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Hardware Manufacturers Gouging Customers
rahlquist writes "An article over at infoworld discusses that buying that used router on ebay may not be a good deal if Cisco can find its way to screwing you. What's next, buy a used Ford and pay Ford to transfer the license for the onboard computer's OS or face piracy charges if you continue to drive?"
The bad news is that they are violating the gpl. :( I even submitted a /. article that is still pending after 2 days trying to deal with this. I need to recompile the kernel on one of the units I bought from them, but they won't release the kernel sources to me. *sigh*
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
At the rate that hardware becomes outdated, what benifit do they think they would have screwing their customers out of trying to recoup some of their costs?
Not to mention that every time I sell old hardware, it is for the express purpose of purchasing new hardware. Everyone wins.
"$15,000 is still a good deal... If the ownership of a system changes, our contract says the software has to be relicensed."
If I give up my ownership, do I get my $15K back? Something tells me no.
One thing they don't discuss in the article, but which I think would be legal, would be to permanently lease your equipment rather than sell it on eBay.
E.g. Used router for sale - $ 400
versus Used router for lease - $ 400 first month, $0 each additional month.
If you really need service contracts negotiated through me, then I do it for you at a reasonable hourly rate for my inconvenience.
If people can't be bothered to READ a contract before signing it I can't be bothered to care.
I do read that sort of thing and that is why I will only buy from scum like Cisco if I have no other choice. And I usually do.
You can buy sync serial cards on the open market you know.
As for non-transferability, BS. They can probably refuse to sell a service contract on the used equip, perhaps even deny you updates. But "going after" you for possessing/using a piece of used equip would never stand in court. Doctrine of first sale allows copyrighted works to be sold by their rightful owner and EULAs are only valid in Virgina. So unless you have an actual contract with a company that specifically says you can't bring in a used box you are clear, and any such clause probably wouldn't stand in court if you were willing to spend the money to fight it. (i.e. one unit from eBay isn't worth a fight, 1,000 from an acquisition probably is.)
Democrat delenda est
"Tague and others think the manufacturers' restrictions are just not right. "It's a flat out scam," he says. "Just because it's typical, just because the other guys are doing it too, doesn't mean it's OK."
How is it, in a nation where it is the will of the people that is to be represented and reflected in our laws and statues, our laws and statues reflect not the will of the people, but the will of an elite minority?
What more evidence do we need than this that ours is not a government by the people, for the people, but instead a government by those who have power, for those who already have it?
These businesses and corporations exist, and may operate only as we permit them to; they are by our permission.
We must revoke their permission. We must revoke their permission to buy laws which ensure their profit margins. We must revoke their permission to buy laws which mandate revenue where there ought not to be any.
What was it that the Justice Department lawyers told us, and the technology lobyist told us in their interviews; that it is naive, uninformed, and probably just childish of us to suggest that our government is in the pockets of corporations, and that corporations can "buy laws"?
What I say to them is that it is they who are naive. The corporate interests of today do not need to buy a single new law to oppress us, to wrong us, and to devestate us.
They do not, because our laws, our resources, our nation, were bought and sold to corporate interests long before any one of us were even born.
We are born into chains and we die under their weight.
If you struggle, it only drives those in power to bind us all the tighter. And they grin in delight. And they swim in their gold. And they build the flames higher.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
Go ask your company accountant about what an asset is worth if it can't be resold for its intended purpose. What this means is that expensive cisco grear that is being deprecated over 5 years is fraud (the kind your CEO can get thrown in jail for). The device only has scrap value once you open the box so it must be deprecated in one tax year. What does this make MCI worth seeing how much cisco gear they own and no one in their right mind would buy all of them.