You're right, I apologize. Its just that my dealings WRT accessibility of redHat products have been less than positive. That might be a function of RedHat Asia pacific though, and isn't necessarily the case in the U.S. I could tell you an absolute nightmare story about me and the RHCE exam, but I'll keep it off-list. (yes, I did pass, but no thanks to RedHat making it as hard as they possibly could for me to take part). Regards Aaron On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 07:19:55PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote: > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
