I ttalked to someone here at the University of Wisconsin who manages Red Hat servers. The UW has a site license for Red Hat. I don't know anything about it because my department uses debian (lucky for me). Anyway, he said the reason RH still doesn't give you speakup is that their current release still uses a 2.6.32 kernel and speakup wsn't included in the official kernel source until 2.6.37 -- which is correct, I believe. In a way, I can understand where RH is coming from but, holy cow, they are making it impossible for blind people to get certification from them. That's outrageous! I mean, I hate to use this cliche but this is an outrage. Personally, I don't give a flying fig about Red Hat because my department uses debian. But even so, I find this unconcionable. Somebody ought to sue their ass. On 03/29/2013 07:58 AM, Amanda Rush wrote: > Hi all, > > Red Hat will not allow you to compile Speakup into the RHEL kernel. Also, > if you're certifying for RHEL6.2 or any of the other RHEL versions, you're > expected to specifically use that distro. Also, they will not allow you to > bring in your own system and SSH into one of their boxes to do the > certification. As of this point, there is a VM you have to use that is > provided by Red Hat that you have to use to complete the cert, as well as > one for going through the curriculum, and speakup is definitely not part > of it. I tried getting speakup to compile on both of these, and was > unsuccessful. And in order to complete the curriculum for the cert, there > are scripts that have to run on your VM so that Red Hat's servers can > grade your labs. You could try accessing the grading pages via SSH, but > you're going to have to use Elinks to do it, and Elinks doesn't play well > with their grading page. > > I'd like to say Red Hat is just apathetic to accessibility concerns, or > that they just don't know any better, but given that they pretty much are > actively discouraging anyone who needs to use adaptive technology by > taking all these steps, I'm not so sure. I think the quickest solution > will be to talk to your employer and see if you can maybe demonstrate that > you can complete the tasks on the certification, and see if that would > suffice for your not having the cert. I wish you the best of luck. And > yes, if we could get one of the advocacy orgs on board and sue Red Hat, > that would be great. But it would be nice if they didn't settle, because > if it doesn't go to court, there's no legal precedence when this comes up > with another organization, (<cough>Cisco</cough>) and then the wheel has > to be reinvented all over again. > > Amanda > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces at linux-speakup.org] On Behalf Of Tony > Baechler > Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 5:36 AM > To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. > Subject: Re: Red Hat Enterprise 6.2 > > Jason, Red Hat has made it very clear that they have no interest in > accessibility, so I highly doubt that just contacting them would do any > good. I say this from looking at their sites and finding nothing at all > about accessibility. They don't even ship Speakup with RHEL as far as I'm > aware, but since it's in staging, maybe they do now. As I recall, 6.2 is > rather old and uses a custom kernel with a large set of patches, so I > don't think you'll get Speakup to compile. You could try compiling as > modules and see if it works, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think the > same applies to CentOS as well. I'm not sure about Fedora. > > I don't know if Australia has any kind of accessibility laws, but I know > the US and UK do. Probably someone in the US would have to ask Red Hat to > make an accessible solution available which they would probably refuse to > do. It would then have to go to lawyers to settle. It might not end up > in a suit, but it very well might. Most likely, an advocacy organization > like the ACB or NFB would have to push Red Hat and it could take years. > Obviously, that won't help with the immediate problem. By law, they are > required to provide an accessibility solution for you. Since you're in > Australia, I really don't know if any of this would apply to you or not. > I would suggest asking if you can do the certification with ssh to the > RHEL box. There are ssh clients for Linux and Windows, so one way or the > other, you could have speech. If they let you bring your own laptop, you > could install Debian, Arch or Ubuntu on it which would give you Speakup. > If not, you could see if they would let you ssh from Windows with NVDA or > a different Windows screen reader. As I said, they're required to provide > an alternative solution in the US, so you might even be able to make them > let you borrow a machine. > > I don't know anything about your work, but a better approach might be to > talk to your employer. Yes, I realize that Red Hat gives the > certification, but your employer might be able to somehow work with Red > Hat and/or let you borrow a machine, especially since the point in getting > it is for work. In the US, employers with more than I think 10 employees > are required to make accomodations as necessary for accessibility. An > example would be buying someone a screen reader so they can do their job. > > In conclusion, I would suggest studying the Americans with Disabilities > Act, or ADA. I really don't know if it will help you, but at least you'll > know what's required by US companies. The ACB has several ADA seminars > from the various conventions online. I'm sure the NFB does as well. I > would suggest the following two sites: > > http://www.acb.org/ > http://www.acbradio.org/ > > I know there is an organization in Australia as well which might be able > to help. Please let us know what happens as I would be very interested to > see what Red Hat says. > > On 3/28/2013 10:16 PM, Jason White wrote: >> Sean Murphy<speakup at linux-speakup.org> wrote: >>> >>> I am going to prep for the Red Hat Admin certifications. I need to >>> know if what screen reader is available on the console? Speakup you > have to compile into the Kernel. So I am not sure if this can be done or > not. Any suggestions on how to get this console to work? >> >> I don't know, but have you contacted Red Hat about it? It's their >> certification, after all, hence in their business interests to ensure >> it's accessible to you. there might also be legal implications >> depending on the laws in force in your country. >> >> I am sure that others on this list will have advice to offer, but I >> think raising the issue with Red Hat would be a very good idea not >> only for you but for the benefit of others with access needs. > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
