red hat 8.0 and the Speakup Modified

[Janina Sajka]

Dear Friends:

It now seems all but official. Even the Red Hat Home Page is featuring articles about Red Hat 8.0 which plainly state it
will be released this coming Monday, September 30. I am delighted to inform you that Speakup and the Speakup keymap are
included in this release. Sites such as Linux Central are already taking orders, but we suggest you wait to get CD ROMs
directly from Red Hat for less, unless, of course, you actually want to pay more for those printed manuals. In the long
standing tradition, iso images will also be available for download from mirror sites worldwide. And, I am hard at work
writing changes to our web page on the Speakup web site--and editing the HOWTO to reflect this exciting development.

Congratulations to Bill Acker for his patience and perseverance working over the past few years with various staffers
from Red Hat, on several Red Hat lists, and with us on the Speakup Modified. Bill's the real reason Speakup is now
officially part of the Red Hat distribution, and there's a README about accessibility support in Red Hat products which
singles him out. Way to go, Bill!

There is a question, though, for which we want guidance from the community on the Speakup list. Here's the simple
question:

Should we continue to offer the old, now about to be defunct, Speakup Modified version 7.3? Is there some special reason
to keep those files around? For a little while? For a longer while? How long? And for what purpose?

The days of the Speakup Modified have come to an end, and we're happy about it. But, if folks here find it useful, Kirk
would probably not mind those older files hanging around awhile longer.

What do you think? Let us know your thoughts.