Talk:Individual sale?
Mr. Negroponte told me at Linux World Boston that there is a web page co-ordinating an effort to set something up for people who want to sponsor purchase of machines for the third world by buying machines at an artificially high price. I will attempt to retrieve the information and link it here. --Charlie
how many commercials versions ?
I may assume for USA $300 would be an ultra-chip model. Not for me in Russia.
I would surely purchase such a unit in Russia for $100-$150. I would think twice about $200. I would certainly ignore it for $300 - this is price for 2nd hand notebook. The onlky hardware change is to add usual dial-up modem. Perhaps removing card-reader to keep the same price/size.
To me this is laptop that i would not be too afraid of beeing stolen/broken. That i can take with me to any travel.
Raising the price above $150 to me is entering value ("value" is not money here) area of notebooks - and here OLPC instantly loose - it obviously has less value than a notebook. And i'd just don't need notebook for, say, travels - i would be afraid of loosing/breaking it. It would became cheap slow notebook and would not be OLPC any more
Though such a price may shrink margins so it will not be funding of OLPC project by such a retail version.
Idea on Preventing or Discouraging Resale
A common practice in our country is to provide the recipient or the parents of the recipients a recurring benefit for staying in a program.
In the case of the OLPC project, as long as a child continuously shows that he or she is using the laptop and has not sold it (i.e. bringing it to school, presenting completed homework on the laptop), the child or the parents will be eligible for further government support such as food allowances, health care or other benefits.
They would lose the benefits if they sold the laptop.
Jbdiego 14:11, 6 February 2007 (EST) (Philippines)