TLUG and government grants

[James Knott]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> James Knott wrote:
> 
>>> I don't know about the Toronto project, but the Portland FreeGeek
>>> project has a very elaborate way to sort, test and classify incoming
>>> hardware as re-usable or not. The first priority is to try to reuse
>>> things, especially those which can be brought back to life with a new
>>> capacitor here or a new power supply there.
>>>   
>>
>> The problem with this, is that the labour to do this often costs more
>> than the finished product is worth.
>>
> Not if you're using volunteer help.
> 
> As I mentioned in an earlier mail, at FreeGeek people "earn" their
> computers with 24 hours of their time.

And after they have their computer?  Do they continue on with other
computers? Also, how many volunteers are technically competent to make
such repairs.  I have many years experience in electronic repairs, on
minicomputers and other complex systems.  Even so, I'm not sure I'd want
to work on PC hardware, given the lack of documentaton, parts, etc.
While many problems may have an easy fix, many others don't.  Then what
happens to the stuff that can't be fixed.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml