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Re: [LUG] drivers; business models

 

On Saturday 11 December 2004 14:35, Simon Avery wrote:

So we see the result when I setup a new PC for a relative, with XP on it
... but also with _old_ hardware for
others - printing for instance

Good comments, but you're seeing it from a support viewpoint (as are
most in here I guess, given that the average knowledge level in this LUG
is way higher than Joe Average) - from Joe's POV, "Hey, my scanner
works, and I didn't have to press a button." has got to be a good thing,
no? 

Yes.  To reiterate more clearly, on first setup this machine did not print.
The printer was nothing like new.
It had, bundled with Windows XP, a driver whcih purported to be for it.
But it didn't work.
At all.
Having downloaded (perforce) the new drivers the printer worked fine.
Not a hard job for me, although Debian has it more easily sorted than the 
infrastructure cloud of WIndows and its applications, but an unreasonable job 
for the user concerned, who essentially, and modulo my presence, had unpacked 
a new PC, plugged in an existing printer, and switched it on for the first 
time.

So, out of the box, _not_ a working solution.

In each case the current drivers had to be sought on the Internet, and
downloaded and installed, before the system was remotely satisfactory.

Satisfactory to you, or to Joe? IME, Joe doesn't care if the colour's a
little off, or he can't batch export in jpeg, or the colour depth
doesn't have his particular favourite and so on - he wants his picture
on the computer, that's all.

Yes.  Again, to reiterate more clearly, the scans were not usable.  Not 
printable legibly.  IME if Joe is using the scanner and printer as a 
photocopier, he is going to want to read what he prints out.

Two years ago HP made US$ 2 000 000 from Open Source operations.  THey
are unlikely to ignore that or anything that is _commercially_ associated
with it.

That sounds great, until you realise that HP made  $us 73,061,000,000 in
2003.[1] 73 Billion dollars. The Open Source revenue is NOTHING!

Sorry, there is a shortage of zeroes here.  There should have been three more 
in there, 2 Billion $ was the revenue.

So that makes 3% and rising, which is relevant.
IBM make, it is reported, more from their Linux business than from their 
patent licencing.
These are non-trivial amounts, and rising.
-- 
Dr Adrian Midgley          GP  Exeter              www.defoam.net
Open Source is a necessary but not of itself sufficient condition.

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