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Slow And Steady Leads To Windows Refund Success
linuxwrangler writes "By proceeding carefully, documenting everything, being persistent and keeping his cool, Steve Oualline was awarded a $199 refund for his unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP. See his Linux Journal howto for the details. Hopefully this is the first of many victories."
What percentage of people who intend to install Linux are going to jump through these hoops?
1%?
KARMA TAG! You're it.
Oh come on - you don't do it directly to cost Microsoft money, but to encourage OEMs and Microsoft to let PCs be available for purchase without the Microsoft tax. It's a matter of principle surely - if you don't want Windows, why pay for it?
Anyone who does an analysis of monetary value (or cost) against time spent will not be reading Slashdot anyway...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
One word: Laptops.
49 20 68 61 76 65 20 74 6F 6F 20 6D 75 63 68 20 66 72 65 65 20 74 69 6D 65 2E
The lawsuit is an interesting approach.
If your aim is simply to reduce your contribution to Bill Gate's wealth, you best approach is to buy your hardware from the few companies that make OS free, or Linux dedicated boxes.
It's more the principle of the thing.
That said, it's an incomplete story... the author hasn't yet gotten his check. It's doubtful that the company would disobey the court order in this case -- you have that kind of problem with small claims rulings against small businesses and individuals, but large corps aren't likely to disappear overnight and wouldn't want to deal with the contempt of court ruling that would inevitably follow -- but until he receives the check it's still up in the air.
Additionally, the philosophical point here is to screw MS. Well, this case doesn't do that. Maybe if a few thousand cases were lobbied against a single manufacturer, but right now it's the computer maker that's out the money, not MS. And while they've lost money, they haven't lost anywhere close to enough to revamp their licensing agreement. Worse yet, even if several thousand orders were served against a single computer manufacturer the end result is likely to be that that manufacturer goes belly up -- they'll be out a great deal of money upfront, decide to renegotiate their licenses with MS, and then lose competitive pricing due to the new pricing structure. This really is a case of squeezing the middle man.
I don't see anything that's going to change this short of massive governmental oversight into MS contracts... if nothing else a court order stating their contracts have to be public (which would probably be unconstitutional) or equally draconian interference.
No, I don't have a solution. Most complex issues don't have simple answers.
Yeah, who needs principles, anyways? Everything should be determined by its dollar value!
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Read the article: he bought a LAPTOP. It is awfully hard to buy an x86 laptop without a Microsoft OS on it.
Manufactors are justing going to add this simple phrase to the computers they sell. "Free with every computer purchase: Windows XP". Loop hole closed, value of software is now $0.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
And the absence of the "Microsoft Tax" will equate to a whopping $10 in savings. It makes absolutely no difference at all to the cost of your system. You aren't going to see OS-less laptop prices drop $199.
They can throw XP on there, I don't care. I might or might not use it. A massive assault on OEM-included OSes ultimately has no price impact, and it becomes obvious what it really is: a geek jihad.
I am all about new and varied technology. I enjoy using different types of software and hardware. Linux is an excellent platform for everything from hardware tinkering to large-scale database work. But I don't approve of trying to stomp out the other guys. Microsoft is big, and has been stomping out other guys forever, I know. But Linux was supposed to built on higher ideals and such. The truth comes out: once we got a little more powerful, we're out there stomping for all we're worth.
Sad.
...
What this case boiled down to was that it would cost more than $199 for the vendor to fight this in court and therefore the vendor cut its losses and didn't fight it.
Do this too often to the point where the vendor thinks their total expenses will be more than it will cost to fight it and they will. And they won't need to fight every case, just the first one and use that as precedent.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The point is to illustrate the the hardware manufacturers don't really mean it when they say you can get a refund, since they have no clear refund policy in place. In the end, we want M$ to stop forcing hardware manufacturers into bundling Windoze. If they have to issue enough refunds, it will happen. M$ is banking on the fact that most people won't go to the trouble.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
From the article:
It looks to me that the plaintiff agreed to settle his claim for $10. I suspect that if the judge knew the pertinent facts, the plaintiff would get only $10. He entered into an oral contract to accept $10 as his refund, and then (presumably) memorialized that agreement in writing (i.e., by letter). I don't think the judge would be impressed by the plaintiff engaging in the "bait and switch" tactics of agreeing to accept $10.00 to settle his claim in order to establish liability (which it wouldn't), and then renegging on the deal and demanding more.
So why did the plaintiff get a judgment for $100? Because the other side didn't show up:
As recounted in the story, the Small Claims Court judge properly made the plaintiff "prove up" his case. However, when the plaintiff did so he didn't bother to mention that he agreed to accept $10.00 to settle his claim:
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
It's 99 bucks everywhere online (with purchase of hardware).
You do realize that unless it's bundled with a new computer, it's not legitimate? Read the MS OEM license agreement.
So linux zealots think they're stickin' it to the man, but they're really screwing the vendors.
That's the whole point. If the manufacturer gets screwed like that sufficiently often, they will perhaps start offering OS-free computers. Remember: it's not Microsoft, but rather the OEM who bundles Windows with everything. It seems perfectly logical that they should be the ones refunding the money. Also, remember that Windows is not free -- by most estimates, it costs major OEMs around $100 per machine (which then gets passed on to you).
I don't care about who gets screwed. I just don't want to be forced to buy something I don't want. I would say that most "linux zealots" are exactly like me -- they don't care about "stickin' it to the man".
To use an analogy: would you like it if every DVD player came with 5 bundled Disney DVDs, thus increasing its price by $100? Even if you don't really have anything against Disney, would you want to pay the extra cash for something you don't want?
It's a safe bet that the averge small claims court judge doesn't know what Linux is.
Uh, what? You just said, "Don't assume that's why I came to the conclusion I did." Then follow it up with a stereotype about people you know who work in law offices. Are you trying to say that there are more geeks as police officers than judges? Are you trying to say that they don't read the news?
CNN has ran 779 stories on Linux. It is not some elite club, and most people know that Linux is an operating system. They may not know the details, but most people know that it's an operating system at least.
You are assuming, based on stereotypes, that judges will not know what Linux is. No matter what you try to label it as, that is what you are doing.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
unless you have XP installed and running in which case you already accepted it
Installing Windows requires that someone (not necessarily the computer owner, not necessarily even an adult capable of entering into any contract) a button on a dialog box that claims to impose on you restrictions on a product after you've already bought and paid for it and for for no additional consideration to you. Maybe that's legally binding, but I'd want to see the court cases upholding it before I paid much attention.