Italian Supreme Court Bans the 'Microsoft Tax'

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Italian Supreme Court Bans the 'Microsoft Tax'

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 25, 2014 @03:39AM from the making-hardware-a-bit-cheaper dept.

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.'"

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And so therefor it follows and I quote by alphatel · 2014-10-25 03:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

Can I get a refund for my Mac OS too?

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1. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-25 03:44 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Only if it has been installed on a third party PC.
2. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by __aaltlg1547 · 2014-10-25 03:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  In principle, maybe. But Apple gives away its software free. It's the hardware itself that's pricey.
3. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by lostmongoose · 2014-10-25 03:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'm all for free software, but this reasoning sounds insane. When people buy a PC, it says "comes with windows", you know what you're getting, and to require manufacturers to return half of it seems nuts. It's like ordering a cheeseburger, and then demanding a refund for the cheese. Why didn't you just order a hamburger?
  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.
4. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by RazorSharp · 2014-10-25 04:06 · Score: 2
  
  Just e-mail Apple. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to send you $0.
  
  --
  "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
5. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by ilguido · 2014-10-25 05:11 · Score: 2
  
  Really? So you mean I can legally download it from Apple and install it on a VM or PC? Download link?
  It's free as in beer. You have it for free when you buy an Apple product, while OEMs actually buy Windows licences, that's the point. Microsoft cannot say that it's free, since they get money from the OEMs, Apple can. It's not hard to understand.
6. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by NicBenjamin · 2014-10-25 05:14 · Score: 2
  
  If you could figure out how much it cost you, you might have a case. There are two problems: 1) buying a Mac is inherently different then buying a PC in that Mac-buyers have actively chosen to buy an operating system, and 2) it's really hard to figure out how much Mac OS the software cost you.
  1) is important because the basis of the ruling is that when you buy a Dell you're buying two things: computer hardware and access to a separate software package. There are tens of millions of geeks around the world who buy Dell boxes, get rid of the entire software package, and live happily ever-after. Apple simply doesn't work that way. They are a one-stop shop. The heart of this ruling was an analogy with cars. Cars are sold as complete units (note: I'm not kidding. Don't blame me for using the car analogy on Slashdot, it's all the Italian Justices fault) , so you can't ask for a refund on the engine or the wheels; but the Court ruled PCs aren't. Macs are in the middle, so it's not clear which way the Courts'd rule.
  2) is important because Mac OS X does not have a price tag. It's quite simple to figure out the non-MS price for a Dell or HP, because you can simply ask the licensing department how much the licenses cost and deduct them from the retail price; and then (assuming you can prove you didn't check any of the "agree" buttons on the software) you can ask for that much back. It's not simple figuring out the Mac OS X-free price of a Mac Pro.
  In the US the price of 10.6.8 is $19.99 retail, and the way you get later versions is by paying for 10.6.8 and then using the free upgrades. What's that say about the OEM price of OS X 10.10? It's OEM, so it should be cheaper then retail, but it's a higher version then retail so it should be more, but you get 10.10 for free if you get the lower version so maybe it should be the same, etc.
7. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Midnight+Thunder · 2014-10-25 05:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well, given that Apple doesn't charge for OS upgrades anymore, it can be argued that the cost of the OS is $0, when bundled with a Mac. You can get your refund, but I am not sure that $0 is worth the effort.
  The real cost is having to buy a new Mac every few years because the latest upgrade was an upgrade too far. Well, at least it easier to roll back, compared to an iPhone.
  
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8. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-25 05:18 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  It's the top result under "Free Apps" on the app store. It worked fine for me.
9. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by TheP4st · 2014-10-25 05:24 · Score: 2
  
  The question at hand is whether the software is free, which it is if you obtain it via the download link found here. Whether you can install it legally on non-apple hardware or not is not relevant to the context but since you asked; doing so is in breach with their EULA and at least in the US courts have reached the conclusion that even selling Hackintosh friendly hardware is illegal when done in the manner that Psystar used to do when they provided the OS asa bundle together with their hardware. http://www.lockergnome.com/osx...
  
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10. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by ArcadeMan · 2014-10-25 05:33 · Score: 2
  
  The real problems will start when we go from ARM to LEG.
  
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11. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Solandri · 2014-10-25 05:38 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  The analogy fails but still gives insight into what causes the current situation.
  
