Re: reasonable accomodation? (was Re: single browser intranets)

kim, the book I'll bet was already on disk.  I had this discussion
with a software company a few years ago.  Here's how it went.
me "hi, I am looking for an electronic copy of your manual for
software which I purchased and with which a print copy of the manual
came but for me is useless."
other person: " we have such a thing and it will cost you xx.xx."
Me: "I have no aversion tobuying, but I already bought the software
and the manual came with so I actually have already payed for it
right?
other person: "good point.  I'll just ship you one out."
me: "should the need arrise, may I refer others to you?"
other person: "yes, just don't make it public.  if someone wants or
needs a manual and they have the software, we'll be glad to furnish
them on a case by case basis.

Also, there is much president for a lower cost for electronic copies. 
You might also apprize the developper of the book that they can be
encrypted and if he/she wants more info, I will be glad to hook the
appropriate individuals together.  In fact, if this is basically
ascii, the software used to access the encrypted books is accessible
in just about every way imaginable except through windows.  it is
confined to dos and there has not yet been a port of it that I know of
to windows but I know it would run in a dos window just fine.

Lastly, if everyone is happy, fine but I believe there are equitable
possibilities out there.
Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> 
> At 06:13 PM 10/26/1999 -0500, David Poehlman wrote:
> >I hate to sound a death knell, but charging the same for a disk as for
> >a hard copy is not exactly fair.  after all, with the hcopy, you get
> >all that paper and stuff.  with a disk, if you need it for access, all
> >you really get is the text and no paper to smell and lick and rub
> >etc.  Part of this is toungue in cheek.
> 
> What, you mean you don't lick your floppies?  I do, thems some
> good lickin'.
> 
> I know what you mean here, but I can see why the company does it
> this way.  For one thing, because they are not mass producing these
> disk copies, it may actually cost them more, in terms of time and
> people resources, to create an electronic copy than the mass-produced
> paper copies.  Also, if they don't wish to distribute primarily
> via disk, they would want a high price so that you are getting the
> same knowledge (access, remember!) for the same price; otherwise,
> who would buy the book?
> 
> >I proppose that a person
> >needing an accessible version of a book be required to provide proof
> >of purchase of the hcopy and receive the the ecopy for free as
> >valuadded to the book which they could not use in the first place or
> >be able to directly purchase the ecopy for a lower cost which is what
> >has been don in some instances.
> 
> If I got the ecopy for free I would just return the dead tree copy
> to the store for a refund. :)
> 
> How about this, you buy the ecopy, and they send you a big empty book
> full of blank pages that you can smell and rub your face against
> and lick...that way you are getting the same content (information)
> as the visual user AND you are getting the same physical objects as
> the visual user, all for the same price!
> 
> Obviously I'm tongue-in-cheek here too a bit, but I think that there's
> arguments on either side, and all it comes down to is "does the
> consumer (blind or otherwise) think this is a good value?"  I'm happy
> from our standpoint that the consumer _can_ make that choice, because
> I was afraid the choice would have been made for her already due to
> lack of access to an alternate content for the text.
> 
> --
> Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
> President, Governing Board Member
> HTML Writers Guild <URL:http://www.hwg.org>
> Director, Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center
>   <URL:http://aware.hwg.org/>

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Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 19:56:57 UTC