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French Judge Orders Refund For Pre-Installed XP
Racketiciel writes "A French user asked for a refund after buying an ASUS computer
that came with Windows XP and other software pre-installed. ASUS tried to
apply a procedure which cost more money to the consumer than they
will give back... The court ruled in favor of the user,
who received back 130 Euro (~200 $) for the software.
Here is the ruling (PDF, French). In France, this is the fourth victory for refund seekers during the last two years,
and many people are now filing for refunds (in French). Two French associations (AFUL
and April) published
a press release on this victory the same day an important hearing happened." The English-language press release linked above gives a pretty good idea of what happened here, for those unsuited to wading through French.
Tying a product with something else violates article L122-1 of the French law. The argument is that some giant corporation might convince or coerce somebody to bundle one of its products, creating a de facto monopoly. This is the same reason no telecom operator can force you to buy a subscription with your iPhone.
If you don't like the law, stay out of France. The majority of the population here like it very much as it keeps the competition alive and healthy.
Res publica non dominetur
Here in France it's forbidden by law to sell a product only if you also buy another: the customer must be able to buy it alone. You car analogy is bad because the "whole" car is considered as a single product, while the computer is a product without it's operating system. And even if you don't agree with this concept or anything, that's not the point here: since it's forbidden by law, any customer who asks a refund (without previously using the packed Windows of course) will win in court. That doesn't mean they have to sell computers without operating systems at all, they only need to give a *real* way to get a refund. Not asus' crappy "yeah we keep your computer for a month and you pay the shipping too, then we give you back 30euros".
ASUS in France offers to buy back the Windows license, but the user must ship the computer two ways at his own expense, and he gets only 25 Euros back for the Windows license, and ASUS can keep the computer as long as they want to do that. French law forbids tie-ins, such as forcing someone to buy a computer with an OS already installed. The court felt that the 25 Euros combined with the cost of shipping the computer both ways and the fact that the procedure had undetermined duration was effectively discouraging the user from using that capability. Therefore ASUS lost.
Your analogy is not sound, you _can_ buy a car without power windows or AC, it's extremely difficult to buy a computer without a Microsoft operating system.
The computer was sold with XP pre-installed & a "shrink-wrapped" EULA. She wanted a computer but not XP, but was unable to buy a computer without XP pre-installed. This is generally called "The Microsoft Tax", because people who buy computers in order to run other Operating Systems (yes there are others) are forced to pay this tax.
She didn't want to pay this "tax" so asked to be refunded the cost of XP.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Those people don't care about the choice and wouldn't know how to make it if one were present. The exceptions to that statement buy Macs.
In fact... if I'm not mistaken, France was the first country in which an unlocked iPhone was required to be offered as an alternative to the usual operator lock-in.
I am French (and I glanced the ruling). However, the 130Euros cost for the software is somehow realistic (100Euros for Windows, 30Euros for extras). It is even a bit more than that. A "laptop sold with "Windows Vista Edition Familiale Premium" on http://materiel.net/ (some home version of Vista, without any extra software) has a price tag of 1000Euros and exactly the same laptop without any OS is sold 870Euros. So the customer price tag for this Windows is 130Euros. (it is quite difficult to buy a laptop without OS, but there are some few offers). So the 100 euros estimate by the French judge is probably a bit too small but not far from the reality. And the judgment is based upon consumer laws. The price tag should be what the consumer has to pay, not what the seller paid.
Actually Norway never surrendered. They moved their administration to London.
The "French surrender a lot" meme is different - whatever its origin, and the Onion article that helped propagate it in the ~2000 timeframe, the US right wing started pushing it heavily during the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, because the French weren't jumping onto Bush's bandwagon, and it was a convenient way to get the rubes to attack anyone who wasn't cooperating, further drawing them in to the neo-con's frame of reference.
But it was especially important for Bush, because the obvious name to call the Iraqis who fought back against the US-led invasion would have been The "Iraqi Resistance", in parallel to the French Resistance of WWII, who everybody remembers at least vaguely as having been brave fighters against an overwhelming attacker, which was really really not the meme that Rove et al wanted to have around.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
France didn't get taken over in the first world war. The French army moved reserves to the front line when it appeared Paris may fall (even using taxis) and stopped the aggressor German imperial army, and then the next four years was spent without the front moving much.
I'm an Australian and I haven't heard that joke before. Perhaps more indicative is the fact that in two world wars French freedom stood for something that Australians were willing to die for. The French had no useful allies in the second world war in their time of need: the Americans didn't care and the British hardly had an army, let alone an army on the Continent. The disaster that befell France happened due to inaction of the democracies from 1935 onwards; the French army in 1940 can't take much of the blame, the situation was completely hopeless by then.