On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Buddy Brannan wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 09:30:36PM -0700,
> Darrell Shandrow wrote:

> ... EGADS! Two evil things in one go!!!! Don't they
> have their text in

Perfectly within their rights.  Remember that free
software wasn't built for software vendors to make
money, but for the end users, and wasn't meant to
provide any kind of business model.  But
supporting and training people costs time and
money, and those who do so on a more than casual
basis deserve whatever return the free market will
deliver: such businesses are our allies.

As you will see below, and in my reposted message
in the attachment, Red Hat actually deserves a pat
on the back for unusually ethical behavior, unlike
certain other well known vendors....

> ... I'd say Jason's case was about as
> unreasonable as it gets. ...

> > But, in Jason's case, it seems RedHat was
> > actually trying to take steps to actively
> > interfere with a blind person's progress in
> > his life as a human being, let alone a
> > qualified Linux tech.

I can certainly see how such things would seem
unfair, but the issue is really something else
entirely, and the solution lies in an entirely
different conception of the problem.  This issue
has been discussed before, and rather than cause
those who have already read my longish post on
it to wade through it again, I have reposted it
as an attachment.  The rest of my comments will
assume an understanding of it's contents.

> > Hmmm, how to effectively teach RedHat a useful
> > lesson in access that will result in positive
> > change? 

Let us rather praise them for being ethical, and
work "out of this box" with Red Hat for a sensible
work around, in terms of appropriate disclaimers,
and some kind of letter or award of a properly
labeled (as subjective) evaluation of alternative
competency, and a publicly posted explanation of
the nature of the process, with it's limitations
for disabled people, in non-technical terms
employers can understand clearly.  Handled
properly, this is an opportunity for Red Hat to
advocate the legitimacy of their testing process,
even while plugging their support of disabled
people -- a win win proposition.

> > ... was a pretty aggregious example to me.
> > Even Microsoft is better than RedHat here!!!

The grossly unethical nature of that other
corporation's marketing of their expensive and
fairly worthless certification has been discussed
to death in other forums (do net search for
details).

> > Hmmm, one idea...  Maybe we should start with
> > RedHat corporate management staff?

I imagine that they would be happy to work with a
reasonable approach (one that does not involve
demands for unethical representations beyond the
reasonable limitations of legitimate testing
technology).  Note that the problem is a technical
one, and that it cannot be solved by ideology or
advocacy; real world statistical limitations
cannot be ethically ignored.  You wouldn't want
them to cheapen their product with phony claims
that knowledgable people would spot, thereby
making your alternative certification, however
subjective, and everyone else's, suspect (remember
that an employer is ultimately going to make a
subjective evaluation of who to hire -- a lot of
this testing and certification stuff is really an
interviewer cop-out anyway).  Hopefully the
present economic situation won't prevent Red Hat
from devoting sufficient resources to a
work-around: other posts would seem to indicate
that they were willing to look at the problem.

> > ... in order to explain how RedHat is
> > violating open-source principles and acting
> > in...

Hopefully, with my other attached post, you will
be able to see why "Open source principles" have
absolutely nothing to do with this issue.  But
again, based on other posts, we have more than
hints that Red Hat would be highly amenable to
addressing this problem in a reasonable way.  That
way will not, should not, involve giving standard
certification for non-standard, modified tests.
 
LCR

-- 
L. C. Robinson
reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid

People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get
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your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
"CyberSnare" at
http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html