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New Dell Clickthrough Software License
Petrol writes "I just read that Dell is installing a new mandatory click-through software license at first boot. From the article, Dude, you're getting screwed:
'Kat and I just received the Dell Inspiron 5100 notebook we ordered from Dell Canada. We quickly ran across problems.'"
Let's start a pool on how long Dell takes to respond to this. I've got fifteen minutes from post-time. Anyone else? Prize: oh, I don't know, karma or something...
Carousel is a lie!
I'm finally connected to a Customer Care representative... She insists she doesn't have copies of the agreements, and that I'm supposed to go online and look them up myself. (?!) She says to use a public computer if I have to.
I think we've reached a new low for customer support!
Any key?
The worst part is that they wanted him to press a key that doesn't even exist on his keyboard!
And shut the fuck up.
Please send me $699 for the use of my username. Thanks.
.. shrink-wrap the laptop and stick a piece of paper on it.
"By openning this package you agree to the following license."
Before I may enter the website? Before I walk in the store?
How about before I get in the car to go to the store? Before I get internet access?
Before I leave the house in the morning? Before I get a credit card to pay for my ISP?
Before I wake up? Before the internet is invented?
Before I was born? Before the great landmass of Pangea split into the continents we know now?
Before the land that time forgot was forgotten? Before the cosmic dust coalesced into the planets of our solar system?
BEFORE THE FABRIC OF TIME, SPACE AND DIMENSION WERE TORN ASUNDER BY THE GREAT GOD ALGOROTH AND FASHIONED INTO THE UNIVERSE??
Fuck it, I'm getting an Apple.
I'd just send this off via registered mail:
....
Dear Dell,
By opening this letter, you agree to the terms of the revised license agreement herein:
You agree that any prior End User License Agreements to which I have agreed are now invalid.
Thank you,
I'd like to see them go to court over this stuff sometime. With any other type of product, you have some sort of recourse if it totally sucks, but not with software. According to the terms of the EULA, it doesn't have to actually do anything, but if it does do something, and that something is bad, then it's not their fault.
I've grown to hate dell so much in the last few years. That tech support call is vintage dell. I haven't had a good experience with dell tech support in so long, I can't even remember the last time. Their service personel are hopelessly incompentent...grrrr.
Let me just give an example:
I used to work for a company that had sold a large number of dell rack servers with PERC 3 (i think) RAID controllers. Don't know who made these controllers, but they sucked. BIG TIME. It was to the point where the systems with NO redundancy, just a simple harddrive, were far more reliable.
Every time a RAID controller died, we called dell, and every time they managed to destroy the damn RAID information! EVERY TIME! It didn't matter if they sent a tech, or tried to give us phone support, BAM! The whole thing went into the toilet and we had to try and rebuild it to the point where we could get some information off it.
I've seen a damn situation where a dell tech had to go replace a FRICKING HARD DRIVE. A HOTSWAP harddrive, in a computer that didn't HAVE a raid problem, and the bastard managed to kill the RAID! All he had to do was pull the bad drive, and slot the new one in, and the damn thing would have rebuilt ITSELF!
And on top of all of this, they are SO stingy about sending parts, or replacing faulty equipment. I am NOT going to spend a month rebuilding a whole box one part at a time. That is UNACCEPTABLE! I have to spend hours on the phone trying to work through tech support on an issue where I already know what the problem is and I just need them to send me a fricking part!
I really can't come up with a company I'd be less willing to buy a computer from. I'd buy one off a blanket from a cracked out junkie in Times Square before I'd call them again.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
There's an easy away around the EULA. I always install my EULAed software stoned drunk. No contract is valid if you're not in your sane mind.
Another alternative is to have your 5 year old child to install the software. He can't agree to anything.
You don't actually need to agree to the EULA to run the software. But if you don't, your license automatically falls into standard copyright law which basically gives you more rights than most EULAs.
Pharisee: The next person who says, "Dude!" is going to be stoned!
Person A: You said, "Dude!"
Crowd: Stone him! Stone him!
Person B: He said, "Dude!" too!
Crowd: (Yells and throws stones at everyone)
Me: Smoke is billowing from my Dell computer. I need a new power supply.
Dell Support: Okay, sir. Please run the Windows diagnostics tools from the start menu.
Me: I'm running Linux.
Support: (Confused at response not listed on script) Okay, close "Linux" from the file menu and run the diagnostics.
Me: But I'm... Er... It's not a software... Oh nevermind. *click*
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I don't see what the big deal is here. They told him he could go to a friend's house and read the license, but he refused.
For those of you considering an Dell Purchase, I suggest you read it.
I got to that dell screen too. I walked away from my computer, when I came back, my cat had agreed to the EULA. Dumb cat!
Dogbert: "Please read me the serial number on the inside of the case of your computer."
End User: 'But that will void my warranty.'
Dobgert: "Call me if anything changes."
My first experience with this kind of nonsense was with a box containing the install disks (and by "disks" here, I mean 3.5" floppies, this being about 13 years ago) for Macintosh System 6.3. There, spanning the gap over the disks in their little plastic tray, was a paper sticker proclaiming that, by breaking the seal, you agreed to...something. Of course there was no room on the sticker for the actual contract you were supposedly agreeing to by the tearing of a paper, and it wasn't clear where this "agreement" referred to actually was. But, trickster that I am, I found that I could slip the disks out one by one without tearing the sticker. (Looking back on it now, I suppose I could have cut the back of the plastic tray with a box-cutter, but no matter.)
Since then, of course, this silliness has escalated to the point where the events in the article come to pass: you are required to do something which you could do entirely by accident, which is supposed to signify that you agree to something you aren't told, and in fact have no way of finding out about without doing the thing you're supposed to do. Double Catch-22 ("Catch-44"?).
So how about this: we start sending mail (real, physical mail might make more of an impression, but email could be good for a larf too) to these companies, proclaiming on the outside of the envelope (or, in the case of email, in the Subject: or some other more obscure header line) that, "by opening this mail, you agree to the enclosed agreement". Then, inside, you have whatever agreement amuses you. For example:
If anyone ever tries to call you on their EULA, simply fire back that they agreed to your UALA (User Abuser License Agreement) too, and it's equally enforceable.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
They claim it's not a sale.
I claim I'm only loaning the money I gave them, and want it back.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.