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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

FOSS Dreams, Blockbuster vs Netflix

I can't exactly remember what the dream was that I had, but the conclusions I got when I woke up seem worth sharing. We can share Free Open Source Software, FOSS, at Libraries, Blockbuster and NetFlix. If we had original disks at these places for loan to people it would be a fast way to distribute software to many people who either don't want to burn the CDs or don't have broadband internet access. I doubt any of them would mind getting free content to distribute, however I have had problems convincing the local library because the are concerned about distributing software since you couldn't do this with MS software for instance. They don't

Blockbuster 3 at a time service is great since you get 3 movies from the online store and those in turn get me 3 more movies from the store while the online store resends the other 3. Netflix has been limited by the speed of the mail, but since the Blockbuster plan allows me to rent one more in the store for each I get online plus on more from a coupon you printout online it is many many DVDs per month, depending on how fast you return and rerent I would think you can get up to 12 DVDs per week allowing for 1 day to watch them, and the weekend too. So if you got the first 3 DVDs mailed on Monday get them on Tuesday and recycle them at the store on Wednesday for 3 store DVDs, you can get those for a whole week, then you get the 3 DVDs you recycled at the store on Friday or at worst on Saturday recycle those at the store over the weekend and that would be a total of 12 DVDs per week, you might easily get 49 DVDs per month, one can be a store rented game as well with the coupon. It is theoretically possible to get even more if you can mail them back the same day you received them but you wouldn't have time to watch, I mostly pass the store rented ones on to the neighbor to watch. Anyhow it is a great deal for $18/month plus tax, recommended. More movies then on cable, don't get me started about TWC, I currently don't have any TV service from them, because they had technical problems and are expensive. Unfortinatly I just read in the Monday July 30 IBD that they are limiting the instore rentals to 5/month. This really reduces the possible rentals. So if you have a store close to you Blockbuster is the best one, if you don't NetFlix has online downloads and beats them on price: $17 for 3 at a time.

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