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Dell To Offer Windows-Less PCs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the backdoor-in-the-fine-print dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "As a follow-up to the Slashdot story Dell No Longer Selling Systems w/o Microsoft OS, News.com is reporting that Dell will sell systems without Windows. Microsoft's new licensing terms stipulate they can't sell PC's without an OS (hence the removal of the NoOS option), so Dell will be offering FreeDOS as an option for some computers. It will come with the computer, but not installed, so that users may install any other OS that they wish. It's a very creative interpretation of Microsoft's licensing terms, and one I imagine Microsoft didn't have in mind."

4 of 547 comments (clear)

  1. What a heap of crap? by popeydotcom · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Why put freedos on it? Why not Linux?

  2. Score one for the lawyers... by mshiltonj · · Score: 1, Redundant

    .. for weaseling their way around the MS license agreement.

    However, I doubt this will be long lived. MS will close that hole soon. They have more lawyers than Dell.

    Nice try, though.

    --
    Software Wars
  3. You pay microsoft tax anyway by Spacelord · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Only problem with this plan is they plan to charge you just as much whether you buy one with windows or not.

  4. Why FreeDOS? by Kraegar · · Score: 1, Redundant
    Perhaps because putting linux on would have been putting in a competing OS. FreeDOS is certainly no competitor to Windows. Sounds to me like Dell wanted to keep the option open, but not step into the grounds of overtly opposing Microsoft. Sort of taking the middle ground.

    As for the price being about the same, and only being available to corporate customers (or at least more readily available to them) it all begins to sound like Dell isn't so much offering an alternative to Microsoft as offering a way to avoid having duplicate (and useless) Microsoft software licenses lying around.