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Italian Supreme Court Bans the 'Microsoft Tax'
An anonymous reader writes: In a post at the Free Software Foundation, lawyer Marco Ciurcina reports that the Italian Supreme Court has ruled the practice of forcing users to pay for a Windows license when they buy a new PC is illegal. Manufacturers in Italy are now legally obligated to refund that money if a buyer wants to put GNU/Linux or another free OS on the computer. Ciurcina says, "The focus of the Court's reasoning is that the sale of a PC with software preinstalled is not like the sale of a car with its components (the 4 wheels, the engine, etc.) that therefore are sold jointly. Buying a computer with preinstalled software, the user is required to conclude two different contracts: the first, when he buys the computer; the second, when he turns on the computer for the first time and he is required to accept or not the license terms of the preinstalled software. Therefore, if the user does not accept the software license, he has the right to keep the computer and install free software without having to pay the 'Microsoft tax.'"
Can I get a refund for my Mac OS too?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The timing of this is terrible. In the mid-2000s, we had Ubuntu, Debian and even Mandriva providing useful Linux distros. But since then we've seen Ubuntu go out of its way to create the shittiest experience it can, and Debian is catching up as quickly as it can. Mandriva has become totally irrelevant. Linux Mint is maybe the only remotely viable choice, but it isn't comparable to even Windows 7 in terms of what's needed for corporate or organizational desktop users. This development is coming a decade too late to be useful!
Dell once explained why their Linux PCs weren't cheaper than similar Windows models. The average cost of a single customer service call to Dell was higher than their OEM Windows licence cost, and the Linux PCs had a significant higher number of customer service calls than the Windows-PCs.
I would MUCH rather see phones no longer bundling their crapware on the phones, i mean you cant even delete them (without rooting)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Microsoft is expected to start giving away the OS for free any time now.
How much less do Italians get to pay for a PC with no operating system loaded than for one with Microsoft Windows?
Anybody willing to bet against this being the resounding verdict of Microsoft et al? It has always been their contention that selling computers without Windows was the equivalent of software piracy because apparently
People are going to install Windows anyway
People will not have a legal copy of Windows to install
Windows is so great!
Posting from a computer that does not have a Windows partition at all because for all the hassle of even installing (and maintaining!) a dual-boot, I'll rather do my taxes manually. And I don't need Windows for anything else.
I kept dual-boot for a while, but it was essentially useless. Have a hardware problem and migrate the disk (temporarily or permanently) to another computer, and Windows stops working. At first for stuff like disk geometries, drivers and so on. Then came plug&play and things got better. And then came licensing games and things got worse.
I've installed a dual-boot on the new Windows laptop of my father, and I still fought for hours to get the DRM crap configured properly to have both systems boot.
A system with Windows on it is a system that you cannot reliably work with. It is designed to stop working in situations that occur regularly for real computer use.
No thanks. Not having to pay anyway to have this piece of sabotage software waiting to stop functioning and messing with everything else might be just what is needed to let people decide to just refuse.
I bought an HP laptop several years ago in the United States. The laptop came with Windows Vista. I never booted into Vista. I never accepted the license agreements when you first run Vista. Instead, I formatted the hard drive and installed Sabayon Linux. Then I called HP asking for a Windows refund... ...The first HP support guy I spoke with understood why I wanted a refund but he said an HP manager would call me back Probably at least a week later I got a phone call from a manager at HP. It took a lot of explaining for me to describe to her why I deserved a refund for the Windows operating system which I never used. In the end, she refused to give me a refund since Windows was sold as a license and not as a product.
I've never bought another HP nor Microsoft product since (although I have indirectly paid Microsoft for patent licensing when I bought Android devices, but that's a different matter).
.
If (and that's a big if) such a decision were rendered here in the US, Microsoft would have Congress quickly pass a law nullifying the decision.
If people wanted to buy PCs without Windows, there would be a market for it... and in fact there is.
20 years too late
Tied Selling has been illegal in most jurisdictions for ages. The problem is that the amounts are so small, that enforcing it is impossible.
Imagine everybody could save 50 bucks by staying with their old and well known operating system. This is a bad idea!
