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Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has announced a program to 'establish a vibrant community of computer refurbishers across 133 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa who will be authorized to re-install its Windows operating system in donated pre-used PCs destined for schools, charities, non-profit organizations and under-served communities...Microsoft will provide re-installation of Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000 Professional in over 18 languages. The refurbished PCs will be accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) and a special End User Licence as evidence of a legally installed operating system.' XBruticusX submits a story on news.com about the program.
establish a vibrant community of computer refurbishers across 133 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa who will be authorized to re-install its Windows operating system
I didn't know that the BSA had offices in Karachi and Djibouti. Who the fuck cares about Microsoft certification in the third world?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It is a shame that the refurbished computers can't be loaded with low cost Lindows.
I think it is great there will be a legal way to bring these machines online: having worked with charities, often the limiting factor was the difficulty of getting Microsoft to relicense the software. Obviously, part of the motivation is to stem the use of free software, which was previously the only surefire way to remain legal. The implementation question that remains is how expensive the refurbishing services will be... too expensive and the practice of simply using an unlicensed copy of Windows or punting and using free products will continue.
Sig under construction since 1998.
isnt there already a vibrant community of people who will install linux for free on old pc's?:P
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
While it is nice that people will be getting functioning (well, to Windows standards at least) computers, it nauseates me to realize that when the people using the computers enter the global economic system they will be 'hooked' on Micro$oft. Ugh. This is just like M$ 'donating' software to schools. It is not altruistic in the least, they just want to develop future customers.
...this seems to be a way for Microsoft to ensure that if the old operating systems need to be installed (on older hardware), someone will be "certified" to support them. Also, it's to ensure that the installation is legal.
It's basically second-party support.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
(I will bow to any proof that MS gives away licenses to American Non-Profit Orgs.)
I can see excluding Asia, Because much of that part of the world doesn't respect Copyrights, but still.
Is it just because MS is unable to establish the MS tax in the EU or something?--computers ship with OEM licenses that must be transferred along with ownership of the computer...
Considering that in several countries you can vist a shop to purchase a cd with windows longhorn even for less than $5. How many of these countries will actually care that you get a legal copy of windows with the referbished computer?
I guess its Microsoft's futile attempt to stop linux from taking over the world.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
I know they've extended it, but isn't Win98 about to be EOL'ed? Is that to say MS is sanctioning the installation of an unsupported (support, patches, etc) OS?
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
So I was close, and NOW say... odd that they'd support deploying something that's ABOUT to be discontinued in support.
Bad management trumps ideology - Show the world you want better leadership. http://www.timefornewmanagement.com
Not odd at all- they are relicensing a deprecated and almost completely worthless OS. They don't make or lose any money off of it and don't have to support it, but they get good free publicity because of this announcement.
As the saying goes "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts". (From The Iliad for those thinking it is racist.) This act is a trojan horse for Microsoft. They donate their wonderful products to those poor, pitiful people in the Third World so we they get them hooked on their technological crack. Once they get them hooked, they can peddle the more expensive crack because now everbody is hooked and has to have it.
Fight it people. Linux is free now and in the future. Can't say the same thing about MS Windows
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
I seem to remember a story on slashdot a while ago about open source programs (particualrly word processing programs) getting support for obscure third world languages because people who knew them could just add support for new languages themsleves. They were doing it more to help others in the region they came from so they didn't worry if there was a nice market or not. Microsoft may have caught on that the third world is going to develop into a bigger market and wanted to make sure that it wasn't already dominated by Linux.
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Thank you.
ItShare SA, Computer Angels, and Computerbank Australia, are related groups in Australia doing this already - but with Linux. We provide safer systems accordingly, without the need for third party software to be paid for - such as Open Office etc. Having a donated Windows box is all well and good (Now, I don't actually think its that good..;) ), but what about the unsupported nature of Win98, the virus and other security issues, and the need to pay for third party software (unless someone points them towards OO, and other FOSS for Windows...).
Nothing - well thats something.
here's where reality kicks in
Have you ever *SEEN* most "donated" PCs? You'll be lucky if they're even functioning, let alone coming with things like the Windows license, documentation, peripherals, etc. Take what you can get, if MS wants to make it easy for people to put legit versions of Windows on their computers... more power to them. It certainly isn't my favorite OS, but if people are going to install it (illegally) anyway, at least now they'll be able to do it legally.
Some people are going to talk about how Free Software has been doing this for years; and they're right, it has. However if you're in a situation where you're fortunate to even have donated low-end computers, you're going to go with what your users know. And before you start in with the "thriving community of *nix users" etc...how many of those in the thriving community are willing to travel to some third world country to teach people how to use linux? I don't see the volunteers...
This is mean. I'd imagine microsofts intention is to install windows 98 for free/cheap, then flood the client with adverts and reasons why they need to pay $100 to upgrade to Windows XP.
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
The double dipping for license fees shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, MS recently told the SEC that Linux is a significant threat to its revenue stream. This is simply a way for MS to enhance their cash flow, give them more money with which to fund SCO lawsuits, and play the PR game to show how "thoughtful and caring" it is. Gates and company are evil, but they're not stupid.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P
I realize that unfortunately rulings on EULAs here in the US have been mixed, but this kind of restriction is not a reasonable one. I bought the hardware, I paid for it, the software comes with it, you can't tell me when I sell the hardware that I can't sell the software. That's as outrageous as telling me that when I sell my car I can't transfer the "license" to run the engine control software because there was an EULA in addition to the standard sale contract when I bought my car.
Just because the stuff behind the scenes is done by software and the software itself is protected by copyright law, doesn't mean that a person who bought it can't use it in the standard way it is intended to be used. This kind of use just plain old doesn't require accepting any license - mark my words, the first auto manufacturer that tries this shit will get torn to shreds by an angry mob, and I think it will take something like that to get the commoners to understand how they are being raped by companies like Microsoft.
not easily anyway, not any modern distro with a windowing desktop that a non guru can install and operate. Not on them old 16 meg ram machines they won't. 95 will though, and will work perfectly fine, it will surf, email whatever, type a report,etc. I have this problem all the time the olden antiques I refurb and give away, I haven't found a linux equivalent that will do all this with a GUI on these pent 1s.
I still have my old mac 512k. This has a nice GUI that ran off a dang undersized floppy, and I think if I recall it has one meg of RAM, something small like that anyway. Maybe it even has only half a meg, hence the name, I disremember now, but it ain't much, but IT WORKED.
What is it, why can't we (I mean linux) have something that will even come close now without requiring at least 128 megs? Is it just technically impossible because of the way a unix like system is designed? I find even 64megs RAM to be the bare-ly minimum for anything at all practically speaking, and even then it's a kludgy buggy slow exasperating experience. And no, I don't mean installing a CLI only thing, or having to hand carve your desktop windowing gui-like thing out of rocks and old sticks and spending half your spare time keeping it running muttering incantantions and entering runeish commands from a terminal, I mean a slide in a CD and install it and it works thing. Nothing fancy,it don't got to be real fast, just a GUI and a few normal apps.
MS is smart in this case, even with piracy over there as a norm, it costs them almost nothing, and we're talking about a still mostly untapped market of hundreds of millions of people, over a billion easy really. Hearts and minds.....
You completely missed the point. It's not about whether the OS can run on those machines, but the fact that they are giving away/install an OS that is no longer supported (ie EOLed - End Of Life-ed).
And why did the post get modded up? Because it suggested that Linux may work on a machine that Win2K won't? Lamers.
Reinard
They're not giving away a damned thing. Due to their monopoly, the vast majority of machines already came with a license that was paid for once.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I think most of those that bash MS on /., would agree that they would not bash MS if MS themselves would not use FUD and bashing techniques against other operating systems. If MS flings mud, so shall we.
And every computer running their product is one less for the competition...
A Eula restricting transfer of the use of the product is rather worthless in most (European) countries I know, in Africa and Asia most people and governements couldnt care less anyway.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Man haven't you got it yet? We bash Micro$oft because THEY ARE EVIL INCARNATE. They are Beelzebub my friend and they couldn't give a shit about you, me or anyone else in this world. More money for the man is all they're interested in.
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This is NOT charity it's MANIPULATION. They are using their position to close up a little hole in the market called "using Open Source alternatives becuase you can't get legitimate Window$ licences", that is all. They could have done this years ago, but they didn't and they never would if it wasn't for the threat of Linux and *BSD.
Think about it. As an example, I've been involved in a community project to give low-income people computers so they can learn a bit about the Internet and IT and perhaps gain some higher-paid skills or just use their minds a bit more than having them jellified by that other great evil the television. Anyway, we get donations given to us by universities, companies and other organisations, with their discs wiped (or to be wiped) to comply with data protection laws. The Window$ licences aren't transferrable and therefore we use Debian on them all. Some of them need to write in Hindu, some in Arabic and a plethora of other languages. All this is achievable BECUASE we use Linux and it doesn't cost us a penny, except our time, which we are willing to give up.
Now the problem for Micro$oft is that these people then get to learn about computing by using Linux - imagine that eh? leaning about computing using an OS that isn't Micro$haft's - hasn't happened for years that. This is dangerous for them and it's all about potential or future markets and consumers, just the same as giving cheap software to schools is - hook them young, get them drinking Coke, wearing Levis, eating Big Mac$ using M$, they'll never know any different and they'll never leave you.
On your point about languages, it's got absolutely nothing to do with being NICE enough to give versions in different languages, it's because Linux is available in around 60 and non-English speakers will NOT ACCEPT anything else - it pisses me off enough if I don't have a spell-checker that understands British English.
Stop bashing Micro$haft you say?? I won't, I've been bashing them for 15 years now and I'll continue to do so until they are relegated to the history books as one of those bad periods in our history, like the Third Reich, the Crusades, the Bubonic Plague
Upgrade Your Life at www.computertorture.com
Hello, I hate everything in the world. However, I bequeath my deepest hate towards Microsoft for their charitable deeds, because as with all entities that spawned from Satan's uterus (bet you didn't know Satan was a woman), every good deed comes with vile ulterior motive. I won't be surprised if most of the users declare Jihad on the world, after having exhausted their capacity to restart the computers on an absurdly frequent basis.
So cheers to Microsoft for its relentless, evil ambitions. And remember, when the world is inevitably taken over by robots, the robots commiting the hate crimes will without a doubt be powered by the Longhorn OS.
what am I talking about? What are YOU reading, and why is this difficult to understand? 48 megs of RAM, you are OVER the top by a factor of 3x as much RAM by my criteria. I have a lot of old pent 1s at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 megs of ram, and hunting down and getting after market RAM sticks is extremely cost prohibitive, and a lot of these older machines take very precise sticks. Extremely, even if you can find the crap. The best I have done is on a 166 mghz machine that had a single stick of 64 megs in it, I got both redhat and knoppix to (barely) run on it. I'm on a 200PP right now, and it works OK,I like it actually, *after* I bought another 64stick, and then another stick of 128 megs ram,now it works swell, before it had come with 32 and wouldn't run (or install) RH7.1, the first distro I owned and tried. I've got 7.1, 7.2, mandrake 8.0, RH 8.0, various knoppix and a morphix, and FC1 here, and around 128 seems to be the magic number in non-guru land, for me anyway.
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See the problem really is the ram, not the cpu speed, near as I can see, and a free or 5$ machine is not worth spending literally 60-70 dollars on just to try and track down some oddball RAM. I'd add another stick of 128 to my own machine, but they want 90$ for it!!!! Not happening. I've borked a few machines now using RAM that alleged gurus told me "would work in your machine".
Now imagine you are joe third world, how hard it is going to be to get more RAM of the exact correct kind, or even maybe another hard drive that is large wenough to both install the system and have enough swap space. A lot of these machines only have like 600 meg hard drives. It's a pain in the tush to make anything but windows work on them. I don't even try, I mean after you've tried a dozen times, it gets old, and I'm not command line tweaking installing compiling all kinza crap for a freebie give away machine, I got other things to do.
