[wlug_org] [POL] Resellers understanding of 'free' licences.

[Ian Beardslee]

I was helping one of our now ex-staff work out what she needed for her new 
one person business.  In the end she went for a new laptop running Windows 
XP Pro (trust me, it was the best choice).

I suggested that rather than cough up the money for MSOffice, I'd burn her 
a CD with the latest OpenOffice on it and install it for her.  She was 
telling me that when she went off to buy the laptop the salesperson (The 
Laptop Co) didn't seem to understand that there are no licence fees or 
number of PC restrictions on OpenOffice and was 'scaring' her with the 
idea that it was illegal.

In spite of the discussion on Monday :-) should the wellylug do things (as 
part of the installfest promotion) like promote things like OpenOffice to 
resellers as valid alternates - or do you think we'll just run into brick 
walls where people are just interested in the markup they get from pawning 
MSOffice onto the great unwashed, not for the greater good of the end user 
and society as a whole :-)