When I teach beginner computer classes, I always try to work Moore's Law into the curriculum. Moore's Law, I like to explain, is a poor geek's best friend.
For you non-geeks, Moore's Law is the prediction, first made by Intel founder Gordon Moore in 1965 and confirmed by experience, that the number of transistors in the cheapest CPU will double every 12-18 months -- which means that the speed of computers at any price point predictably doubles over the same period. Moore's Law is the reason your new computer gets old so fast.
The significance of Moore's Law to low income nouveau geeks lies in what I like to call Callahan's Corollary: If you can't afford the computer you want now, wait a few years and you can have it for free.
Well, that might be little exaggerated. By the time a stranger hands you an old PC for nothing, nothing is probably pretty much what it's worth (unless you're a nonprofit organization getting a donation, which I'll get to in a second). But with some effort, an individual now has an excellent chance of finding a 1999-vintage P2 system -- a machine that cost $800 to $1000 new -- for less than a hundred bucks. And that almost-free system will do just about anything an ordinary home computer user needs it to do...
Assuming it's got the right software.
A good used computer usually began its career on a business or institutional network. When it's replaced and sent out the loading dock door, either to a commercial recycler or as a gift to a nonprofit, its hard drive (if it still has one) is almost always bare. Whoever's going to use it needs to provide a new operating system and application programs. And that's where things get complicated.
Most users expect to use Windows. But that used P2 isn't going to run XP, even if you can afford to pay $200 for a retail copy. It wants Windows 98 -- which you can no longer acquire legally, off the shelf, at any price.
You can get get a copy non-legally, of course... from your brother's old box of software, or the used PC store where you don't ask for documentation, or even the library. And you'll probably end up loading Office or Works the same way, for the same reason. This gray-market approach is the only way most used PCs ever make it to their second lives. It works out okay for most individuals because, as much as Microsoft's lawyers hate it, there isn't much they can do to stop what they can't see.
But what if you're a nonprofit organization trying to get large numbers of donated computers into low-income households... enough households to make a real impact on the digital divide in your community? If you're in a city like Cleveland, you've got a pretty decent chance of getting lots of donated computers; corporations dispose of thousands every year. But to get their attention and get those machines, not to mention some funding, your efforts have to be as public as you can make them. If your donor base knows what you're doing, Microsoft will probably notice too... which means you don't want to be loading unlicensed MS software on those donated computers. Just ask your organization's lawyer.
Some nonprofit recyclers, like Cleveland's wonderful Computers Assisting People, have special arrangements with Microsoft that allow them to load Windows 98 (or XP) on recycled systems for $5 a license. But here's the hitch... those licenses can only be legally transferred to nonprofit organizations, not individuals.
So community technology organizers who want to make Moore's Law work for our low-income neighbors have a problem. The cheap, capable computers are out there. But without cheap, legal operating system licenses, what good are they?
In effect, the Windows license system suspends the benefits of Moore's Law for poor people.
For at least ten years the solution has been obvious in principle -- find an Open Source operating system that works well on older processors, has a graphic interface that won't freak Windows newbies out too badly, and comes with versions of all the applications that people commonly use (or has an easy way to download them). For the last couple of years we've been inching closer and closer to this Promised Land -- the land of Easy Free Software for Everyone.
Now I think we've finally crossed over.
Ubuntu Linux has been out for over a year, but the newest releases have been available only since mid-Fall. Go look at the web page for all the history (it's a version of Debian Linux being sponsored by a billionaire named Mark Shuttlesworth). I first heard about it from Phil Shapiro via a CTCNet email list, but it turns out the ECHO project in East Cleveland has been using it on recycled PCs since September.
Like almost all Linuxes, Ubuntu is a free download, or they'll send you a free CD if you prefer.
It loads, by default, with Open Office and Firefox as well as AbiWord and Gnumeric ready to run. (AbiWord and Gnumeric are operationally indistinguishable from Word and Excel, handle ".doc" and ".xls" files just fine, and run much better on a P2 machine than Open Office.)
It has a wonderful "package manager" that makes it easy to install lots of other free programs. No, I mean easy.
It's also easy to tweak the preferences so Ubuntu will look and act just like Windows, if that's what you want. And it finds and connects to Windows networks effortlessly.
But here's the part that's got me all atwitter: Ubuntu loaded without a hitch, and is running at very acceptable speed, on two donated Dell Pentium II computers, each with less than 200 mhz of RAM, that I got from a local business donor last Wednesday. The only special effort required was finding and installing a Linux driver for the Dells' integrated Crystal sound cards (I needed help from a Linux cognoscentus for that... but only the first time.) In the PC recycling world that's a walk in the park.
Friends, trust me, this is a big deal. A major barrier to digital inclusion for low-income people in Cleveland and elsewhere has just come down. Microsoft licenses just became a non-issue.
Moore's Law and Ubuntu -- the poor geek's best friends.
I think I'm in love.
P.S. Here's a screenshot of my Ubuntu desktop with a Gnumeric spreadsheet open. Look familiar? (Click for a closer look.)
