You might not know it by looking at the Summit United Methodist Church on East 16th near OSU, but in its basement radicals conspire to learn open-source software, as they help bridge the digital divide and reduce the stream of toxic e-waste.
Not far from the frat houses and student pads is Weinland Park to the south. To the east and north are other low-income neighborhoods. Members of those communities make up the bulk of Free Geek Columbus clients.
Somewhat similar to Habitat for Humanity’s ‘sweat equity’ approach, people who accumulate 20 hours of work — testing, taking apart, and rebuilding donated equipment — are eligible for a free computer, monitor, and printer. But some of them keep coming back well after that.
“A lot of volunteers come in to learn more sophisticated computer skills that they then can go apply at a job or use on their own… we have high-school students right now, trying to get a leg up, jumping into the college computer game,” said Kirk Kimmel, a Free Geek Columbus board member.
Free Geek is using a version of Linux called Ubuntu, to gently wean people from Windows.
“It’s specifically designed for users to go on there and do the daily tasks that computer users do — browse the web, check their email, copy their photos off of their digital camera, scan some things in, and print some things out… that’s part of Free Geek’s thing. We want people to be able to use these tools to the best of their abilities. We don’t want to handicap you in anyway,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel used buying a car as an example to compare open-source software with proprietary software.
“Once you buy it (a car), you can modify it as you see fit. You can fix it if it breaks down. You can change its color. That’s your inherent right after purchasing it. But a lot of the proprietary software companies are saying ‘No, you don’t actually own the software, you’re technically licensing it from us. So , you can’t do certain things because we say so, to protect our corporate interests, even though you already paid us, and hey, by the way, in the future we might make you pay again.'”
Another Free Geek Columbus goal is to reduce the flow of toxic e-waste that ends up in our landfills or in the lungs of impoverished children taking computers apart in countries such as China and Ghana.
“If a computer isn’t working or doesn’t meet our specifications, we break it down into it’s component parts and recycle them with recyclers that we’ve investigated , to make sure they don’t send materials overseas.”
Not-for-profits may also get computers and computer training through a grant process that Free Geek oversees.
More information can be found online at FreeGeekColumbus.org.