Hardware with only windows drivers. By requiring windows 8.1 computers to have a certain level of hardware spec, they can ensure incompatible components on every computer and argue that the OS is required by the computer chosen.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Enjoy your outdated, barely supported, crappy "free" OS.
Exactly the same story already appeared on /. in September!
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/09/12/1450236/windows-tax-shot-down-in-italy
Doesn't anybody check these?
When the next basic Windows edition will be free, as the rumor says.
This is it! 2014 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
I tried this once here in the US.
Asked HP for a refund, they told me to ask Microsoft. Asked Microsoft, they told me to ask HP. Asked HP again they told me to go to Microsoft....
End result, the only way to get a refund for unused OEM windows was to take HP or Microsoft to small claims... Which aint' gonna happen.
End result: Never bought another new laptop in my life. I'll stick with self built desktops and second hand laptops. Thanks!
Linux will still be DOA.
Under Dutch law you are entitled a refund because you did not get to see the license before purchasing the computer but only after booting it for the fist time. Vendors have found all kinds of work-arounds. One of those work-arounds is that they add an administration-fee to your refund that is higher than the price of Windows. Another work-around is that they require the manufacture to verify that Windows has been entirely removed. Unfortunately they don't have a local office that can do that so you are supposed to ship your computer to Germany. They will check the computer, which takes a few weeks, and only then you get your refund, minus the international shipping and handling costs. Ofcourse they will not use the list-price for the refund but the volume-discount price that the big manufacturers get.
Only the most principled customers will jump through the hoops to get the refund.
If you're removing Windows then you're also removing the bloatware that paid for it and then some. You'd probably end up owing money.
Why should anyone be paying M$ so much as a thin dime let alone $10-$20 in royalties on each Android device sold?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The bare bones PC doesn't sell worth spit.
It is not and never has been and never will be a mass market consumer product.
The OEM system install was the key to making the PC a mass market product. It meant that you had a working --- tested --- configuration out of the box, appropriate for its price range and intended use.
In 2014 it is still possible for the geek to be tied up in knots by Linux audio.
Something that leaves the OSX and Windows user with his head shaking in disbelief.
Walmart --- with its enormous purchasing power --- spent about ten years trying to make the OEM Linux PC a viable alternative to Windows in the North American retail market.
The chain sold tons of crap-tastic hardware to the geek for maybe $25 less than a Windows PC with a far more muscular CPU, twice the RAM and hard disk storage. For its rural customers on dial-up, Wamart had a Linux PC without a working modem.
The point being, that by the time product reaches retail shelves, the price of the OEM system install is essentially irrelevant.
There is something distinctly fraudulent about buying a Windows PC and demanding a refund when you could have bought a Linux PC from the start.
Maybe if they weren't so busy sucking NSA cock, they could actually design something of their own instead of licensing other people's technologies.
Good job. So now italian users will have to pay for the PC, buy Windows separately (and probably pick wrong) AND pay someone to install it. Except four or five nerds. Linux on the desktop will not happen, it has not happened by now and will never happen. Computers are just appliances now. The "home computer revolution" has been over for more than 20 years. Get over it.
I may have missed in in the article, but is there any provision that states the OS has to be removed or disbled? If not, what's to keep someone from buying a PC and saying "Gimmie mah lira!" while still using the pre-installed OS?
~Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Walk into a store and buy a fully assembled name brand (Dell, HP, etc) PC, complete with warranty and guarantees, without ANY software preinstalled. You can't. Your analogy fails.
Heathkit. Radio Shack. Long dead in any recognizable form.
The PC is a mass market consumer appliance or an office machine. It sells as a kit of parts only to a handful of enthusiasts and IT pros --- who don't do their shopping at the Galleria Mall.
This has irked me for years. As the ruling states when you boot the machine for the first time you are asked to accept the terms of the software license. Clearly, if you don't you are being forced to pay for something you aren't using. As other comments have noted, in other countries you are made to jump through all sorts of ridiculous hoops to get your money back. This should also be illegal. Clearly the end result of this is simply to enrich Microsoft and allow them to provide Windows at a lower cost by making everyone pay for it, whether they use it or not. It's an unfair monopolistic practice.
explain how to get into boot menu without using windows tools on UEFI devices. Either I have been too stupid, or microsoft very smart, but I haven't found any optiont o boot an EFI-capable stick without windows, at least for the hardware I were on. I could have tried to remove the HDD, but that could have voided warranty. What to do in this case?
Italian PC sellers now requiring customers to accept a Microsoft EULA in order to conclude the purchase of a new computer, which is now a contract for delivery of one computer with one preinstalled and non-refundable copy of Microsoft Windows 8 (no you can't have Windows 7, fuck you, we're forcing this dog shit down your throat whether you like it or not)
At least, that's what I expect the immediate reaction to this ruling to be.
Slashdot admins should register whoever modded this -1 as unfit to mod, it is an easily verifiable fact on the Apple Store pages.
Just don't have software loaded on the PC at all, and include a disc that images your computer if you do agree that you want it at retail/on order.
Twinstiq, game news
Well, the good thing is you wont be taxed the $30 pre-installation of the MS OS but the bad news is if you want MS OS you now will have to pay the regular $99 - $200 for a license. With Dell and HP you can actually customize your pc and not include an OS. I think MS really needs to cut all of the foreign workforce which will save MS tons of money and the foreign(laws) headaches, and just go back to the basics.
Who cares if linux becomes Europes #1 OS at least the MS OS will still be #1 in the States which has a larger market than all of Europe combined.
I have all the applications(gaming, productivity applications, etc..) I need, installations are a breeze, rock solid security(standard user), plus windows 8.1 is damn nice on tablets and aio pc's.
Microsoft is not in the business of giving away Windows. Are you thick?
They are not charging the end user, they're charging the OEM. What the end user pays is never going to be less than the OEM price, and Microsoft is going to charge less than $1 for Windows when Hell freezes over. They invented the idea of charging for an OS. It is their raison d'etre, and if they ever stopped doing that, they would be out of business in a heartbeat.
As Apple has demonstrated, when you're selling both the hardware and the software, you can price each as you wish. That is not what this discussion is about.
If there was an option to buy a specific laptop without an OS, this would be far more logical. But instead, I have an endless array of choices of hardware with an operating system I A) do not want and B) will not use, but C) have to pay for as part of the bundle.
So either refund me the difference for the software I paid for yet will never utilize, or make things easy and give me a no operating system option when ordering. If you choose to pass on the latter, then it's refund time, baby.
I support this.
Ok I'll bite. Show me where I can buy a Linux laptop, with a i7-4710, 1TB HDD, 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 850M.
No trouble:
Configure your Bonobo Extreme [Desktop Replacement]
Base price $1629
CPU Upgrades start at $50.
Free upgrade to NVIDIA 870M
Upgrade to 12 GB for $69.
1 TB HDDs starting at $39.
Full range of SSD primary and HDD/SSD secondary drives, optical and tertiary SSD drives.
To extend the analogy to OS X's free upgrade argument, imagine hotel A gives free lunch too, not just breakfast. So the arguments here seem to be saying, "since lunch is also free, it means breakfast is free, unlike at hotel O where you have to order food from M directly(which implies that breakfast there was not really free), hence CA does not deserve a refund while CO does".
This space for rent.
For Microsoft to be truly competitive, a PC with a preloaded MS system where the MS OS is denied, should entitle the purchaser to a full refund of retail price from microsoft.
That way, people who hate 8.1 can migrate to win 7 at the expense of Microsoft.
