[sclug] Who has the key to your Vista PC?

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007 19:54:17 +0000, ed <ed at s5h.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:33:41 +0000 Stuart Major <stuartmajor at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
>> Perhaps it's time to get political and join the only party that is
>> interested in Free and Open-Source Software?

As the Green Party Speaker on Intellectual Property and Free Software, and the chappy who penned much of that release, I'd be all to happy for that to happen ;-) By the way, Rob White who is the main candidate in the Reading party uses Linux and is really into free software stuff. If anyone's interested I'm sure the local party would like to hear people's thoughts on promoting Linux in the local council and elsewhere... www.readinggreenparty.org.uk

>> "There will be thousands of tonnes of dumped monitors, video cards
>> and whole computers that are perfectly capable of running Vista -
>> except for the fact they lack the paranoid lock down mechanisms
>> Vista forces you to use. That's an offensive cost to the environment.
>>
>> "Future archaeologists will be able to identify a 'Vista Upgrade
>> Layer' when they go through our landfill sites.
> 
> ...
> 
> i don't know how true that is. it's certainly true if one wants the
> aero glitz, which, let it be known, is very hardware offencive, those
> stupid effects really don't need the hardware that it demands.
> 
> the packaging is, however, more offencive on the landfill sites.

A little hyperbole never hurt our chances of getting into the Saturday edition of The Guardian :-) But in general the wasteful disposal of old machines is a really awful trend, and whilst obviously a lot of people will just upgrade the software, the hardware requirements for the full glitz plus the DRM technologies that will lock out or tone down basic functionality without recent hardware is bound to drive a lot of upgrades. Computers are horrifically resource intensive to build and they're not usually recycled. The packaging, certainly an issue, pales in comparison. This is interesting to get some different angles on this issue:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39285704,00.htm

As the PR stated, switch to Linux and there's simply no need. Plus you avoid the whole DRM debacle, promoting the notion that IT is there to enlarge our creative, communicative, business etc. opportunities in a sustainable society, not to drive profits in a few major corporations, abuse our consumer rights, damage the environment and deepen the brows of millions of PC users trying to upgrade!

> and... when are cd's going to be bio-degradable? that'd be neat. im
> sure the average person has one or two spindles worth of cds.

You can at least recycle CDs. I believe somebody quipped on Slashdot that Linux distros are probably responsible for a fair few coasters that used to be the next big thing to test ;-)

Regards,
Tom [who no longer lives in the SC :( ]