Hi Tommy, First, if Red Hat participates in anything that is government funded, then there may very well be a basis in law for requiring it to provide a reasonable accomodation such as electronic text. Second, proper ethics and morals require the human treatment of blind customers. Part of such treatment would be to provide reasonable accomodations by including electronic copies of all material that is provided in print to the sighted. If it is provided in print, then it should be provided in at least one accessible format for those for whom blindness prohibits the reading of print. Anything less is simply not acceptable. Please keep in mind that numerous solutions were provided to Red Hat staff to insure the integrity of its copyrights; Red Hat staff appeared to be totally disinterested in all such possibilities. Darrell Shandrow - Shandrow Communications! Technology consultant/instructor, network/systems administrator! A+, CCNA, Network+! Check out high quality telecommunications services at http://ld.net/?nu7i All the best to coalition forces carrying out Operation Iraqi Freedom! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tommy Moore" <tmoore@xxxxxxxx> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 3:30 PM Subject: Re: RH9 disks on the net. > On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 02:03:19PM -0700, Darrell Shandrow wrote: > > I am aware of at least two instances where electronic materials were > > requested and denied, while sighted participants received print copies. > > Evening Darrell. Red Hat does not have to provide their materials in > electronic form just because the fact that your blind and can not read > the printed ones. > > I myself would like them to do so, but there's not any law that says > they must. Until there's a way to give the books in electronic form > to people with out having to worry about people copying it and sending > it to others not all publishers will be willing to hand out electronic > copies of their materials. > > Tommy