  Using the original analogy, what's essentially happened is that only cheeseburgers are sold. There are no hamburgers for sale. It's cheaper/more efficient for the fast food joints to only pre-make and keep warm cheeseburgers, than to have separate lines for cheseburgers and hamburgers.
  
  "But that's silly! Cheeseburgers have an extra component so are more expensive to make than hamburgers. Why would a restaurant only make cheeseburgers rather than only hamburgers?" Ah, now you've picked up on the insidious reversal of market forces which causes this pricing inversion. It costs money to put cheese on every hamburger. It costs virtually nothing to install Windows on every PC. So the fact that most people want cheeseburgers / Windows on their PC wins out.
  
  That's right. Software costs almost nothing to duplicate. While it costs money to develop software, the cost to duplicate it is essentially zero. It's like if you had to feed a cow, milk it, and process the milk to make that first slice of cheese. But every slice of cheese thereafter could be replicated Star Trek-style for virtually zero cost.
  
  So why are we paying $100+ for copies of something that costs Microsoft virtually nothing to duplicate. Because of an inherent flaw in Copyright law which basically eliminates market forces on prices. With manufactured products, prices decrease the more the product sells. You can amortize development costs over more sales, production lines become more efficient, raw materials costs decrease because you can contract to buy larger volumes. That's why the first DVD players cost nearly $200, but today you can pick up a cheap one for $20.
  
  Current copyright law subverts this process. By giving the content creator absolute control over distribution over a unique product, there's no incentive for them to lower prices. What needs to happen is for copyright protection to somehow scale with volume. e.g. Your copyright lasts for life+70 years, or 50 million copies sold, whichever occurs first. Or a sliding scale for pricing. If you initially release a CD at $20 for the first million sales, the price must drop to $10 thereafter. After 10 million sales the price must drop to $5. $2 after 50 million. $1 after 100 million.
  
  This would restore much of the original intent of Copyright which has been subverted by ridiculously long copyright terms - encouraging artists to create new works, rather than allowing them and their children (and their grandchildren) to live off the proceeds from a single highly successful work. In terms of software, it would encourage companies like Microsoft to constantly seek out new ways to improve their software rather than resting secure in the knowledge that people will "buy it anyway". And by keeping pricing more proportional to amortized development costs (sale price drops after development has been paid off), it'll discourage the ridiculous behavior where a company will use profit from one software title to sustain an unprofitable title for years in an attempt to gain a foothold in the market. That'll help new software companies break into the market (they won't be competing against a product that's being subsidized by unrelated software sales), and bring more diversity and dynamics to the marketplace.
  
  I'm all for open source on widely-used software (e.g. the OS, TCP/IP stack, web server, etc). But going completely open source eliminates the market forces which allow users to tell developers what they want in the software. What you end up with is a tyranny by the developers which is very slow to respond to user likes/dislikes (VLC eventually let users change the mouse wheel function). Modifying copyright as I've suggested results in more of a middle ground, where market forces are preserved, but pricing control is not completely up to the content creator.
12. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by gmack · 2014-10-25 05:49 · Score: 2
  
  I like Mac hardware a lot less when they disable hardware when they detect a non Apple OS
13. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Z00L00K · 2014-10-25 05:51 · Score: 2
  
  Hamburgers don't have cheese, cheeseburgers do.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
14. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by __aaltlg1547 · 2014-10-25 06:33 · Score: 2
  
  How much do they charge you for putting Android on your phone?
15. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by __aaltlg1547 · 2014-10-25 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  That only works if Microsoft sells the computer. Somehow, Microsoft wants to get paid for providing the operating system. I don't think that's unreasonable.
  What's unreasonable is charging you for a computer that has Windows on it. If the same computer (or a better one) is offered with no OS at a price that's lower than the Windows machine by at least the OEM price of Windows, that's reasonable.
16. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by gnasher719 · 2014-10-25 06:59 · Score: 2
  
  Can I get a refund for my Mac OS too?
  The correct answer is that there a dozens of computer manufacturers selling you computers without MacOS X, and only one selling you a computer with MacOS X, so if you wanted a computer without MacOS X you could have just gone to one of the dozen manufacturers you sell you exactly what you want.
17. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by gnasher719 · 2014-10-25 07:06 · Score: 2
  
