Open source software and recycled gear equals PCs for needy schools

Installfest for Schools in California's Bay Area couples recycled desktops with Linux community volunteers to donate PCs to schools

By Denise Dubie, Network World, 02/28/08

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One person's trash is another's treasure, and this weekend open source vendors and community members plan to join forces with a Northern Californian recycling organization to transform hundreds of desktop and laptops into PCs loaded with Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice and more to be donated to needy area schools.

Untangle, an open source application software maker, joined forces with the Alameda County Computer Resource Center, or ACCRC, to first take in and then turn around hundreds of computers loaded with software for local schools. Dubbed Installfest for Schools, the event involves volunteers from the Bay Area Linux community coming together to install open source applications on recycled computers provided by the ACCRC in four California locations: San Francisco, Berkeley, San Mateo and Marin County.

While the Linux community hosts many generic 'installfests,' this is the first event in which the software experts will be coupled with the hardware recyclers at ACCRC. James Burgett, as executive director of the ACCRC, isn't certain what to expect but knows the more hands involved the more charitable donations his organization can make.

"The state declared old computer equipment toxic waste so as long as we are finding a reasonable use for the recycled desktops, we are preventing toxic waste," Burgett explains. "We are also giving them to underprivileged schools, homes, homeless shelters, youth hostels -- any organization in need for the most part."

For his part, Burgett used to dumpster dive and troll garage sales to find old desktops and laptops to refurbish and sell in order to feed his drug habit. But for the past 14 years, the former homeless man has been using his high-tech skills for good by donating refurbished PCs to needy organizations. Burgett, who has been featured on CNN's Heroes series in the Defending the Planet category and worked as a firefighter in the past, founded ACCRC to evolve his gift for computers from something that supports his habit to something that helps others.

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