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Adopt a KDE Geek
sultanoslack writes "In an effort to bring together KDE hackers that are students, unemployed or by other means lacking in hardware and capital with users in that have spare goodies, Adopt-a-Geek has been launched. More details are available on how to help out. Been wondering what you can do to help out? Here's your chance!"
Aaaaw, look at that.. not-so-cute geek!
Harald
From the Relevant Page:
So keep this in mind before you ask why they're requesting this. Thanks :).
If only somone had adopted me 2 years ago when I was dialing out to a shell from a TRS80 for internet access and coding purposes.. Ever use 'ed'? Ever use it every day for 6 months? There are many more geeks out there in need of help than just the KDE team. That 50mb IDE drive you are using as a doorstop could revolutionise somone's work. Find somone in need and help them out!
-MadCamel [EnergyMech IRC Bot - www.energymech.net]
My geek can program in C/C++, Java, Perl AND LISP.
:D
And he's captain of the chess club!
I'm so proud of my adopted geek!
Sig.i>
I think it's cool.
:)
I remember when was I younger I had to stop coding for almost year when my power supply blew and I couldn't afford another one...
It put me behind my classmates (the good ones that is) - a year of knowledge is quite a lot
I would certainly consider giving it a good home here. I'm not discriminate. You can give me an 8086 and I'll be happy. All that copper will be good to keep away the evil mind-controlling radio waves.
[insert witty comment here]
But if you *really* want to help out.. why not get in touch with some of the organisations that rebuild old computers to ship them to developing countries (with Linux as the running OS)..
i belive techsoup.org has a list of organisations near you
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
I mean... pretty much the same, partly - live a secluded life, usually very eccentric, scare away "normal people."
But Hermits can't hack out bulletproof code... hmm...
FYI: back in the old-old days, Castle owners found it "fashionable*" to gave a hermit or two living on their property to... do whatever hermits do. There ARE professional hermits.
* I can't think of another word - I mean, besides peer pressure, why else would you get a hermit? At least your geek would write you some CS homework code for some pizza (I would assume)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
How long till we see the commericals? I know thier coming.... For only a stick of memory a day, you too can help a KDE geek!
Free Instant Site Inclusion
Warning, warning about to get slashdotted
:)
by Yocihc on Monday 27/Jan/2003, @11:45
SLASHDOT crowd coming!!
lol
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
I feel I need to upgrade to a better system to expand my programming knowledge and help society and Kde in general. I am in desperate need of newer hardware and software since my low end athlon +1800MP with a half a gig of ram just doesn't cut it. A sun workstation 2000 with 2 gigs of ram as well as the Enterpise edition of Forte for java, Borland Jbuilder Enterprise Edition, as well as the full version of Kylix is what will really help me for my quest to help man kind. To help me write great software for you a nice scalable server to help beta test my high end client/server apps would also rock.
PS, I also wouldn't need oops I mean mind a dual XEON 3ghz with the Enterprise edition of Visual Studio.NET and Adobe Photoshop to port some of my great free software to Windows that I am sure I oops I mean none of you can live without. But I can live with just the 2 sun's.
Thanks guys I appreciate your help in this since I can't afford any of these nice toys oops I mean tools. Will you please adopt me.
http://saveie6.com/
If you know how to ask you can quite easily get ahold of most hardware (except HDDs) from technology companies. As long as you can live with 1-2 years old hardware and some DIY to set things up, you can get most for free.
A Case of Bawls - $29.99
Caffeniated Soap - $6.99-$14.99
Caffeine Candy Sampler, v3.0 - $19.99
And various other assorted goods and sundries.
Now, some people make think this is a joke post, but its not. Even if its not hardware, I think anyone who uses KDE should feel compelled to donate something. As someone who does a lot of Volunteer work for local charities, it always feels good when someone recognizes all the hard work you've put into a job. And since alot of these guys can't really spend alot of money on luxury items, I say give em something to make a geek's day a lil brighter.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
The idea might seems quite funny to at first glance, but it actually makes sense.
I am involved in KDE (maintainership of one of the web sites), and I know of cases where lack of hardware has indeed prevented people from working on very interesting projects. It is not only about the speed of compilation, it is also about disc space. This is especially true for projects dealing with Gnome interoperability, as this sometimes requires to compile _two_ huge desktops from source.
Of course, lack of hardware will not stop things forever - other geeks or some distribution will step in eventually - but it has slowed down interoperability effords.
Donate to the opensource programmers today and children of tomorrow won't have to throw their educational dollars away on constant computer upgrades and expensive commercial programs. I've been an out-of-work programmer and it's great to spend some of that free time giving back to the community but it's hard when you can't pay rent let alone buy the hardware you need to test so and so feature against. Now that I'm working I'm certainly not rich but I try to give a little here and there towards projects I like.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
During my formative years as a geek I (as I'm sure many of you did) had to make do with whatever was available. Although being pampered and showered with cool gear would have been nice, my lack of up-to-the-minute equipment did not damage me - in fact, I would go as far as saying that my abilities to fix equipment in the middle of a field come directly from those early days and put me and my skills in demand today.
