundation of these systems.

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

4/5

Microsoft has established precedent for open-source, cross-platform leadership that's directly relevant here. They successfully open-sourced and made fully cross-platform: VS Code which is now a leading code editor on Linux, .NET Core which runs on Linux and powers significant server infrastructure, PowerShell which is now Linux-native, and Windows Terminal which benefits all platforms.

These weren't token gestures—they represent major strategic investments that proved you can open-source core tools and still thrive commercially.

NVDA's Python foundation makes cross-platform porting technically feasible in ways that would be much harder for native C++ applications.

Python is inherently portable across operating systems. The main engineering effort would involve mapping Windows-specific accessibility APIs like UI Automation and IAccessible2 to their Linux equivalents like AT-SPI and macOS accessibility frameworks.

A phased approach starting with core screen reading functionality and gradually adding platform-specific features would be viable.

Concrete steps could include: directly funding Orca development with sustained financial support, sharing detailed accessibility API documentation with GNOME and KDE development teams, supporting NV Access in developing cross-platform NVDA capabilities, and publishing Microsoft's accessibility testing methodologies and best practices for the community.

[i47i@hachyderm.io]

5/5

The bottom line is straightforward: digital sovereignty initiatives that fail to meet accessibility requirements violate EU law and exclude disabled citizens from digital participation.

This is both a legal compliance issue and a fundamental human rights issue.

The technical expertise to solve this exists within the industry. The legal mandate requiring accessibility exists in French and EU law.

The question is whether industry leaders and open-source communities will prioritize implementation.

Thank you for raising this issue—accessibility must be absolutely central to digital sovereignty discussions from the beginning, not treated as an optional enhancement or addressed after the fact.

The French government's commitment to digital sovereignty will be measured in part by how well it serves all citizens, including those who rely on assistive technologies.

[elettrona@poliversity.it]

@i47i @matrix I am blind myself, accessibility professional myself. And I'm very, very angry about all those folks saying "there's an alternative for EVERYTHING".
Sorry for the rude metaphor but a sighted, walking guy, can say "who cares about toilets, I can piss in the woods"
a person with disability can't.
I didn't want to make noise, I've been rude like this, because for us blind people, the free and open software accessibility compliance is a PRIMAL need. Like the toilet, like food, like air.
We're prisoner of American tech, until it works. And if we don't move now, it could be too late within a year. I have no skills to do anything concrete in programming, but I can pose the problem whenever someone lies saying "there's alternative for EVERYTHING. Saying this is lying, consciously.