How Pirated Software Impacts Free Software

jmglov writes "Dave Gutteridge has an unusual take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of open source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, 'how much does Windows cost?'"

Comments

Re:Very true....

[ShaggyIan]

They usually charge extra for the disk anymore. They now like to use a separate partition on the HDD to store the restore image. It's frequently accessible via a boot menu.

I've never gotten a good answer about what's supposed to be done when the HDD dies out of warranty.

Depending on your make/model or bitchiness level, many of the OEM's will ship you a disk. . . for a price.