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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."
It _IS_ meaningful though. I'm going to assume the copy the plantiff had was an OEM copy, so Microsoft didn't even make $200 off it-closer to $20 prob to begin with. By the time all of Microsoft's costs were added up, I'm sure it was at least $2000. In other words, if one out of every 100 people that have Windows forced upon them do this, Microsoft breaks even. If enough people do this, it will stop us from have Windows forced upon us by computer OEM's.
This is a great document. My only minor quibble is i'm afraid at moments he tries to be "clever" and that could potentially make you look like a smartass in court. Which of these questions are *necessary* and which are just trying to be clever? The "WinXP is worth $10." "Okay, then will you sell me 10 copies for $200, please? I would like to make an order." sounds on first read like the author is just being a smartass, but this really is an important little interchange because later on in court you need to be able to say "i asked the company if they would sell me a copy of WinXP for $10 but they declined." However some other bits seem to just be annoyedly hacking at a customer service guy with a script:
:)
"Then how did you come up with the $10 price figure?" "I just know it's the right amount." "So what you are really doing is guessing. Well, my guess is the software is worth $1,000,000. Tell you what, let's split the difference. Send me a check for $500,005."
I don't think the "tell you what, let's split the difference" is necessary. Oh well.
Perhaps someone should make a repository of stories from people who tried to do this. Find out what worked, what didn't, who caved, who didn't, and what seemed unprofessional and pissed off the judge. I would love to see this become a widespreaed thing. I would participate in it myself, except I do not own an x86 computer
4000 linux geeks going "i want a windows refund" is easy to blow off. 4000 linux geeks dragging company representatives into small claims court equates to actual policy changes...
-- Super Ugly Ultraman
The author spends a lot of time talking about his inability to document the license and the provisions he didn't want to agree to. Perhaps he could save a lot of trouble by just photographing or videotaping the license. I'd reccommend both because its easier to get a hard copy for court of the still photo, and you might want the video to provide evidence you selected NO and then reformatted the drive and then installed an alternate OS.
Another choice might be to boot into Demolinux or Knoppix, then open the license file and print it. This combined with videotaping the process from opening the box to installation of Linux on the then formatted drive would be pretty convincing.
Per his description of small claims court the judge isn't going to want to watch the video anyway, but having it might convince the company to refund or settle out of court.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Two conclusions are possible: the judge in question already knew what Linux was. (Doubtful.) Or the judge was simply satisfied that the plantiff had installed something (i.e., not pirated the original software), and that he could name it easily (i.e., didn't pause to invent a name).
Why do you automatically assume that you are some elite clubmember who knows what linux is? Let me tell you a story, about something that happened in 1998.
I got stopped by a police officer outside of my apartment in the bay area. He immediately took a hostile attitude towards me, and accused me of being on drugs due to an genetic eye-condition that causes my eyes to not be able to contract. After dragging me out of my car, and trying to search me and being taken aback by my awareness of my prevention of search rights, he called for back up.
The second cop car got there to cool things down (the first cop and I did get physical, but I was defending myself.) and saw my t-shirt and immediately pulled the other cop aside. He walked over to me and said, "So, are you a programmer or do you just run Linux for fun?" We then had a discussion about Linux, my programming job, and the other cop got suspended for his actions.
This was in 1998. Don't assume people don't know what Linux is just because they aren't in an IT field, it just makes an ass out of you.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
(this is from painful, and recent, experience)
I've had the same types of experience with W2k and (very recently) XP. Had a D-Link WLAN setup, and the machine would just randomly stop recognizing the WLAN card.
OTH, the Suse on that same box had no problem. The WLAN was installed after both systems were installed; both XP and Suse recognized and set up the card instantly. But XP operation was quite dodgy.
So, I think it's more of a "YMMV" situation for both operating systems.
IMHO, both Linux and MS-Windows suck to about the same degree. The difference is this: in Linux, I see progress; in MS-Windows, I see a fast retreat in flexibility, configurability, and user control. With the stuff coming up in Longhorn (including (especially?) DRM), I don't see the future getting any better for MS products.
Plus, I have fun with my OS, and Linux is *fun.* MS-Windows hasn't been fun for years.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
When there's a MS License involved, there's never a simple answer.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere