On 27/08/16 13:41, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
El Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 08:15:04AM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
deia:
you get an intuitive feel [...] if there's anything "off" i'll know about it.
[...]
It doesn't mean you have to change anything, sleep badly or risk not being able to deliver what you promised because you suddenly need to raise to higher standards of purity in every conceivable subject. At this phase we know you'll do the best you can. It's ok. I'm just trying to suggest you might at your leisure, start taking a look at some websites, keeping track of some agendas and even maybe visting some events, so that you can start forming an opinion about broader issues. And maybe even letting them know about your project (anyone can do that, I guess) in ase they might be interested.
Thank you, Xavi, for putting this better than I could. I agree with everything you said in your email.
Luke, Xavi is right. Maybe I can summarise by saying: we're not asking you to commit to anything concrete right now - I already backed the crowd-funder - but it would at least be great to know that you won't rule out seeking expert independent advice on this front in the longer term, especially if production scale increases.
Please see anti-sweatshop groups as potentially valuable partners like ThinkPenguin and CrowdSupply and the FSF, who will want you to make a success of EOMA-68 implementations as an ethical way for people to meet their computing needs. And please don't fall prey to the overconfidence bias, Dunning-Kruger effect, or System 1 thinking about this. You are a smart fellow, but you are not an expert in Chinese labour relations, so - despite your intelligence - as a human being, you risk over-estimating your present abilities in that area.
And it is a fraught area: "According to the China Labor Support Network, more than a quarter of the labor force in China is at risk of occupational poisoning." (Source: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/inside-chinese-factories .) Factor in other risks besides poisoning, and the percentage of the labour force at risk is probably very high indeed.*
The world isn't perfect: there might not be a factory that is 100% ideal. But just as the EOMA68-A20 is more ethical than the Intel Skylake or the Raspberry Pi in ways that it takes detailed knowledge of the field in order to understand (e.g. knowing about the Intel Management Engine, for example); so there are likely to be factories whose managers really do make conscientious efforts to avoid bad practices, but which can only be reliably identified by people with detailed knowledge of the field.
Thanks again for your time. I also want EOMA-68 to be a success :)
- spk
* Another example:
"There are reports that children ages 13-15 are forced to produce electronics in China. Based on the most recently available data from media sources, government raids, and NGOs, hundreds of cases of forced child labor have been reported in factories in Guangdong province, but the children are often from Henan, Shanxi, or Sichuan provinces. In some cases, children are forced to work in electronics factories through arrangements between the factories and the schools that the children attend in order to cover alleged tuition debts. The forced labor programs are described as student apprenticeships; however, the children report that they were forced to remain on the job and not allowed to return home. Half of the students' wages are sent directly to the schools, and the children receive little compensation after deductions are made for food and accommodations. In other cases, children are abducted or deceived by recruiters, sent to Guangdong, and sold to employers. Some children are held captive, forced to work long hours for little pay." (Source: https://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-products/ .)