Windows Tax Shot Down In Italy

An anonymous reader writes Italy's High Court has struck a blow to the practice of forcing non-free software on buyers of PCs and laptops. According to La Repubblica, the court ruled on Thursday that a laptop buyer was entitled to receive a refund for the price of the Microsoft Windows license on his computer. The judges sharply criticised the practice of selling PCs only together with a non-free operating system as "a commercial policy of forced distribution". The court slammed this practice as "monopolistic in tendency." It also highlighted that the practice of bundling means that end users are forced into using additional non-free applications due to compatibility and interoperability issues, whether they wanted these programs or not. "This decision is both welcome and long overdue", said Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. "No vendor should be allowed to cram non-free software down the throats of users."

Comments

Meh logical and sensible

[ianezz]

Well, according to the original article on La Repubblica (hint: I'm Italian), the judgement came from the Cassazione, so it is as definitive as it can be in Italy (I know, I know...).

Re:What about other devices?

[Plunky]

As far as I can tell Android appears to be FOSS. You might need a version without Googles logos for it to be legal to use without paying them though?

here you go: Cyanogenmod Downloads