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Acquiring USB Flash Drives in Bulk
brandotheninjamaster
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So a friend of mine and I have a business idea of putting open source antivirus/spyware/etc on a flash drive and selling it. We have gotten most of the grunt work done. We have designed a menu, selected programs, ran through tests and tested them with people who know nothing about computers or how to protect themselves from malicious software. So far so good.
Now we need to able to move these things while generating profit. We need to acquire I'd say about 50 flash drives at a reasonable price. I really have no idea about how to go about doing that. I've looked online at some companies, but they seem pretty fishy. So has anyone here acquired or know how I can acquire these drives at a reasonable price? I'm looking for something around 1gig and maybe (would really like but not essential) something that uses U3 technology or equivalent so that our customer can just plug these things in and everything would run on it's own. I think San-Disk are the only ones that do the U-3, but you never know. Thanks in advance PA!
Now we need to able to move these things while generating profit. We need to acquire I'd say about 50 flash drives at a reasonable price. I really have no idea about how to go about doing that. I've looked online at some companies, but they seem pretty fishy. So has anyone here acquired or know how I can acquire these drives at a reasonable price? I'm looking for something around 1gig and maybe (would really like but not essential) something that uses U3 technology or equivalent so that our customer can just plug these things in and everything would run on it's own. I think San-Disk are the only ones that do the U-3, but you never know. Thanks in advance PA!
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3DS FC: 4699-5714-8940 Playing Pokemon, add me! Ho, SATAN!
If you want to do this you'll either have to write your own AV software or ... well, that's about it, really.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
I was going to pipe up about getting permission to redistribute other people's software, but on further reading it doesn't look like there would be any restriction on it.
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney
I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask for permission, though.
I'm pretty sure it's any GPL licensed software, not just something you've developed. There's nothing to restrict you trying to sell it. Of course, if it's freely available online and you're not making any changes to it, there's nothing to stop your potential customers from just going online and downloading the program for themselves, so it doesn't seem like a particularly effective business model.
Currently painting: Slowly [flickr]
Assuming he's looking at using GPL'ed software for this, it's not only legal (and not a copyright violation), it's encouraged, so long as the source code is included with the software. As long as he's paying close attention to the licenses, he's not doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical. So let's talk about cheap flash drives instead of making unfounded assumptions based on corporatist propaganda about how IP "should" work, eh? :P
I've used iPromo for bulk USB purchases in the past, and I've been fairly satisfied with both quality and pricing. $3.25 a pop for custom-branded 256MB drives is pretty hard to argue with.
Charging money to redistribute open sourced software is most likely fine, so long as he abides by the fine print of whichever open source license covers the product. He would have to look up the licensing agreement for whichever programs he wanted to sell copies of and abide by their requirements. Usually this just means making a copy of the source code available.
As for the flash drive distributor, they can't say anything about what you do after you've bought their product. It's yours to sell at that point. And guess what? If they wanted to be in the business of selling their product with software included, they'd be doing just that.
The trick will be finding a wholesaler or distributor with a low enough price point to make the profit margin on this worth the time it will take to pursue. Do yourself a favour and work out all of your costs, and estimate how much time this is going to involve, and figure out the profit per hour. If it's less than you can make at a real job, just get a real job and avoid the risk of not being able to sell these things at all. You'll probably also need a business number, and don't forget: You'll need to report this as income.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
http://www.leaderpromos.com/usb-flash-drives.asp?lid=hp
Electronic composer for hire.
The FSF (Free Software Foundation) disagrees:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney
While I do not have a law degree, many of the people at the FSF do. And given that the FSF was founded to fight for the open source movement and has helped draft the current verisons of the GPL, I think we can safety say they know what they are talking about.
Complying with the GPL with a finished product is fairly easy. If customer requests source code, provide it in a useful format. If he uses a BSD licensed product, it's even easier. Many companies make a living repackaging and selling open source products.
http://portableapps.com/
or are you making boot drives?
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm
I mean, shoes aren't exactly a novel idea but that doesn't mean several companies can't make good money from making and selling shoes.
Definitely source your USB drives from a promo merchandise company. That way you can get them branded with your own company graphics. Find a merchandise company that will not only do on-stick branding (stick a logo on the USB drive) but can also print graphics for the packaging and you basically have a commercial product. Call it The Saveastick or The E-noculation Drive and pay me loyalties.
If you're a bit interested send me a private.