Excellent questions, Gregory. IBM's Accessibility on Linux page, which is at: http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux/projects/access/ says "The IBM Linux Accessibility Team contributes to the open-source community's accessibility efforts in order to help accelerate Linux." This is, of course, an incomplete statement which makes no sense on its own. What do they mean "accelerate linux?" I suspect they don't mean "make it run faster," for example. I'm sure there's a word missing in that sentence, but I diagress ... This page goes on to say: "November 15, 2001 Saqib Shaikh, author of several Speakup documents, agreed to coauthor new Speakup HOWTO with Jennifer Jobst." Since I see no link, I assume they're not offering up any drafts just yet, but I certainly expect they'll do so before finalizing their document. I know Jennifer posted a draft of her emacspeak documentation on the emacspeak list, so I suspect she's lurking here, and will do the same for us. And, of course, Saqib is active on this list, so perhaps he'd like to share about this? I do recall he offered us his own, quite excellent speakup HOWTO last spring. Are there other speakup docs you've written, Saqib? That one is the only one I'm aware of to date. Now, let me speculate on the real reason IBM is up to all those wonderful efforts they proudly list at the url provided above: I believe IBM wants to make money selling computers to the U.S. Government. I believe they want the option to sell systems without Microsoft applications, and Microsoft operating systems. Recent news stories have explained about contracts from IBM to Redhat for ports of the Redhat distribution of open source linux for a range of IBM servers, and even IBM's S390 mainframe. To me, these facts point to the intention to be Sec.508 compliant in systems proposals for U.S. Federal procurments. And, I say, "Amen, and more power to them." On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote: > IBM is authoring a howto about speakup? Where can I find a copy to look at? > And uhhhm, why are they doing it? > Greg > > > On Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 11:28:21AM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote: > > On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Charles Hallenbeck wrote: > > > > > Stick to the straight and > > > narrow and make sure each feature under consideration really > > > belongs in a screen reader. Examples: the cut and paste feature > > > really did belong; the reinitialization feature really does not. > > > > > Strongly agree, but with a suggested twist. > > > > The reinitialization feature should go into the HOWTO that Saqib and IBM > > are authoring about speakup. It's a valuable tip that even novice users > > can set up for themselves, and learn a little linux in the process. And, > > they'll end up with a feature they are likely to find useful, and that > > they wouldn't come upon very quickly on their own. > > > > Saqib, Jennifer, are you listening?? > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Speakup mailing list > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- Janina Sajka, Director Technology Research and Development Governmental Relations Group American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175 Chair, Accessibility SIG Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF) http://www.openebook.org