The reason the requirements for Windows keep increasing and increasing, every release requiring the most modern hardware is because the developers all have modern hardware and don't see it as a problem to make full use of it. (Games are even more of a culprit here, but that's a little more forgiveable)
Whatever hardware the developers have is what the hardware requirements will be in the end; if that is a gameboy and a piece of string then so much the better for the project.
Carpe Daemon
Sponsoring a hacker and giving money to oxfam, concern or whatever are not mutually exclusive.
At the same time, you can't really say people should only give money to charities that give food to starving children in Africa. People give to what seems important to them. I can understand those who'd give contributions to KDE that might directly benefit them in terms of a better desktop, as opposed to a charity that works in the 3rd world which doesn't.
Also remember that although these charities do good work and should be supported, they are effectively running at full speed to keep things where they are. There's a reason Africa is still such a hellhole, when South America and Asia are dragging themselves out of grinding poverty. Every time a part of Africa looks like it might be about to make serious progress, various tribal tensions are played off against each other and it degenerates into civil war. Of course that's a gross over-exagguration, South Africa for instance is doing quite well, but considering that Zimbabwe has basically gone downhill since they were given independance, largely because Mugabe leveraged tribal mistrust and favoratism, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to want to give to a cause that they know stands a good chance of moving things forward immediately.
Don't get me wrong, since about a month ago I started giving some money by direct debit to Concern, who do a lot of such work in 3rd world countries. But I'm not kidding myself. My money will do some good, but it's unlikely to actually improve things, it'll only stem the misery.
> Been wondering what you can do to help out?
> Here's your chance!"
Actually, I'm a die-hard GNOME user (I tried KDE but I found it toyish, lame, and frankly, suckish). I'm wondering what I can do to help SABOTAGE the KDE project. Please give me advice on how I might engage in such activities.
I hate when some bleeding heart socialist steps in and says money could be better spent "on the needy" in cases like this. Almost everyone reading slashdot has some kind of discretionary income. For some it's $5 a month, for other's its $500 a day. Either way, part of enjoying life is spending what you have (cash, time, knowledge) you things you enjoy. Are there other people out there who "need" things. Yes. Does that mean we should give every spare dollar to them? No.
Unless you live in a grass hut you made with your own 2 hands, dress in recycled fig leaves, give back to the land more than you consume, and produce more food personally than you consume, shut the hell up. If someone wants to spend money on the development of open source software, they should have that right without being accosted by some hippocrite. Now take the PC you used to post on Slashdot offline, sell it on Ebay, and give the money to the "needy".
Love, Proc6
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Jeez I don't know, is it house trained ? Will I have to have it neutered ?
Remember, a geek is for life, it's a big decision...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I'd be more than willing to really ADOPT a geek. In the sense that the geek moves to my place and I pay for his food and living. I've got lots of hardware here that I just might need one day and dont want to give away, but I wouldnt mind if some geek used it. Besides, I could always use a little help while coding and I sometimes feel lonely, so I'll have someone to cuddle. Geeks are just adorable - kinda like having a cat to play with. Only geeks play with a ball of ethernet cable, not a ball of yarn.
Plus I heard that fat geeks are really warm - could save some on the heating bill.
And my obsolote motherboard or CPU will help them live another day?
I have no intention to give my money to anyone for free. I can, however, give away my obsolete motherboard or CPU which I couldn't sell for a price that would justify the hassle of auctioning/whatever it.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Excuse me, but how was I accosting anyone? There are two groups in need in here - the unemployed programmers and the school children. I personally think that if you're giving away an old computer, it would be better off going to a school. You disagree. Fine. Maybe you're right, maybe not, but why do you see me having a different opinion to you as a threat?
I never advocated coming along and taking your PC away from you or forcing you to give money to some people and not to others. You're free to do with it as you will. People have the right to spend money on developing open source software. I never said otherwise.
Neither did I say you had to give away every dollar/pound/euro/whatever you own. If you read the article, you will see that this is about old PCs you have and are no longer using. My post was in the context of someone who is already giving something way. I was not debating how much to give, but rather where was in most need. Surely that's an important question to ask when donating to people? And keeping a single computer for my own personal use is not hypocrisy.
Donate to the opensource programmers today and children of tomorrow won't have to throw their educational dollars away on constant computer upgrades and expensive commercial programs.
It's a nice idea but, as you say:
I've been an out-of-work programmer and it's great to spend some of that free time giving back to the community but it's hard when you can't pay rent let alone buy the hardware you need to test so and so feature against.