I'm not trying to say it can't be done, but I am merely asking for a pointer to a distro with any example where someone has a normal system running a full fledged easy to install and config GUI on 16 megs on a low end pent 1, and I ain't seen it yet. Every example I have seen requires a lot of command line, and when you get done you still have to comamand line some window like thing, then do this that and the otherand it's still not much of a GUI. No thanks. I'm not a guru, just someone who gives away old boxes to kids who's families are so poor they don't even own telephones (yes, this is USA I am talking about), and until I can find a linux equivalent, these boxes go out the door with 95 or 98 on them, because at least those will boot and run and install easy on 16 megs, you get a window system, etc, and I *wish* it weren't so, because I'd love to turn these kids onto linux.
I repeat, it needs to run on 16 megs RAM, 32 at the most, be able to easily install from a cd without using a geek dictionary for acronyms and vague man commands that make little sense, and to be run almost 100% GUI after installation.
And no matter WHAT I type, someone leeter than me who can't read is gonna retort they got foodows window like-experience desktopping manager running after tweaking the config sys/etc/stab yo momma file blather yada yada, etc, well, except for the video and audio and the drives don't seem to work and
Nope
I don't care about that, these are going to end users even lamer than I am. I am between aunt tillie and.. whatever, and if I can't install and run it, sure as heck the end users are gonna be frustrated within 5 minutes and borrow their cuzzin leroys copy of windows and install it anyway.
I think it's better to just admit that X is a full bore no doubt about it gross resource hog, and not pretend it ain't. I'm not a coder and I don't know why, but it sure is or seems to be. I am not complaining, I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the price is right, but I think my observations are *true facts*. If someone can point me to a Distro th
As the parent poster pointed out, many if not most people have made up their minds unconditionally that they want windows.
And in a sense, you can't blame them. You walk into any department store and you see a wall of windows applications.
Not linux apps.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
These refurb'ed computers compete with new and refurbished Dells, Gateways, and every other new x86 PC, and their sales are largely at the expense of that market share. That of course ripples up the supply chain to Intel and AMD. Microsoft is flexing its muscle as these HW vendors continue to grow their Linux support and marketing. By Longhorn/2006, we'll be seeing new M$ brand computers competing directly.
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make install -not war
In reading the M$ FAQ on this, I see that it is Windoze98 SPECIAL EDITION and not SECOND EDITION, whatever the difference is. Plus I did not see in the FAQ that all of the virus patches (current and future) are to be applied. It just looks like the base system and no install CD's are to be provided. Just think...MAR systems being used in 419 scams and virus hacked to spam to boot...woo hoo!!!
Ignorance is poverty. Everything on the wall costs money, might not work with a particular version of winblows, and is available without cost in free software. Show them kpackage, deselect or aptitude. People who have used music sharing programs shrug and ask, "so what". Then you tell them that all that software is free and intended to be so by the authors. Boom, the ignorance is over. You then tell your client that you can make anything on the list work for them for a small fee anytime they have a problem doing it themselves and you have business.
It works for you and it can work for them and make you money too. Free software is like that. Offshore that jog, Balmer baby!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
that MS is using 98SE for the program instead of Millennium Edition? Even THEY believes ME is a pile of crap!
Actually, I'm doing just that. I'm setting up a computer lab for an inner city homeless outreach with little or no computer budget. I've managed to scrape together 3 different computers, and for consistancy, I've used Knoppix for Kids on all of them.
It comes pre-installed with educational software, word processing, web browsing, and if it ever fails, they just reboot the computer.
On the other hand, I could use an illegal copy of windows, or even if I could get a legal copy of windows for free, it would contain little or NO educational software. Then I'd have to go pay for educational software, which isn't cheap.
Linux has really been the best thing ever for these kids learning about computers. Many of these kids have never used a computer before at all.
-=Lothsahn=-