[sf-lug] how to get computers?

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:14 PM, bobbie sellers <bliss at california.com>
wrote:

> they may be
> > willing to buy in, but without an accommodating
> > process, they lose, and, it seems to me, unfairly.
>
>         This is sensible to me as few people understand
> how difficult it may be for the differently-abled to
> bring a computer back to their home.


Good point.


>        While it may seem counter-intuitive to let people install
> other than FOSS operating systems on whatever computer they obtain
> it may be just impossible to prevent.


True, we can't prevent it, but we can get a feel for who wants to help us,
and who just wants a computer to install Windows on.  My concern is that if
we don't try to take some reasonable measures to weed out the Windows
leeches, we will lose the energy of volunteers who feel taken advantage of
if they were to find out that these boxes were just used to run Microsoft
Windows.


> There doesn't seem to be
> any practical way to prevent any one who carries a computer away
> from doing whatever they please with it including selling it or
> giving it away to other parties.


True, and I would actually _like_ to see people sell our machines, as long
as they sell them with FOSS on them.  Sure, maybe the downstream end user
will then install Microsoft Windows, but at least that end user has paid
value for a FOSS box, and, equally important, the seller has gotten value
for selling a FOSS box.  One day, that seller will recognize that there is
value in promoting FOSS per se, and IMHO that is a desirable outcome.

But the best outcome of all is finding people who see value in the Debian
pool / RPM pool and want to use FOSS because it is inherently valuable.
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