Which is surely a good summary of the problem with the open source model. It relies on someone paying the programmers for the love of open source. Now there may be enough university departments and software manual publishers to feed the likes of Larry Wall, which is great, but I can't see this model ever scaling to the point where it 'employs' anything like the number of people currently working on commercial coding projects. You need some way to collect the money, on the basis of what work is the most useful. And the conventional way to do this is called a company in a free market.
Cf science, which started off as a hobby of the upper classes, was then patronised by the upper classes, and is now mainly funded either by business or the public sector.
I like KDE. It helps me to earn a living. I already pay for it, in the sense that I buy boxed distros. I wouldn't be averse to paying more, so that some of the money went to the people doing the coding. But I doubt if my French accountant would let me pay the programmers in hardware...
Virtually serving coffee
You might want to check out the Woman of KDE Website. Not quite what you were looking for but I guess you are ugly and beggars can't be choosers right?
[Please type your sig here.]
Giving to schools is a fine thing and needn't be exclusive to helping out KDE. In fact if every active KDE core developer were given a new computer, this at most might be enough for one school. In this case, there are probably about 20-ish (or less) core developers that could use upgrades. We're not talking about big numbers here.
Now lets say that one school switches to KDE / Open Source from MS desktops. The cost savings in that alone outweigh the cost of diverting machines which might have gone to schools to KDE developers. In fact there have been a good handful of schools switch to KDE based desktops -- dragging an Open Source envirionment with all of its Free tools and such behind it.
Remember the ideal is for people pushing technology in schools to keep in mind both hardware and software concerns; this is a partnership, not a competition. When you send in your hardware donation I'll even be glad to direct it to a KDE Edu developer.
mmmmmm I already did that; he's 26-years old and also known as 'boyfriend'. I must say, they don't cost much these geeks and they do come with extra features - though I don't know if that also goes for a KDE geek ;-)
-
MissMp
Which is surely a good summary of the problem with the open source model.
The first problem with the open source "model" is that there isn't one, at least not in the sense of a standard, documented business model, or even any realistic idea about how "all" software could be produced by it. In other words, there are a thousand open source models, and none of them are really complete. That means you have to define precisely what you mean by "open source model" before you criticize it, else you're just attacking a strawman, and one whose details are known only to you.
I can't see this model ever scaling to the point where it 'employs' anything like the number of people currently working on commercial coding projects.
Aside from the question of what model you mean, exactly, why would you expect open source to 'employ' that many people? More on that below.
You need some way to collect the money, on the basis of what work is the most useful. And the conventional way to do this is called a company in a free market.
The problem with these statements is that you're assuming your conclusion. How? You're thinking only about the world of off-the-shelf packaged software as the way in which software is developed. In fact, only a small fraction of the world's software is developed that way. The vast majority of the software that is written is in-house, custom software. And the majority of software developers are employed in writing this sort of application.
Here's a more realistic view (in my opinion, at least): There will always be certain categories of software that will be produced primarily in the for-profit-software-company style. Some people, particularly those who run or work for for-profit-software-companies would like *all* software to be developed that way, but there's a great deal of software that can never be written that way, because there's just no market for it; it's too application-specific. Finally, there's a goodly chunk of software that can benefit tremendously from an ("an", not "the") open souce approach. Most of this software falls into the category of "infrastructure" -- operating systems and their components, development tools and libraries, basic office and business applications, etc.
Now, all of this software, from all categories, is needed. People want it, and they're willing to "pay" for it. Some of this "paying" is in the form of donated labor, equipment, etc., some of it is in the form of a P.O., and there are other forms as well. A fundamental rule of economics: Where there is adeqate demand, a supplier will step forward. People want the software, ergo, it will get written, one way or another. And only programmers can write it. And programmers must eat. Therefore, programmers will get paid for writing software, one way or another.
It *is* possible that open source software will reduce the number of programmers employed in writing software, but if it does it will be because of the greater efficiencies provided by open source. All of those programmers hacking out in-house, custom apps will have this massive base of tools and almost-right applications that they can use, so they can do the job in less time, with less effort, less people and at less cost to their employer, freeing up that capital to be employed elsewhere.
And that, my friend, is unarguably a *good* thing. Sure, it may mean that the world needs fewer programmers, but that's also a good thing, since it frees up all of those smart people to apply their effort and intellect to other, more valuable tasks. The only way that all of this could be bad would be if it got us into a situation where the software we needed could not be produced, maintained or supported, and economics would not seem to permit such a situation to exist.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'm all for supporting hard up developers, I was once one my self.
If anyone lives in the Newbury/Reading/Basingstoke area (UK) and could really do with some extra kit, I've probably got some spare bits floatings around (256MB ram a couple of HDD's, boxed Mandrake 8.0) drop me a mail and I'll see what I can do.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.