Re: Planned obsolescence ?
Hi,
Jaromír Cápík wrote:
Please do not underestimate the number of people still using old
hardware (even i686). Especially people from poor countries and
hardware enthusiasts, whose groups are growing more and more in these
years and who help keeping free software alive, would be affected by
bad decisions. It is not even a month since I helped a friend migrate
his 32-bit Sony Vaio laptop to Debian 12. After replacing the hard
drive with an SSD, the laptop came to life incredibly and became
usable again, and not only for office work. And it is precisely the
support of old hardware that brings more and more new people to the
world of Linux and free software after the unfortunate decisions of
Microsoft, and that is a label free software cannot afford to lose.
Microsoft & Apple... Open Source Software keeps older machines alive,
either e.g. by running things like MacPorts or by directly replacing
Windows 7 or older MacOS with updated FOSS Operating Systems and
Applications. a very important point. Give people "freedom" to retain
their system, not not make them obsolete, as long as they perform their
tasks.
It is a good "selling point" and we could also consider the ethical
benefit in terms of less waste, less affluent people, etc etc.
This has the potential to disrupt the favorable trend of people moving
away from proprietary systems. I kindly ask you for reconsideration.
I believe that a lot of software has gradually reached a point where
its demands, given the features it offers, are no longer growing as
much as they used to, and so if we don't waste resources by making the
resulting binary code inefficient, the old hardware will continue to
be sufficient for many scenarios (and for many years to come).
Correct... of course certain things like Browsing GitHub or YouTube can
be extremely demanding, but for many other uses they continue to serve
well as before
Riccardo
Reply to: