Free Geek Seattle is a verb
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Andrew Kane
May 20, 2016, 11:01:04 AM5/20/16
to freegeek...@googlegroups.com, Beryl Fernandes
I'm not making any claims about who Geek Seattle might be. I live
outside of town and I've yet to bite the head off any chickens- but I
think I've met Geek Seattle before even if none of us knew it at the
time. It's possible I've even seen it in the mirror.
Geek Seattle, collectively, needs to Free itself. No one else is
qualified nor inclined to do so. If it doesn't happen then our freedom
will be eroded, whether we identify with the union or intersection of
Geek and Seattle.
Our freedom is under siege on several fronts. Law-enforcement and
'intelligence' agencies are mounting a foolish and potentially
catastrophic war against encryption, having failed to learn the lessons
of the 1990s attempt. Hardware vendors are increasingly locking-down
their products and including 'features' such as back-doors, locked
bootloaders, spyware and other fun stuff:
https://libreboot.org/faq/#intel
These things are geeky, but they don't affect only geeks. I could go
on, without even mentioning the Bathroom Police; I think it's pretty
clear that if personal freedom is something we value, then we need to
act to preserve and enhance it.
Not all of the attacks on personal freedom are so direct. Sometimes the
freedom of human beings is jeopardized by second-order effects. When we
buy products made by slave labor or from materials mined in
environmentally destructive ways, we impact the freedom of others in
invisible ways, and we impact our own in insidious ways.
Total Reclaim is no longer a certified e-Steward:
http://www.ban.org/news/2016/5/5/total-reclaim-certification-revoked
This means that we can't trust them to responsibly handle materials sent
to them for recycling. Since the exports in question took place during
the time when TR was still certified, this calls into question the value
of the e-Steward certification (or any other) in guaranteeing that the
materials handled by these vendors (that is, TR and the other certified
material handlers) are handled in a way that involves neither the
poisoning of groundwater nor use of slave labor.
To the extent that we care about personal freedom, whether our own or
that of others, it's pretty important that we don't enable these
behaviors. Slavery makes us less free both when we ourselves are
enslaved and when we must compete economically with slave labor;
environmental poisoning makes us less free when it happens locally and
also when it happens elsewhere in the world.
I'm not claiming that these things are happening in Hong Kong nor
elsewhere as a result of Total Reclaim's actions or those of any other
vendor. My point is that we can't know for sure and can't trust the word
of the actors in the field.
If we want to ensure that our old things are recycled in a responsible
fashion, that recycling will have to take place locally and in an open
fashion which can be scrutinized and hopefully improved-upon by us, the
local people who stand to bear the brunt of any environmental impacts
caused by the disposal of our old equipment.
I don't know of any way this can be done in a way that makes money. It
might be a break-even proposition with a large supply of volunteer
labor, including a great deal of skilled volunteer labor. I think it's
possible that, given time and cleverness, the output of refined
components and materials could be enough to sustain the activity.
The Free Geek model was a good and a viable one for its time, and Free
Geek is obviously still viable as an established entity- but I think the
model is not one that works for Seattle in 2015. Refurbishing PC's isn't
the value proposition, nor the offer of a free PC as enticing to
prospective volunteers, as it was in 2001. Not only that, but we *can't*
offer anyone a PC which is both modern (newer than 2006-ish) and Free,
because there aren't any of those available to refurbish. To the extent
that they exist at all, they are both relatively recent and relatively
rare. The people who have Novenas and Loongson devices are not
refurbishing them. To some extent we can free some latter-day server
hardware, some Chromebooks, and some phones and tablets, but the
availability of these devices is diminishing. If we would attract
volunteer labor to such a local recycling / remaking project as I
propose, we need to offer something else.
I've gained some experience installing Libreboot lately, and I'm working
on setting up some automation to make it even easier to install it on
certain devices. (It's already pretty easy.) Libreboot, and to a lesser
extent Coreboot, can be useful for making some non-free devices more Free.
