From: jdashiel AT eagle1 DOT eaglenet DOT com Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 13:00:28 -0500 (EST) To: mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca Cc: Benjamin D Chambers , opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net Subject: Re: [opendos] A more ordered fixlist In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net Precedence: bulk If you give the program away very likely not a problem if you sell it though that makes a business transaction and and because it's a business transaction all services offered to the general public in the U.S. must also accommodate the handicapped except in cases of economic frustration. Very difficult to prove economic frustration though. The Congress got tired of hearing about these problems and came up with that law. Likely there will be precedent for technical frustration set under the A.D.A. and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and ammendments but I'd want that to be a very tight doorway. With stuff as it has stood, in the Reagan administration 76% of working aged blind people had never had gainful employment; 12% were able only to have part-time or seasonal work, and the other 12% had the full-time jobs. I understand this picture hasn't improved much since then either. On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca wrote: > On Sat, 1 Feb 1997 jdashiel AT eagle1 DOT eaglenet DOT com wrote: > > > So long as opendos documents and supports writing that will work > > with speech synthesizers by means of switches and doesn't require a > > mouse > > > > to work parts of it it should be able to be used by anyone and > > not risk violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. > > Failure to do this, combined with a business requiring > > the operating system to be used by all employees could potentially > > cause problems of an indirect legal nature. The first ones would be for > > the company, and the second ones would be the negative > > publicity coming out of such a case with opendos mentioned > > prominently. Anyone on this list who has read the > > A.D.A. probably knows the relevant sections. > > Does that mean that if I write a program and either give it away or > sell it, that I *HAVE* to make it use BIOS screen writes or risk being > sued by blind users? I don't like the sounds of that at all! In > fact, a law forcing me to do so, would probably make me make sure that > my programs TOTALLY VIOLATE such laws just to promote freedom of > choice. Don't get me wrong here, I am not against such users as > yourself (as I'm sure you're aware of allready), however some programs > need to be as fast as possible, and I prefer speed over anything else > when writing my own programs. The end user is always free to choose > another product if mine doesn't suit their needs as well. > > I'm all for making OpenDOS as user friendly to EVERYONE regardless of > disability, and my own programs as well. However when I hear legal > babble like the above, it makes me want to REBEL against being > openminded and program direct VGA registers, and go straight to video > memory in LFB mode. I don't mean to upset anyone with this posting, > but I really didn't like the "legal foot" above. > > Sorry if I've unintentionally offended anyone. > > > Mike A. Harris | http://blackwidow.saultc.on.ca/~mharris > Computer Consultant | My webpage has moved and my address has changed. > My dynamic address: http://blackwidow.saultc.on.ca/~mharris/ip-address.html > mailto:mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca > > Download OpenDOS, then: CDD C:\^DEL /ZS MSDOS.SYS IO.SYS \DOS\*.* > > jude