Xbuntu 4 kids

[Dave Hall]

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 23:18 +1000, Omniwoof wrote:
> I truely applaud the notion but you'd probably find that after labour
> + repair + shipping that you might get more value for money/time
> simply purchasing old/cheap PCs that are already over there.
> 
> Naturally reliability is an issue as well - no sense in shipping out a
> PC that is simply going to break in a few months. 

I agree that it might seem like a good idea, but lets think about it.
PIIs are more than 10 years old, back there was no RoHS and PCs were a
lot dirtier in general.

eWaste is a massive problem in developing nations.  Not only eWaste
being dumped by dodgy operators, but also well meaning people send
rubbish overseas.

Even though I see the benefits of technology for community development
and education, feed, I think that we should focus on housing and
clothing people before giving the "better off" old PCs (or OLPC XOs for
that matter).  See links at the bottom of the email if you want to
really help people in need.

With the PIIs and similar old PCs, if you wouldn't considering using it
yourself, send it to bytebackaustralia.com.au or a similar service.  

If you think it might be useful for others then check with
computerbank.org.au or similar organisation.  Avoid donating to greenpc.
They offer very under speced machines running w2k and ms works to "needy
families" for what I consider to be unreasonable prices.

Cheers

Dave

Worthwhile charities
http://www.msf.org.au/
http://redcross.org.au/ourservices_aroundtheworld_default.htm
http://www.oxfam.org.au/