Using Computer Stores to Spread Open Source?

DigitalRaptor asks: "I live in a small city with about 4 or 5 computer stores, most of whom I know personally. None of these stores offer Open Source software on the computers they sell (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc), and none of them have anything in place to educate their customers about spyware and viruses. I'd like to approach them with all of the relevant information in a presentable format. I think this would be a great way to spread OSS and to help the average consumer at the same time. Is there a project out there for this purpose that local advocates could use to approach computer stores in their town?"

Comments

make it tangible

[icepick72]

First of all the Mozilla project (for example) should produce a boxed version of their product suite. Store customers want somthing tangible. Microsoft could offer everything as downloads only, but instead they package it into a fancy box. I would suggest the cost of the open-source software should cover the packaging and that's it.

Re:Killing the revenue stream...

[miketang16]

I work for a computer repair shop, and yes we do make a lot of our money by cleaning viruses and spyware off of systems. However, we also never let a system leave our shop without it having an AV program, Ad-Aware, Spybot and MS Anti-Spyware on it. We also explain to the customers how to use them.

The open source idea is good and whenever I work on a system I'll try to present customers with open source options.