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On 23/09/10 08:01, tom wrote: > > What license fees??? In previous ventures the Indian government charged manufacturers ~1,000,000 USD for hardware license to build devices they've paid for the development of. But it is kind of irrelevant, the design will have cost a certain amount, that isn't included in the $35 figure. Sure if the Indian government wants to move that cost to the taxpayer it is their choice. > What software costs??? Someone has to make and keep it working, fix bugs, ensure releases work correctly. > Have you never heard of FLOSS? Yes, but it isn't free of costs just freely redistributable. If someone else was making this software work on your hardware, then the marginal cost could be low (although it doesn't sounds like that is happening), but it isn't a zero cost item, one still needs to install it, test it, track and fix bugs, distribute updates. None of this is priced in the USD 35 price tag announced because it isn't a retail price, or even a finished product price. The next stage to 100,000 devices is costing the government 6.3 million, so there is $63 dollars per device already. Okay some of that cost may be reduced per item if they produce more of them, but a lot of it will be per item cost. > What mark-up - the government is doing this for themselves? If it was a retail product the retailers would have a mark-up, I was making the point that a $35 component cost computer is nothing new. If that is what they wanted they could go to any number of Taiwanese or Chinese manufacturers and get a tablet already built and tested for a similar sort of cost that this device will probably cost them in the end. Whilst I'd be happy to learn that the Indian government is suddenly more capable than the evil capitalists in product design, distribution, etc, history doesn't bode well for state run design and manufacturing. My suspicion is the $35 figure is more to do with keeping tax dollars flowing into someone pet project, hoping people naively accept the headline number and that they don't stop the think. Seems to be working. ... SNIP rant that capitalism is all a huge conspiracy... -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq