Text 29355, 60 rader
Skriven 2012-06-01 09:35:26 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
     Kommentar till en text av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
Ärende: Dutch parliament officially rejects ACTA
================================================
Hello Richard,

On Thursday May 31 2012 22:03, you wrote to me:

 RW> Many of us that use electronics in our livelihood find the
 RW> premature failure of equipment a real pita however.  Sure
 RW> would have been nice to give  the manufacturers, and those
 RW> of us who depend on their products for our livelihood a bit
 RW> of future proofing in the form of a drop dead date in the
 RW> farther future when techniques that are reliable can be
 RW> developed.

<shrug> Back in the early nineties I worked for a company that - among other
things - made controllers for industrial soldering machines. Even then it was
known that the transition to lead free solder had to be made and led free
solder already WAS available then.

The industry had TWENTY YEARS to develop the technology but as usual the share
holders sat on their greedy arses, more interested in short term money than
long term investment in the future. And so they did nothing until the deadline.

It is always the same story.

When working for that same company, in 1992 I was doing some final tests on a
piece of measuring equipment that I had designed and had written what we now
would call the firmware. The boss came breathing down my neck and asked what I
was doing. I explained to him I was doing some final tests to insure that it
would keep working after 1 jan 2000. WHAT?! he exclaimed, that is over eight
years! Is all the rest working? Yes, I said. Then stop it. Ship it to the
customer right now, so that I can send a bill.

I don't know if that baby of mine survived Y2K. It probably did. The company
went belly up in 1996, so I never knew.

 RW> I can understand the immediate mandate on lead water pipes, after all
 RW> everybody drinks water that passes through them, but this one carries
 RW> too high a price tag for those of us saddled with unreliable equipment
 RW> made using lead free solder.

The industry had TWO DECADES to migrate. Average life cycle for consumer
electronics is three to four years. There was plenty of time.

 MvdV>> The same will happen with lead free solder and in the end we
 MvdV>> will have a better world.

 RW> Maybe, we'll still be throwing away a lot of stuff with
 RW> other dangerous chemical involved in it just because it no
 RW> longer works.  The key is intelligent disposal imho.

Does not work. With limited production stuff that is used in controlled
environments, like medical stuff, controlled disposal is possible. With mass
consumer electronics, controlled disposal is wishful thinking. You can't stop
people all over the world from just dumping their broken radios or cell phones
in the waste bin.


Cheers, Michiel

--- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20110320
 * Origin: http://www.vlist.org (2:280/5555)