On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Buddy Brannan wrote: > On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 09:30:36PM -0700, > Darrell Shandrow wrote: > ... EGADS! Two evil things in one go!!!! Don't they > have their text in Perfectly within their rights. Remember that free software wasn't built for software vendors to make money, but for the end users, and wasn't meant to provide any kind of business model. But supporting and training people costs time and money, and those who do so on a more than casual basis deserve whatever return the free market will deliver: such businesses are our allies. As you will see below, and in my reposted message in the attachment, Red Hat actually deserves a pat on the back for unusually ethical behavior, unlike certain other well known vendors.... > ... I'd say Jason's case was about as > unreasonable as it gets. ... > > But, in Jason's case, it seems RedHat was > > actually trying to take steps to actively > > interfere with a blind person's progress in > > his life as a human being, let alone a > > qualified Linux tech. I can certainly see how such things would seem unfair, but the issue is really something else entirely, and the solution lies in an entirely different conception of the problem. This issue has been discussed before, and rather than cause those who have already read my longish post on it to wade through it again, I have reposted it as an attachment. The rest of my comments will assume an understanding of it's contents. > > Hmmm, how to effectively teach RedHat a useful > > lesson in access that will result in positive > > change? Let us rather praise them for being ethical, and work "out of this box" with Red Hat for a sensible work around, in terms of appropriate disclaimers, and some kind of letter or award of a properly labeled (as subjective) evaluation of alternative competency, and a publicly posted explanation of the nature of the process, with it's limitations for disabled people, in non-technical terms employers can understand clearly. Handled properly, this is an opportunity for Red Hat to advocate the legitimacy of their testing process, even while plugging their support of disabled people -- a win win proposition. > > ... was a pretty aggregious example to me. > > Even Microsoft is better than RedHat here!!! The grossly unethical nature of that other corporation's marketing of their expensive and fairly worthless certification has been discussed to death in other forums (do net search for details). > > Hmmm, one idea... Maybe we should start with > > RedHat corporate management staff? I imagine that they would be happy to work with a reasonable approach (one that does not involve demands for unethical representations beyond the reasonable limitations of legitimate testing technology). Note that the problem is a technical one, and that it cannot be solved by ideology or advocacy; real world statistical limitations cannot be ethically ignored. You wouldn't want them to cheapen their product with phony claims that knowledgable people would spot, thereby making your alternative certification, however subjective, and everyone else's, suspect (remember that an employer is ultimately going to make a subjective evaluation of who to hire -- a lot of this testing and certification stuff is really an interviewer cop-out anyway). Hopefully the present economic situation won't prevent Red Hat from devoting sufficient resources to a work-around: other posts would seem to indicate that they were willing to look at the problem. > > ... in order to explain how RedHat is > > violating open-source principles and acting > > in... Hopefully, with my other attached post, you will be able to see why "Open source principles" have absolutely nothing to do with this issue. But again, based on other posts, we have more than hints that Red Hat would be highly amenable to addressing this problem in a reasonable way. That way will not, should not, involve giving standard certification for non-standard, modified tests. LCR -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html
From lcr@rupin.localnet Fri Oct 4 16:50:17 2002 Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 20:59:47 -0700 (MST) From: L. C. Robinson <lcr@rupin.localnet> Reply-To: no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid To: blinux-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: RHCE certification On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Jason Fayre wrote: > Is anyone on this list RHCE certified? As part of my job, I > have been requested to obtain RHCE certification. I am a > little concerned about the amount of X-based content on the > tests. I assume that this implies that there is known to be a significant amount of X related stuff? Any test that claims to have any kind of real general legitimacy in a scientific sense must be statistically validated under an appropriate set of assumptions, against two known and similar classes (populations, to use the jargon) of testees, with the composition of one of them already known, and serving as a standard (already competent Red Hat linux computer professionals, in this case). Any variation from that class, for an individual testee, in practical use, invalidates the test, NOT the testee, and the test should not be administered. Any competent tester should know this (but they often don't). WARNING: Stepping up to soapbox: There is a vast multi-billion dollar industry in selling all manner of tests of various things, professional competency being only one of them. Very few of the tests they sell are even poorly validated in the above sense (expensive and time consuming), but the sales pitch would indicate otherwise. In other words, most such tests are a scam, pure and simple, and the employer is being cheated (not to mention the employee, existing or potential). In short, taken as a whole, the "standardized" testing industry is a scam enterprise. Of course, there are exceptions, however rare. Selling and administering such junk tests is highly unethical, and in many cases should be treated as a felony, and criminally prosecuted in court. I think that one day that will happen, as the critics gain ground. Aside: This does not necessarily apply to Red Hat, whose certification program I know nothing about. I like the company. What does this mean to people with any kind of disability? As most of you know, there are infinite variations of disabilities, even in the same general type, and in the impact of such. It is impractical or impossible to validate or to construct tests for disabled people that really have any comparative meaning. That means that the tests that they put people through at rehab agencies and the like are _always_ a scam, if related to the disability in any way, even in the unlikely event that they had any real validity for a "normal population". And the "professional" testers that administer them are either incompetent or scam artists, usually both (you'd have to be pretty stupid to not suspect something was wrong after a while, if hired and maybe even trained to do this -- but people put mental blinders on themselves). But the people paying for the tests don't notice, because they aren't there (usually taxpayers or upper management), so the agency can still collect. <stepping off soapbox> > I will be taking the solaris tests soon, and those really don't > have much to do with X. Any input would be appreciated. Well, sometimes you have to jump through the hoops, however stupid, but the problem here is so obvious that you should be able to talk to your employer and the Red Hat people and at least ask them to make a special test for you, with substitutions of appropriate questions for functionality equivalent to the GUI stuff (non-validated, of course), in the text mode or braille and speech friendly area. You could also ask them to accept recast questions and answers, where you tell them how you would accomplish the same thing with other tools (with extra time allowances for essay answers). BTW, even delivering non-GUI questions from such a test, in an alternate accessible format, would invalidate the test, statistically speaking. They should see that as a fair request, but, no doubt, will quickly realize that the work and expertise involved in making or grading such a test would be prohibitive (they would have to come to someone like you to check on good substitutes for many or most questions), and the outcome subjective. A good boss will quickly realize, without prompting, that work experience is a better indicator anyway, and that they already know where you're at. Even in a "normal population" (to use the jargon), experience is a better indicator -- after all, that is what they have to validate tests against, if they are to be anything but a scam. Now, you know, and any good IT manager with Unix experience knows, that the GUI can never approach the functionality and versatility of what you have to know in text mode terms to do the same type of thing, and in the ability to look up and digest technical documentation, and the like. The fact is that blind computer professionals in *ix environments are going to be more competent than their counterparts, on average, probably dramatically. That doesn't mean there aren't some things that they can't do very well, or as easily, like supporting GUI only users in certain special contexts. But those cases would usually be a waste of your expertise anyway, and probably a real drag (your sighted counterparts may envy you your "out" in this sense). I think most of us would be interested to hear how all this pans out. I know I would. Good luck, LCR -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html