Old Isn't Always Inadequate
10 days ago: Climate Breakdown Means We'll be Publishing More, Not Less
Earlier this month we wrote about "Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers" - companies that tell you to throw away perfectly functional but "old" devices, then purchase new ones (just because of their business decisions or commercial interests). Sometimes they make devices no longer work by simply expiring some certificate - that's how sinister and reckless they've become. They just simply don't care; their own standards encourage planned obsolescence. They like to wrap it all up as "Security". It's also an impediment to accessibility, so it's a subtle form of corporate ableism.
So we focused on Mozilla. Because it fakes being some sort of goodwill charity. It's not. It's called the Mozilla Corporation.
We had previously mentioned how Microsoft, Apple, IBM and others do the same; today we want to talk about it.
When you have all the source code, and "old" hardware remains available, no single corporation - or any corporation for that matter - can prevent you from making it still work. For instance, if only to make a point, today I use a stereo from 30+ years ago (same age as my wife's alarm/calendar) and PDA from 20+ years ago. They use standard sockets and they still function like they always did.
That's still relatively "new" stuff. As this GemLogger put it (linked yesterday): "I found this absolute gem in my father's garage. I remember using this when I was like 6 or 7 years old. I thought it will be a fun project to make it work again, but then, I plugged it in and it works just fine!" BRG stands for Budapesti Radiotechnikai Gyar (Budapest Radiotechnic Factory), one of the major radio equipment manufacturers on the Soviet market. The MK series was intended as a portable boombox for camping, weekend houses, etc."
Some of this stuff goes back to the 1970s. After about 50 years it can still work.
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075? █