Making a categorical niche. The "most used" functionality. And what defines it

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Oren Beck <orenbeck at gmail.com> wrote:

> YES- many of us really want or need to do "bleeding 
> edge" stuff with computers. But there is a major 
> chunk of our society that "nothing beyond a browser" 
> is needed. We even can consider skipping a local 
> printer.  All that is needed is a net browser. There 
> are countless numbers of folks who do NOT have easy
> access to a web browser of any sort. Having one in 
> the day room of a care facility for example. Having 
> the less fortunate among us get one per family! One 
> Laptop Per Child ? When America does not have one 
> web browser enabled seat for each FAMILY? That 
> reality sort of is derogatory to America. Sending a 
> single usable system or laptop to recycling is a 
> shameful failure. The preferred recycling should be
> into productive service. By running a Linux distro 
> suited to that minimum functionality. The details 
> can be made trivial. Oh? Who pays for this? Our 
> whole species if we flunk at it.

And of course this is why Linux needs to be demonstrated on older hardware: because then people see that older hardware, hardware they do not personally have a use for, can give "browser seats" to the have-nots with minimal outlay of hardware and cash.

The reason people leave computers in closets and warehouses to gather dust is because they don't know how useful their old PCs can be to the less fortunate in the U.S.A., and thus underestimate their tax deduction value when donated to a charity.  I suspect billions are lost every year to corporations not knowing the value of their computers to the rest of the U.S.A. (and the world) and thus choosing to pay exorbitant disassembly and destruction costs (or risk exorbitant government fines when they illegally dump them somewhere) rather than donate them to charity for huge tax deductions.

I blame EBay for some of it.  In Ye Olden Days, there was no central clearinghouse for the "value of older computers", so you'd assume your computers went down only slightly in value and donate them to some charity.  Thus, for example, PC-XTs appeared in Salvation Army stores in the early-1990s, just in time for an impoverished college student who'd finally gotten his own apartment and needed a computer for next-to-nothing.

Nowadays EBay allows companies to see "computer values" which are no more accurate than stock market speculation bubbles, think their older systems must be worthless, and not donate them to charity for the tax deduction.