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Vista Capable Lawsuit Loses Class-Action Status
nandemoari writes "The long-running 'Vista Capable' lawsuit challenging Microsoft's marketing of PCs capable of running only the most basic version of the Windows Vista operating system has reportedly lost its class-action status. Federal judge Marsha Pechman decertified the class-action lawsuit, saying that plaintiffs had failed to show that consumers paid more for PCs with the 'Vista Capable' label than they would have otherwise."
Also, why don't vendors include stickers for all OS' a piece of hardware will function with. My HP laptop shipped with a Vista-capable sticker but it works wonderfully with Debian/Ubuntu and it even works with my non-Vista-compatible digital camera!
Bored at work? Play Game!
I'm confused by the judge's comment -- I thought the whole issue was *not* that users paid higher prices for "Vista Capable" machines, but rather that they bought such machines that were not actually capable of running Vista.
What gives?
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The summary (and, indeed, the article) is a little misleading. It is not that they didn't show that the plaintiffs didn't pay more (if the judge had found that, the case probably would have been dismissed). Rather, they lost their clase certification because they hadn't shown that all the plaintiffs in the class had uniformly overpaid.
To form a class, the plaintiffs' situations situations have to be relevantly similar. Her ruling was just that, in essence, the cases hadn't been shown to be similar enough to be litigated as a class.
Now the cases will proceed individually, with each plaintiff having to show individually that they overpaid.
caritj.org
Could have been a DRM thing. I'm too tired to look up the exact acronym (though HDCP is sounding familiar), but Vista implemented new support for certain monitors having end to end encryption between the video card and the display, so that it wasn't possible to directly capture the video from the video cable. There was originally plans (that I'm not sure if they ever came to fruition) to downgrade HD video on monitors that didn't conform to this standard (or were connected using standard DSUB cables instead of HDMI or DVI).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/hardwareprogramme
I'm sure that lawsuit kept a number of lawyers, judges and other legal plankton fed for a while. Society thanks you for your contribution.
mmmm...forbidden donut
I hear vendors won't do that until an OS has 3% marketshare. Come back in 2035.
Is that the year of the Linux Desktop that I keep hearing so much about?
A good idea, but I don't think that's the argument. Actually reading TFA (I know, I know), it sure sounds like the judge is saying that the prosecution is arguing that the low-end machines labeled as "Vista Capable" were somehow deliberately overpriced, thereby leading to 'unjust enrichment' for Microsoft. If so, this really seems like a royal screw-up for the prosecution, since it's your version of the argument that makes much more sense (at least to me, but IANAL).
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Here you go. The PDF linked in the article shows the actual email thread, including the "I now have a $2100 email machine" money quote by MS executive Mike Nash.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Face it, Vista got a bad name for three reasons:
1. The lowest-end computers certified to run it were not really capable (since fixed).
Microsoft ran the certification program that certified those low end computers as being capable of running vista. This was under Microsoft's control.
2. Nvidia's drivers sucked for the first 6 months.
While Nvidia's drivers sucking is not under Microsoft's direct control, the certification program that signs the drivers for use in Vista is. Were those drivers signed?
I will agree that the signing of the drivers doesn't necessarily mean that they don't suck, just that they wont harm your system; so in that way this one really shouldn't be Microsoft's responsibility as long as the drivers weren't actually destructive.
3. The I/O subsystem was poorly designed (fixed in SP1), and the virtualization of video memory was a poor idea for Vista-32 that makes game memory usage balloon (hence the higher memory requirements for games under Vista, and problems running out of memory that players don't see on XP). REALITY: Vista should have pushed 64-bit as the primary OS.
clearly Microsoft's fault.
Only one of the above was really under Microsoft's control.
Two of them. Why do you think the first one is not Microsoft's fault?
I also don't agree that these are the only reasons Vista got a bad name, but I'm leaving that part alone.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
OBVIOUSLY no dude, by night, when everyone leaves the factory, some Latino dude with indigenous heritage make some ritual (involving Win 95 floppies, WinME complain letters and spit from RIAA representatives) so magical pixies emerge from the pile of Vista licenses and roam the factory automagically putting the sticker on. Does not apply if is a Chinese factory because you should know that nobody sleeps in th... errr because pixies does not get along with dragons and that all I'm going to say about it. Get the facts!
Then explain to me why it's on my ANALOG 22" LCD as well, then. There is no HDMI or DVI connection, so just how is HDCP implemented?
The Vista Capable is just a marketing scheme.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.