That would also allow small site PC builders to compete with the crap factories of Dell and other large scale manufacturers by reducing it to a hardware and labor price point.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Yes. All you have to do is not agree to the terms of the agreement shown to you when you first turn on the computer. You purchased the computer in the store on a separate contract, where you were not presented with that same contract agreement terms attached to the software, before you paid for the hardware + software bundle. In absence of agreeing to the software terms, you have the right to keep the hardware part at least, if you so choose, and return the software part that comes with a separate contract. Then you can do whatever you want with the hardware, such as pull capacitors from the motherboard, melt down the motherboard for copper scrap values, drill holes into the motherboard, put weird tattoos and lights on it, hang it on your wall in a picture frame as a decoration - it's yours. No matter how badly the intellectual property pushers want to tell you that we sell you something, but you can't do what you want with it, can't smash an xbox with a hammer, you can't put a hole in it with a drill and what not. At least tradition goes that way when purchasing other items like cars, bicycles, stereo equipment, you have the right to shoot a potato gun at your old CRT tv and watch the screen get smashed. Or install other chips on the mainboard if you feel like it. It's yours, irregardless of what some stupid contract these intellectual property power mongers want to hang on it. There is a tradition of people considering it common sense to mod their cars any which way they see fit, and the manufacturer does not have the right to claim intellectual property violations on such mods. The person bought the object, he owns it, he can fuck with it all he wants. We sell it to you, it's yours, but we don't really sell it to you, we want to control what you're allowed to do with it, it's like we want it back intact when it comes back to our junkyards. What the fuck? Rent everything in the world, huh? No, you have the right to smash an old TV with a sledgehammer if that pleases you, you don't have to return it intact into the junkyards. Rent everything. It's like we sell you this underwear bikini, but we want it back, you can't touch it or modify it, because we retain ownership over it while you wear it, you're not allowed cut a hole in it and show your pussy on chaturbate.com wearing it, because we own the design pattern, the intellectual property conveyed by the bikini object, and you're violating our intellectual property conveyed by the design pattern when you cut a gaping hole in it. Fuck Da Man and his perverted ways of extending the limits of property cock blocks into every aspect of life, choking the fun out of everything like an octopus with its tentacles getting a stronger and stronger grip.
It's up to the OEM and MicroSoft to risk bundling the OS with the machine. It's up to the OEM to add crapware that they actually get paid for to install on the machine. If a consumer wants the machine without the software, they should get the retail price of the software discounted off the price of the bundle.
Who pays for the price difference between the money the consumer gets back their money is between the OEM and MicroSoft. Maybe this will teach both to price stuff reasonably since the consumer now will be able to make a more informed and concious desision on actually paying for the OS, or getting a cheap(er) or free alternative.
Sure, you'll see more people pirating Windows. But right now, many companies have to pay twice for a windows license. Once when they buy the machine and once when they install the enterprise version they have a volume license for. That's just as much theft in my book. Upgraded your main board? Pay again for the windows license. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you sell software, it's not fair to force people to buy it even if they don't use it, just because otherwise someone might pirate your alternative if the computer is sold without an OS. You want to sell, you take the risk.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Whats fraudulent in that? Hardware and software are not same thing. Hardware cost money, software is just bits that cost next to nothing to copy.
Whats fraud is they sell you shit you don't get to see licence terms before buying. Have you ever tried to ask licence terms of all that bundled software before purchase? You get pretty strange looks at store, when doing that... If your lucky they say, you see them when starting the software first time. I'm one of those people that like to read actually what i'm signing up for before making the deal. Somehow in computer world you are expected just blindly sign contract.
To install any is they want, and have the components not work properly because they don't have drivers.
About time they were called out on that. Now...to reverse engineer Apple's proprietary hardware. :)
I don't remember seeing a build-your-own laptop kit in stores recently.
Under Dutch law you are entitled a refund because you did not get to see the license before purchasing the computer
Perhaps PC sellers should start acting like font publishers, which don't let the user check out until he has scrolled through and agreed to the EULA.
Let's hope that this ruling catches on in other countries. It is true that consumers are forced to pay for a Microsoft license on most new computers because Microsoft has tight relationships with most of the major players. The interesting part is that PC vendors used to issue a partial refund for Windows software that is pre-installed on systems, when requested, however they no longer honor this request. This tells me that the PC vendors KNEW it was wrong to charge consumers, but they soon found out that they can simply force the consumers to pay for the Windows software regardless. Thankfully a government entity has finally stood up to represent the people. Today, I only buy used or refurbished systems to avoid the Microsoft Tax. However again with refurbished systems, we are still forced to pay the Microsoft Tax from most PC vendors. In those cases, I sell the Windows software and remove the license from the PC before I install GNU/Linux on it.