Re: What's happening?

["jerryc@innerpeace.org" <jerryc@innerpeace.org>]

Here's what I've found out from discussions with computer recyclers 
around the world. (Canada, BTW, has one of the most well developed 
computer recycling programs.) The resourcful ones have plenty of demand 
for pentiums, 486's, and even 386's, and put most of the ones they can 
salvage back into use. They even use 286's for word processing machines 
and are pretty much matched with supply and demand.

They have some use for 8086's for some science applications, but they 
have more supply than demand. If they had applications for the 8086's, 
they would love to put them to good use.

Even when they recycle the parts for scrap metal and keep them out of 
landfills, that's still a poor utilization of the resource compared to 
keeping them functioning as intact computers. As insignificant as these 
computers seem by today's standards, they are so far above having no 
computer, particularly with the right applications.

The value to society of keeping these computers doing something of value 
is huge. When you add the value of keeping them out of landfills it gets 
much bigger. With the billions of dollars companies are sinking into 
open source and the potential liability exposure manufactures like IBM, 
HP, and even Dell will face from the environmental hazards of these old 
computers in landfills, both the actual and PR value of supporting a 
program like ELKS is a no brainer. We just need to present this to the 
right people who do the funding for open source.

If anybody has the right connections to get some financial support for 
ELKS from some of the sources that are already funding open source, 
please get this info before them. Compared to what's being spent 
elsewhere, we're really talking small change and huge return on investment.

I'm planning to visit Red Hat in the next few weeks before I head for 
Rwanda. They probably don't have the funding themselves but should be 
well connected to those who do. I'm hoping to inspire them to put some 
support into this. Hopefully that will get the funders to throw some 
small change behind ELKS and get this project to a stable, functioning 
level.


Emanuele Galloni wrote:
> Thank you Jerry,
> I did get it and it seams good.
> The fact that you are going to Rwanda makes it even better.
> One of the things I was working on is the following:
> Originally, some of you guys were saying that ELKS, since it can run on
> any pc, from an 8088 to a Pentium IV, could
> be a very useful in developing countries where old computers are much
> more common that the newest ones.
> Is there anybody who can give me some infos about this side of ELKS?
> Many thanks.
> Emanuele
> 
> "jerryc@innerpeace.org" wrote:
> 
>   We're not in London, we're in the Smokey Mountains of Asheville NC US.
> 
>   But we could do an email interview.
> 
>   I don't know what your schedule is, but I'm headed to Rwanda in July
>   with the Inner Peace work. If it's real important to do something in
>   person, I might be able to route myself that way and do a layover.
> 
>   I just did a post with a little info about what we're doing. If you
>   didn't get it, let me know.
> 
>   Emanuele Galloni wrote:
>   > Hello guys,
>   > I am still trying to give to ELKS some sort of media resonance.. I
> would like
>   > to video- interview somebody about it and shoot some computers and
> palmtops
>   > running it. I am based in London (UK) from were I cover things for
> Lulop.com.
>   > If anybody is still interested and is not too far from here, please,
> let me
>   > know.
>   > Emanuele
>   >
>   >
>   >
>   > Richard Wallman wrote:
>   >
>   >
>   >>On  5 Jun, Miguel Bolanos wrote:
>   >>
>   >>
>   >>>In the new site we will have the status of the project, as well as
> the
>   >>>TODO list and docs, this site is intended to be available in
> several
>   >>>languages.
>   >>
>   >>If you need web space, I'll happily provide some.
>   >>
>   >>
>   >>>Regarding the project it self, the last commit was indeed several
> months
>   >>>ago, i am trying to organize my time to get back into all this.
>   >>
>   >>That's okay, I just thought it may have been abandoned altogether! I
> 
>   >>may get round to finished my xmodem and compression programs then...
> 
>   >>--
>   >>Richard Wallman
>   >>http://www.murkygoth.uklinux.net/elks
>   >>
>   >>-
>   >>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
> linux-8086" in
>   >>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>   >>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>   >
>   >
>   > -
>   > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
> linux-8086" in
>   > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>   > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.htm
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>