Right now I lack the resources to do very much experimentation in the
area of e-cycling and reclamation. I'm studying up, and as I figure out
processes and methods I will document those things on the Free Geek
Seattle wiki. If anyone else is interested in working on these things,
this maillist, the wiki, and other FGSEA infrastructure is available for
our use. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.
outside of town and I've yet to bite the head off any chickens- but I
think I've met Geek Seattle before even if none of us knew it at the
time. It's possible I've even seen it in the mirror.
Geek Seattle, collectively, needs to Free itself. No one else is
qualified nor inclined to do so. If it doesn't happen then our freedom
will be eroded, whether we identify with the union or intersection of
Geek and Seattle.
Our freedom is under siege on several fronts. Law-enforcement and
'intelligence' agencies are mounting a foolish and potentially
catastrophic war against encryption, having failed to learn the lessons
of the 1990s attempt. Hardware vendors are increasingly locking-down
their products and including 'features' such as back-doors, locked
bootloaders, spyware and other fun stuff:
https://libreboot.org/faq/#intel
These things are geeky, but they don't affect only geeks. I could go
on, without even mentioning the Bathroom Police; I think it's pretty
clear that if personal freedom is something we value, then we need to
act to preserve and enhance it.
Not all of the attacks on personal freedom are so direct. Sometimes the
freedom of human beings is jeopardized by second-order effects. When we
buy products made by slave labor or from materials mined in
environmentally destructive ways, we impact the freedom of others in
invisible ways, and we impact our own in insidious ways.
Total Reclaim is no longer a certified e-Steward:
http://www.ban.org/news/2016/5/5/total-reclaim-certification-revoked
This means that we can't trust them to responsibly handle materials sent
to them for recycling. Since the exports in question took place during
the time when TR was still certified, this calls into question the value
of the e-Steward certification (or any other) in guaranteeing that the
materials handled by these vendors (that is, TR and the other certified
material handlers) are handled in a way that involves neither the
poisoning of groundwater nor use of slave labor.
To the extent that we care about personal freedom, whether our own or
that of others, it's pretty important that we don't enable these
behaviors. Slavery makes us less free both when we ourselves are
enslaved and when we must compete economically with slave labor;
environmental poisoning makes us less free when it happens locally and
also when it happens elsewhere in the world.
I'm not claiming that these things are happening in Hong Kong nor
elsewhere as a result of Total Reclaim's actions or those of any other
vendor. My point is that we can't know for sure and can't trust the word
of the actors in the field.
If we want to ensure that our old things are recycled in a responsible
fashion, that recycling will have to take place locally and in an open
fashion which can be scrutinized and hopefully improved-upon by us, the
local people who stand to bear the brunt of any environmental impacts
caused by the disposal of our old equipment.
I don't know of any way this can be done in a way that makes money. It
might be a break-even proposition with a large supply of volunteer
labor, including a great deal of skilled volunteer labor. I think it's
possible that, given time and cleverness, the output of refined
components and materials could be enough to sustain the activity.
The Free Geek model was a good and a viable one for its time, and Free
Geek is obviously still viable as an established entity- but I think the
model is not one that works for Seattle in 2015. Refurbishing PC's isn't
the value proposition, nor the offer of a free PC as enticing to
prospective volunteers, as it was in 2001. Not only that, but we *can't*
offer anyone a PC which is both modern (newer than 2006-ish) and Free,
because there aren't any of those available to refurbish. To the extent
that they exist at all, they are both relatively recent and relatively
rare. The people who have Novenas and Loongson devices are not
refurbishing them. To some extent we can free some latter-day server
hardware, some Chromebooks, and some phones and tablets, but the
availability of these devices is diminishing. If we would attract
volunteer labor to such a local recycling / remaking project as I
propose, we need to offer something else.
I've gained some experience installing Libreboot lately, and I'm working
on setting up some automation to make it even easier to install it on
certain devices. (It's already pretty easy.) Libreboot, and to a lesser
extent Coreboot, can be useful for making some non-free devices more Free.
Right now I lack the resources to do very much experimentation in the
area of e-cycling and reclamation. I'm studying up, and as I figure out
processes and methods I will document those things on the Free Geek
Seattle wiki. If anyone else is interested in working on these things,
this maillist, the wiki, and other FGSEA infrastructure is available for
our use. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.
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