[Tfug] Waste-Not Warehouse - was(Computer Recycling)

[Nicholas Esborn]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 08:22:18AM -0700, Tyler wrote:
> The point that always gets missed in these arguments is the audience.
> 
> In this case, by "audience," I mean the intended recipient of the machine.  
> In
> this case, we are discussing someone that would receive a computer from
> a charity organization.  This person isn't going to have an opinion on the
> "evil" Microsoft corporation.  He or she may have little or no computer 
> experience.
> He or she may have been turned down for a job or promotion based on the lack
> of those skills.  He or she needs those skills to enter/re-enter the work 
> force.

See http://www.accrc.org/.  Not that it does Tucsonians any good, but
it is the Alameda County Computer Recycling Center.  They refurbish
the machines, put Linux (SuSE I think) on them, and give them to the
Oakland school district and other worthwhile recipients.

The "audience" will find its way around a *well maintained* Unix
machine just as well as a Windows machine.  I disagree with you
(and RedHat's stupid CEO) about UNIX on the Desktop.  The caveat
is that you need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and learn
something about the system you run.

Do you really think users are better off with a MS mystery machine,
eventually running more trojan horses than legitimate processes,
because the users have no understanding of what happens on the box?

Open source software may be more difficult for end users right now,
but I remember what they thought about DOS, and it's not that bad.
What is more, if the right tools are made available to them, kids
will grow up and enter the workforce with a generic understanding
of information technology, rather than a generic understanding of
Microsoft Word.

> Let's face it, even a modern X-based GUI is cumbersome for most neophytes.
> Then there is the issue of software.  Being able to use Star Office and X 
> doesn't
> translate well to the poor person receiving the machine who will need to 
> develop
> skills in Microsoft Word under Windows to find that job or get promoted.
> 
> I think all us UNIX and UNIX-Like OS fans need to be realistic about
> the level of technical ability in the population as well as the level of
> sophistication required in an OS to support that population.
> 
> 
> I proselytize UNIX over Windows on most days in the world of servers, so
> what I say is born of customer-related technology experience and not
> some sort of pro-Microsoft propaganda.  I think there's definitely a reason 
> that Red Hat is going commercial, and it's not all greed.
> 
> The home UNIX product line is, quite simply, not ready for the masses.

RedHat is going Enterprise-only because they don't want to provide
mom and pop support.  That doesn't bother me.  I'd rather mom and
pop got support from their kid(s) (mine do) or from small local
white box and support shops.  I was able to guide my mom through a
buildworld/installworld and some config file changes (using vi) on
a FreeBSD box that had stopped accepting ssh.  It wasn't difficult
for either of us, and it didn't take long.  It's a lot easier to play
hands when you're telling someone what to type rather than what
desktop metaphor widgets to click variously.

The old software market model (where we get substandard software from
a few main vendors) has failed for a long time now.  It's not about
evil, it's about failure.  Don't be sad about the passage of the old
paradigm, nor apprehensive about the initial learning curve of the
diversified model.  You learned, and so will others.  Plus, the more
people who become comfortable with the open source model, the more
demand there will be for your skills to apply it for/with them.

-nick

> ---
> # Tyler Kilian, CCNP, SCSA
> # Technology Director, Dakota Communications
> # TKilian at DakotaCom.NET | 520.745.3900 x 100
> 
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