The end of support for Windows 10 is 14 October 2025. This date also happens to be KDE’s 29th birthday as well as International E-Waste Day. What is more, International Repair Day follows shortly after on 18 October. The irony is deep, but what is not ironic is that hundreds of millions of functioning computers could end up becoming security risks or discarded as e-waste. This means manufacturing and transporting new devices, and that is perhaps the biggest waste of all: hardware production alone can account for over 75% of a device’s CO2 emissions over its lifespan.
The FOSS community had an opportunity here — and we took it! In November 2024, KDE Eco made a call to action at SFSCon to coordinate a global, unified campaign across FOSS communities to upgrade those Windows 10 computers to Linux. We thought big and acted boldly, and many people around the world heard the call and came ready to act! In this talk, I will present what we did in the campaign and discuss what worked, what didn’t work, and what is still to come.
