Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> __/ [ John Bailo ] on Thursday 08 February 2007 18:36 \__
>
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>>> | The Chinese have a saying: the journey of a thousand miles begins
>>> | with the first step. Reusing a puffing and wheezing old computer
>>> | by installing a minimal GNU/Linux distro and staving off the day
>>> | when it trudges forlornly to the scrapheap is at least a baby step
>>> | in the right direction.
>>
>> Typically doesn't technology become more power efficient and less
>> polluting over time?
>
>
> Yes,
In reality, I'd say a big fat no to that one. If you look at the
general progress of technology, I'd say that in most cases, the power
efficiency gains have been hugely outweighed by the increased demand for
power the more efficient devices have created.
Replace a horse with a car, and you create a vast chain of waste and
pollution across the whole supply-chain which the horse couldn't come
close to creation of.
> but pollution here involves waste that requires hard and
> energy-consuming disposal. It is about hardware which is made obsolete
> rather than supported (backward compatibility). Pentium II's become
> unusable, older graphics card cannot deliver "premium content", etc. The
> same applies to data, but let's not cross over to a discussion about
> software.
The computer world has been driven for many years, though, by the very
opposite direction - Microsoft's software gained bloat at a rate which
nobody before or since has come close to. A quick comparative look at
Linux offering similar capabilities shows that Linux is almost an order
of magnitude smaller than Windows for equivalence of function.
This bloat consumes power and storage, and drives unecessary upgrade
cycles.
>
>
>> So do new computers pollute less, emit less heat?
>
>
> New computers replace perfectly fine PCs. There's a cycle of spendings that
> is sought by the industry, which thrives in consumer waste. Software
> analogy: urging people to upgrade from Office 97 to Office 2003 even if they
> don't require any of the new 'features'. This urge can be intensified using
> security patches (or lack thereof, which puts /everyone/ on the Net in
> risk). Free software does not present these issue because upgrades are free.
> Support costs are often lowered with an upgrade because the software is made
> more reliable. So the customer actually /saves/ money by upgrading.
>
>
The fundamental advantage of free software is in this point - the vendor
cannot force end-of-life on the customer - it is up to the customer.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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