On 9-4-2013 11:21, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
Am 08.04.2013 um 10:12 schrieb Sebastian Beschke:
as Nikolaus recently asked for visions regarding future incarnations of
OpenPhoenux, I would like to bring up the topic of a fair, sustainable
and transparent supply chain.
Thank you for doing so!
It’s a topic that is gaining momentum at
the moment,
And it should have years ago, so better now than later.
Let me briefly motivate: As many of you may know, most electronic
products available today are produced under horrifying working
conditions. (...) As supply chains in
IT are multi-tiered and extremely complex, it is very hard even for
device makers to be certain what exactly is in their devices in terms of
fairness.
As Nikolaus confirms (unsurprisingly, as you can imagine) :-(
I don’t think any consumer really wants to buy this sort of
devices, and that we should push towards making the process more fair
and transparent.
And just START anywhere, I think.
I have to admit that I haven’t been involved with OpenPhoenux so far, so
I don’t know where exactly the project stands on these issues, and I’d
be glad to learn about it. The GTA-04 Facts and Reasons page [4] states
that the board is made “in Germany under proper working conditions”,
which I think is a commendable start.
I’m interested to know how the community – and Golden Delicious – feel
about working further on these issues. This could start with making the
For my part: thank you for bringing it up. These issues are important to
me in most goods I buy or use, but as you say and Nikolaus explains:
there's not enough information and actually, hardly any option. I felt
the same as you write about mentioning "proper working conditions" as a
product property.
Yes, I really appreciate these efforts. But to be honest, I don't see how we
(OpenPhoenux) can achieve anything significant in this direction.
I think the key word is "significant". I know that in Germany, for
example, all things ecological (food/clothing) and renewable
(food/clothing/energy) are much more developed right now than in the
Netherlands. I don't know how that was ten years ago. In the Netherlands
though, ecological food has managed to stay off the main stream for at
least twenty years before the turning of the century. Yes, for those
with enough time and money there was a limited choice, but for most
consumers it was some kind of laughing stock, if they knew about it at all.
Nowadays all major super market chains have at least the basics in
ecological and/or fair trade. Many clothing stores sell products of
ecological/fair trade cotton and other (renewable) fabrics. The price
difference is still there in many cases, but only if comparing to the
value-line of no-name products.
So I doubt that we as a small community project can do it better. The reason
is that we have no "buying power" to request more transparency from our
suppliers.
I think we can start with mentioning the fact that we care to know, but
are not yet able to find out. It at least shows commitment to this area.
The mention of "Made in Germany" used to say something about quality (it
still does, of course ;-) ), but then people may read "under proper
working conditions" and think 'yes, of course', without taking the hint
that that is not the case with those other phones. Adding that we do not
yet have insight in our supply line shows it is not by coincidence that
we care about proper working conditions.
They do not value us as a signifiant customer and before they invest into
finding
out (or even improving their own supply chain),
It's an important difference indeed! The realization that even the
investment in finding out is too high...
And usually we don't have much choice. There is only a single source
e.g. for TI OMAP, for a Micron PoP Memory chip, for an OPTION UMTS module.
And they buy it (maybe indirect) from the manufacturer, who in turn may
have several plants with different working conditions, depending on
where the plant is situated.
I have some more emails in this general "direction" to send, so if it
doesn't fall off my plate, I'll try finding an email address and send
emails to TI, Micron, Option and maybe some others to ask if our chips
are always from the same plant and if they can give any information
about it. We might have a checklist for the major components: "sources
available y/n", "documentation available y/n", "supply line transparent
y/n", "supply line approved y/n", "'fair'-ly manufactured y/n" and
probably some more ...
My bank (ASN) has a strict rulebook about which characteristics a
company must have (or must try to obtain) before they will invest in it,
and make those choices traceable and transparent. We are not there yet
and may never be, but it is a step in the direction.
And we only have their declaration that the components conform to ROHS.
Because no one asks for more, and no one starts asking because it's not
available. I'm not sure if it was posted on this list, but I read about
this government spending on workstations in Scandinavia where the
project actually was given to Lenovo for their "fair" line of products.
If I recall correctly, that line of products was started just for that
project.
Now a government has a bit of a magnitude larger buying power than all
of us combined, but the stamp/certification is developed for those
products, and the underlying supply chains must confirm to it. They
might as well put the stamp on all components that comply. By just
starting by stating what we have, we might shove the bell shape of
normal distribution a bit in the right direction ;-)
Although I may ask them where they get their solder paste from, and they
probably
can only name a distributor, I don't expect to be able to find out from which
mine the tin is really coming from and under which conditions it is produced.
To really find out this needs a project and some travelling, social engineering
doing interviews etc., i.e. quite a lot of time and money.
Another point to consider is the pure number of components. We have approx.
250 components from at least 50 different brands. Who is willing to do the work
to research and track that initially and in the future?
The odds are, as usual, against us :-( Maybe once we start, some
information trickles in via social media? I have some contacts in
South-East Asia, and once we find out some of our components are from
that region, maybe I can try find out more.
supply chain transparent, as has been done by Nager-IT for their
partially-fair computer mouse [5]. (I could not find any information
about this on the wiki, so if there is any, please kindly point me to it!)
The next step would be making efforts to source more components and
resources from “fair” sources (meaning good and safe working conditions,
no child labour, adherence to standards of the International Labour
Organisation).
There are simply no alternatives to choose from that still fit from the
dimensions
into the case of a smart phone...
That's why it's a "next step" ;-)
At FIfF (a German NGO), we have a working group on “fair computers” [6],
and one thing we are looking towards is connecting with open hardware
projects such as OpenPhoenux. If there is some interest in this topic in
the community, I think we could contribute at least some knowledge and
contacts. As such, I am looking forward to further discussions with you.
The key question will be how much a "fair" OpenPhoenux increases the
cost for such devices. And how much this can be compensated by higher
demand by being "fair".
I think that the proposal at first is knowledge transfer. Even if our
components are not "fair", part of "open" is then acknowledging it is not.
It may turn out like with Android and iOS that 99,9% of the world population
will think those are already "open" enough and buy the cheapest variant they
can get their hands on.
For an important part, that is because for that 99.9% "openness" was
never on the agenda in the first place. The first sign of lack of
openness is inconvenience, but even that is only visible after
buying-time convenience wears off. The first sign of lack of "fairness"
is real human suffering. Many more than 0.1% of the population cares
about poor people suffering.
If we (not only OpenPhoenix, but broader) could only make the (lack of)
suffering visible at buying-time, it is easier for consumers to at least
question the lack of that information on other products.
Well, eh... that's it for now ;-)
Best regards,
Boudewijn
CC: openmoko-community; sorry for forking and sorry if you got it
duplicate, but maybe there's some interest in the subject there as well...
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