RE: Linux Demo Day

[Al Hudson <nospam [at] york.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, SIMS, Paul, LCTL wrote:

> You seem to have missed the point entirely - why should they bother giving
> shelf space to stuff on which they make almost zero profit when they can
> rack the M$ stuff up high flog it by the cartload at a healthy markup.

Surely the point is that it is libre, rather than gratis, software? Profit
has nothing to do with linux's 'freeness', you can charge as much for it
as you like.

> I doubt that you'd walk into PCW see a 8-foot high stack of retail Win98,
> Orifice 2000, etc, without they were (a) actually shifting boxes and (b)
> given incentives by M$ to do so. At the end of the day, the market is still
> an M$-dominated one, no retailer is going to go against the market until the
> alternative gives them a commercial advantage.

I don't see why not; Cheapbytes do it in the US. The reason Win98 and
Office sells is not particularly because of the commercial advantage MS
gives PCW, it's because it's damn good software - customers want it, and
demand starts supply. If enough people ask for linux, they'll stock it -
supply demand.

> Meadowhall has Tiny, plus the (primarily) computer games shops who are not
> averse to shifting the odd M$ product Tandy. At the end of the day, the
> first stumbling block is getting permission to stage such an event in the
> centre. Get beyond that I'll show more interest.

Tiny eh ;) I think perhaps I might go out one day and see if I can find a
bit of venture capital to set up a real pc shop in Meadowhall. There
appears to be a gap in the market ;))

Cheers,

Alex.

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