In reply to Peter Shaw.

I don't see...? My reply was pointed towards Felipe, who states that accessibility should not belong in core, but in a plugin.

I don't build themes for wp.org. However I do client work and always make sure my hours are billable. If you end up with too many unbillable hours in client work then in my opinion something went wrong in the previous process (discussing requirements & expectations, estimation hours and so on). My clients don't ask for accessibility, but I can surely explain why I think their website should be, especially when building for organizations in the public sector.

In my opinion, having a theme featured on wp.org is considered to be a privilege and not so much an entitlement. If wp.org raises the bar on theme requirements, like accessibility, I'd rather encourage that.

Also I think making a theme accessible and building an accessible theme are different things. Building with accessibility in mind might be be less time consuming than fixing an unaccessible theme.

Like I said, it's been a blind spot for many years, let's correct this. Not so long ago websites weren't responsive, yet here we are.