[CoLoCo] Ubuntu at Best Buy

[Neal McBurnett]

On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 12:19:03PM -0600, Jim Hutchinson wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Scott Scriven <ubuntu-us-co at toykeeper.net> wrote:
>     * David Overcash <funnylookinhat at gmail.com> wrote:
>     > But...  it costs money.
>     >
>     > I'm gonna have to say we're one step FURTHER now...  ; )
> 
>     Yeah, it's only $20.  It must not be very good.  I think I'll buy
>     Vista instead.  I mean, sure, it costs a lot more, but that's
>     because it's a *real* OS.
> 
>     ...
> 
>     The retail price for Ubuntu really needs to be higher...  they
>     could sell a super-deluxe server edition for around $300
>     (including regular and "alternate" CDs for a few architectures),
>     and a home version for at least $100.  It would be the same as
>     what you can download, but people would think it's worth more.
> 
> 
> I don't think they can do this. One of the core values of Ubuntu is that it
> will always be free. They can charge a price for pressing disc, packaging and
> such which makes the $20 price about right or maybe a bit high, but $100 would
> probably cause problems as someone would be profiting on something that is
> guaranteed to be free. I would think (hope) Canonical would challenge that.

Of course they can.  You're confusing "free as in beer" with "free as
in freedom".  Best Buy can't take away the freedom for anyone to
distribute copies of whatever open source software Bust Buy put on the
CD, or the freedom to modify and resell, etc.  But they, and anyone
else, can sell it for whatever price they want.  If Canonical tried to
limit Best Buy's right to do that, Canonical would be the one that got
in legal trouble :)

And I think that's a good thing - just don't buy it if you don't think
it is a good deal.

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/