I swear to tell the truth, (fwd)

Thu May 2 15:48:16 EDT 2002

I wish he'd stop calling gnu/linux open source. It's free software, shouldn't he be aware of that difference if he used to work with Richard Stallman? Also, his response sounds to me like another pat on the back.
Greg

On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 11:28:05AM -0400, Ryan Mann wrote:
> Hi.  I forwarded some of your responses to Chris Hofstader's testimony in 
> the Microsoft case and this is the response I got back from him.
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:06:15 -0400 
> From: Chris Hofstader <ChrisH at Freedomscientific.com>
> To: 'Ryan Mann' <rmann at rmisp.net>
> Subject: RE: I swear to tell the truth, (fwd)
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Thanks for forwarding the thread on to me.  I'm always happy to hear from
> the open source, blinux community.
> 
> If you read my written testimony, I state clearly that there are a number of
> good accessibility aids available for the Linux OS.  I add that the Linux AT
> software is written by a group of hard working volunteers.  I do wish that
> some of the open source vendors would start investing in accessibility the
> way that Microsoft, IBM and Sun already do.  With a reasonable level of
> funding the volunteers could become professionals and not concern themselves
> with doing the really cool work happening already and paying the bills too.
> 
> 
> If you also look at my resume (put in as Exhibit 1), you will see that,
> along with Richard Stallman, I was the co-founder and president of League
> for Programming Freedom.  I have been a vocal advocate for Project GNU and
> have worked on the defense of a number of companies being sued for patent
> infringement and user interface copyright issues.
> 
> When it comes to accessibility, however, I believe the single most important
> aspect is getting jobs for people with disabilities.  With estimates for
> unemployment among blind people running as high as 75% and with virtually
> all potential employers requiring skills in MS Windows then it is essential
> that adaptive technologies work in the environment that the consumers want.
> In the commercial environment, Microsoft is the overwhelmingly dominant
> source of Operating systems and, for a long time, Microsoft has invested
> time and resources into accessibility and is the corporate leader in this
> area.
> 
> Permitting incomplete or altered versions of the Microsoft operating systems
> to be sold will reek havoc on a system level product like JAWS and all of
> its competitors.  I, therefore, stand behind my testimony entirely.
> 
> Respectfully,
> Cdh
> 
> Chris Hofstader
> VP, Software Engineering
> Freedom Scientific, Inc.
> 11800 31st Court N.
> St. Petersburg, FL 33716
> PH: (727)803-8000 ext. 1061; (800)444-4443
> Fax:(727) 803-8001
> email:  ChrisH at freedomscientific.com
> Check out our website!  www.freedomscientific.com
>  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ryan Mann [mailto:rmann at rmisp.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 8:56 PM
> To: chrish at freedomscientific.com
> Subject: Re: I swear to tell the truth, (fwd)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 20:44:19 -0400
> From: Scott Howell <showell at lrxms.net>
> Reply-To: speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> To: speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> Subject: Re: I swear to tell the truth,
> 
> What amazes the hell out of me is that if the sighted folk of the world only
> gave some though to the matter, they'd probably agree that editing a file is
> considerably faster then any gui. Not to mention keyboard access can out run
> a mouse clicking any day...that's a proven fact. <grin> Oh how I love these
> discussions. Did I mention that do to windows the adverage employee is
> producing less? Afterall all that crashing and rebooting reduces output
> don't you think??
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 07:48:43PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> > Hi Cecil and all. An example. I was using War Ftpd on my Winblows 
> > laptop. It uses Unix style permissions for file access. Only problem is
> that the gui makes it extremely difficult to set file permissions, and very
> hard to tell to what exactly you are setting those permissions to. In Linux,
> all you have to do is edit a config file, and that's it! A process that
> should take 1 or 2 minutes, took me about three hours because of the f-ing
> gui!
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: Cecil H. Whitley <cwhitley at ec.rr.com>
> > To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 6:57 PM
> > Subject: Re: I swear to tell the truth, 
> > 
> > 
> > > Okay, okay just one more and I might shut up.....
> > > Blind people need a GUI.  Isn't that the real msg?  Why doesn't he 
> > > give them the real story?  Text mode os's are accessable to a degree 
> > > that a GUI will never be by their very nature.
> > > 
> > > Cecil, stater of the obvious.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca 
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> 
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> 
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