Speculations on the Future of Free Geek

Resources

Free Geek runs on several resources. Without each of these elements Free Geek struggle or even collapse.

• Volunteers
  • who want computers
  • who want to help
    • Environmental activists
    • Digital divide activists
  • who want to learn
    • Hardware tinkerers
    • Software tinkerers
• Other people
  • who buy stuff from us retail (customers)
  • who buy stuff from us for repair (scroungers)
  • who buy scrap from us for recycling (recycling industry)
• Gizmos
  • that can be used and there's a market for above (marketable stuff)
  • that can be used but nobody wants (unmarketable stuff)
  • that are broken (useless stuff)

Driving Forces

Moore's Law

(Exponential growth of computer capabilities)

Moore's law drives the obsolesence of the computers, and thus the cycle of people throwing stuff out. All the gizmos we get are here in a large part because of Moore's Law. Someday this will give out and hardware will plateau. At that point the number of gizmos we receive will drop.

rfs 09:50, 24 Jan 2005 (PST)