The International Association of Visually Impaired Technologists is currently working on creating a team to work with technology providers to make their products accessible. I happen to be President of this organization. If anybody is interested in helping with this, email me off-list (jheim at math.wisc.edu). Our web site is at www.iavit.org. On 03/29/2013 10:03 AM, Tony Baechler wrote: > Ah well, that's about what I figured the situation was. Thanks for > clarifying. I know I tried compiling Speakup into a RHEL kernel and > gave up, but that was before it could be compiled as modules. However, > my comments still apply in that Red Hat is required by law to provide an > alternative accomodation. I'm not so sure that a suit is necessary, but > maybe it is. I am no longer up on current NFB happenings, but it seems > that they aren't really serious about Linux accessibility anyway since > their servers are running Windows. The ACB has actively supported Linux > since 2000 and would probably be the best choice of an advocacy > organization. Here are a few sites of possible interest: > > http://lflegal.com/ > > The law firm above specializes in structured negotiations, meaning that > they try very hard to work with companies before suing, but they will > sue if necessary. > > http://www.acb.org/ > > This should be obvious. The American Council of the Blind specializes > in advocacy and it's worth calling their offices. > > http://www.bits-acb.org/ > > BITS is an affiliate of ACB and stands for Blind Information Technology > Specialists. They were mainly interested in Windows when I was a > member, but it might be worth asking them to get involved. > > As for myself, since Debian does take accessibility seriously and I > don't need to use Red Hat, I stay away from it and don't plan to support > it in the near future. It would be nice if Red Hat would change their > position, but I think there is more than apathy here. I know of several > people who've reached the same conclusion as I have, secifically that > they've made it clear that they are not interested in accessibility. > Fortunately, unlike Windows, there are lots of distros to choose from, > but it's too bad that so many companies choose RHEL. > > On 3/29/2013 4:58 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 > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
