I don't know about your analysis. I do know, however, that not everyone at Red Hat resists accessibility, even if some folks there don't understand what it means and why it belongs in Red Hat distributions. I can't agree with this blanket indictment because I happen to have direct and specific knowledge to the contrary. Please understand that I am not trying to invalidate any experience you might have had. I'm simply saying that oversimplifying and painting the entire company with categorical statements like yours is neither helpful nor accurate. Aaron Howell writes: > From: Aaron Howell <aaron at kitten.net.au> > > RedHat didn't drop speakup. > They never included it in the first place. > The fact that speakup made it into redHat 8 was entirely to do with the fact that they were using an alan Cocks patched version of 2.4.18, > which happened to include speakup. > Now they aren't using a -ac kernel so no more speakup. > it wasn't a conscious decision on the part of RedHat. > RedHat in fact is very resistant to including third party accessibility software - just try to get permission to use speakup or any other screen reader for that matter in your RHCE exam and find out how much success you don't have. > This is a bit of an inditement on RedHat actually, but its a good thing for distros like Slackware and Debian who can create a bit of a nitch market amongst the vision impaired. > Regards > Aaron > On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 06:17:26AM -0600, Adam Myrow wrote: > > So, why did Redhat choose to drop Speakup from their next version? It > > sounds like maybe somebody didn't like the modified kernel. So, they > > should have done like Slackware and gave the user a choice of a > > Speakup-enabled kernel or not. BTW, Slackware 9.0 just came out and has > > Gnome 2.2 with accessibility plug-ins, and still supports Speakup. It is > > down to a boot disk and two root disks to install, but also has a third > > option which is some sort of boot manager on a separate disk that will > > supposedly boot a CDROM even on computers that otherwise can't boot one. > > I don't know if this will speak or not, but it sure sounds interesting. I > > sure hope Redhat reconsiders dropping Speakup as it is a major step in the > > wrong direction. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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
