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No More Fair-Price Refund For Declining XP EULA
mark0 writes "Getting a fair-price refund from Amazon or Asus after declining the Windows XP EULA appears to be a thing of the past. In contrast to reports from the US and the UK from earlier in the year, Amazon simply refuses and provides information to contact Microsoft. Asus is offering US$6. Despite being confronted with publicly available information about the real OEM price of Windows XP Home Edition being $US25-US$30, Asus replies, 'The refund price for the decline of the EULA is correct in it being US$6. This price unfortunately is not negotiable. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please be assured that it is not ASUS intentions to steer you away in any which way.'"
"Please be assured that it is not ASUS intentions to steer you away in any which way.'"
but they've definitely steered me away from Asus. I probably wouldn't have even bothered with trying to get a refund, but their dishonorable actions disgust me.
As far as laptops go, that is a bold statement. Some web shops sells laptops without Windows but finding an actual shop selling laptops without Windows is, in my experience, impossible.
Or to put it another way: suppose the consumer returned the entire computer. Should he be only given the wholesale price of the entire computer back? Or should he get what he paid for it?
Obviously he should get what he paid for it. Returning a component of the computer should work similarly. Just because the retail-price-as-a-component of Windows is hidden within the price of the whole thing doesn't make it equal to the wholesale price. If the components of the computer cost $500 wholesale and he paid $1000, he should also get twice the wholesale price of Windows if he returns it.
Actually, there is something similar that occurs in software, called "bit rot". The older a piece of software is, the more security vulnerabilities have likely been found in it, making it a bigger and bigger target so long as it is in continued use (obviously, now that Windows 9x's user base is about 3 dozen people, they're not much of a target anymore).
This is true of MacOS X, Linux and Windows. If you install a new copy of Fedora 8, you are going to have a ton more security patches to apply than a recent Fedora 12.
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You misread me. I never said you'd still be able to use Windows after getting a refund. Rather I was pointing out that no material goods change hands. They don't resell your license per se. They just invalidate it. Then they go on to sell XP on another machine for the full prices. So it's not like they are buying back an old license and then trying to resell it at some used market value. There is no used market involved at all.
So if the full price really is $45 today, then a refund should be just that. $45. Not $6. Depreciation has nothing to do with it.
Take them to small claims court instead. They'll quickly learn that it's cheaper to provide a full refund than to pay someone to show up in small claims court.
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If I buy a new car, when I first put the key in the ignition, does a notice pop up saying: "you must agree to the terms of use of the engine before you can start it"?
Ones where you have to agree to an end user license agree that states " IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE." Windows XP EULA
Surely Microsoft's license doesn't apply to all the components, but it specifically says you can get a refund from where you purchased the software. Companies don't want to honor the Windows EULA? Don't sell computers with Windows.
A more likely explanation is that Asus pays just $6 per XP netbook license. They will refund their expense, not the cost of an OEM licence at Amazon.
At a conference on the west coast, an industry insider told me that MS basically gave ASUS XP for free (as part of a deal to FUD Linux). That means that ASUS may be loosing money on this "refund".
Oh, and it also means that ASUS will sell out easily, which makes me interested in ignoring their products.
A DIY system build with the Open Source OS of your choice is by far the best route to avoid the Microsoft Tax. I put trying to get a refund for Windows after the fact right up there with mail-in rebates and free upgrade coupons -- in other words, I would not take it into consideration when making a purchasing decision, because I am not going to count on actually getting it. As often as not the vendor (or their hired-gun fulfillment company) will try to screw you, and you're left trying to explain the situation to the Nice Man in India who has no incentive to actually help you.
A 1005HA with Windows 7 starter on Amazon.com: US$336. Same system with Windows XP Home: US$312. Difference: US$24. Subtract that from the US$50 estimate OEM price in the ars technica article and the remainder would be the price Asus is charging for XP home: US$26.
If the add-on were sold, with no additional restrictions beyond those imposed by copyright law, it wouldn't be a problem. I'd take the unwanted component (Windows, optical drive, whatever) and sell it on e-bay. Not the seller's problem.
The point is that the seller is very specifically drawing a line around a component of the system and saying "this is sold under different terms than the rest of the computer". In particular, there is an entirely separate contract which must be agreed to in a separate step.
Now, I am a customer who enters into a standard retail sale contract to buy a computer. I'm not even shown the second contract at the time of sale.
When I see the second contract, I say "fuck that," and reject it. But it's too late for the seller to have second thoughts about the first contract; it's been agreed to and goods exchanged and can't be voided without my consent.
Now, if the seller tells me "sorry, you're fucked" and doesn't offer a refund, then they've agreed to let me keep the copy of Windows without agreeing to the contract. Which puts us right back in the first situation (I legally own a copy with no restrictions on disassembly, reverse-engineering, modification, resale, renting, etc.), which Microsoft wants to avoid.
That is entirely not what bit rot means. The canonical definition is here. You may be referring to software rot, but it doesn't really mean that either, since both refer to software that hasn't been used for a while and obviously does not apply to Windows.