6–11 Sept 2025
Technische Universität Berlin
Europe/Berlin timezone

What's Been Happening In The "End Of 10"? Presenting A Cross-Community Initiative To Bring Linux To Windows Users

6 Sept 2025, 14:15
40m
Room 1

Room 1

Conference Talk Main

Speakers

Bettina Louis (KDE Academy - Endof10 Campaign) Carolina Silva RodeDr Joseph De Veaugh-Geiss (KDE) Nicole Teale (eco.kde)

Description

Windows 10 security updates end on 14 October 2025 [0], which also just happens to be KDE's 29th birthday as well as International E-Waste Day [1] -- 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 devices [2] could end up discarded as e-waste. This means manufacturing and transporting new ones, 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 users 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, contributors to the End Of 10 campaign are invited to present what we did and discuss what worked, what didn't work, and what is still to come.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/lots-of-pcs-are-poised-to-fall-off-the-windows-10-update-cliff-one-year-from-today/
[1] https://weee-forum.org/iewd-about/
[2] https://www.canalys.com/insights/end-of-windows-10-support-could-turn-240-million-pcs-into-e-waste

Social Links

https://floss.social/@be4foss

Biography

Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss (he/him) is the community manager of the KDE Eco project. The goal of KDE Eco is to strengthen sustainability goals as part of the development and adoption of Free Software.

Headshot Link https://ev.kde.org/corporate/pictures/joseph.jpg

Primary author

Presentation materials