  Why buy a Mac at all if you're not going to use OS X?
  At my company, which has a company wide Windows license, lots of Windows users (everybody who has enough power to do it) buy a MacBook Air or another MacBook and ask IT to install Windows on it. Now you can argue whether an Apple computer running Windows with MacOS X removed is still a Macintosh or not...
18. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Immerman · 2014-10-25 07:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I agree in principle, though I think the actual per-unit price paid by the manufacturer is a more reasonable refund than the open market OEM price. Otherwise if I've managed to negotiate a better deal with MS then the excess of a full oem-price refund may well exceed my profit margins. Whether MS should be allowed to negotiate such deals is a separate issue.
  The price situation is also complicated by crapware subsidies - if you remove Windows then presumably you also remove all the crapware installed on it. Now my feeling on preinstalled crapware is that they pays their money and they takes their chances, after all most halfway competent users will remove it immediately anyway. But that subsidy may well exceed the low negotiated price of Windows, in which case an OS-less machine will legitimately be more expensive.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
19. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Immerman · 2014-10-25 07:16 · Score: 2
  
  No. You cant. Because that would be violating the license agreement which only permits you to use it on Apple hardware.
  But that has nothing to do with the fact that so long as new versions of MacOS X are available free of charge to authorized users, Apple can argue that the incremental cost of the OS being charged to users is zero, and thus the refund owed to users who "return" the OS is likewise zero.
  Car example: You may buy a car with a month of free gas thrown in to close the deal - that does not mean you are entitled to claim the month of free gas without buying the car.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
20. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by Gr8Apes · 2014-10-25 08:38 · Score: 2
  
  iOS devices are another story. Apple abandons them fairly quickly.
  An iphone 4 ran iOS 7 (4 years later) which is better than any other phone I know. And abandonment is a little overstated, because the phone works fine with iOS 7, and will continue to do so, much like many Android phones still run fine on Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
21. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by speedplane · 2014-10-25 08:41 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Imagine we lived in a world without hamburgers, only cheeseburgers. The solution would be to encourage people to open up hamburger shops, not to demand that cheesburger shops refund the cheese.
  
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22. Re:And so therefor it follows and I quote by squiggleslash · 2014-10-25 09:43 · Score: 2
  
  If I'm reading this correctly, the logic is that he can demand a refund if using Mac OS means agreeing to a contract post-sale. It has little or nothing to do with third party PCs.
  So, technically, Apple could be forced to determine a refund amount to give to people who buy a Mac without wanting to run Mac OS on it given you need to agree to the EULA when you turn on the machine for the first time. But they can also sidestep it in the majority of cases by using the control they have over the Mac sales chain to force sellers of Macs (including the Apple Store itself) to have the buyer accept the EULA at the time of purchase.
  
  --
  You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Tax and cost from a PC-vendor point of view by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-25 03:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
1. Re:Tax and cost from a PC-vendor point of view by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-25 03:54 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  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.
  Probably a big factor yes, maybe even bigger: The Windows pre-installs have software that vendors pay to have on there. Your Windows system is subsidized, the Linux system is not.
2. Re: Tax and cost from a PC-vendor point of view by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-25 04:13 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  How about no OS warranty then? No-OS pc = no OS warranty... Call up Dell and say your no-OS machine won't boot and they should tell you to reboot and hit f10 ... If ePSA passes, sorry, you need to fix it yourself or restore from backup or reimage...
3. Re: Tax and cost from a PC-vendor point of view by Anne+Thwacks · 2014-10-25 04:39 · Score: 2
  
  The real problem is the $200 bribe to install all that bloatware. If you dont take the bloatware, you have to pay the full price of the hardware. Personally, I am happy to pay -$100 for widows+bloatware and install Mint over it.
  
  --
  Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
But will it affect consumers? by __aaltlg1547 · 2014-10-25 03:50 · Score: 2

How much less do Italians get to pay for a PC with no operating system loaded than for one with Microsoft Windows?
20 years too late by ledow · 2014-10-25 04:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

20 years too late
Re:What awful timing. A decade too late! by Teun · 2014-10-25 04:25 · Score: 2

There is no reason to limit yourself to Unity, distro's like Kubuntu and Lubuntu are available in the official Ubuntu repositories.

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Year of the Linux Desktop by InfiniteWisdom · 2014-10-25 04:33 · Score: 4, Funny

This is it! 2014 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
50 euro fee for a 20 euro refund by CAPSLOCK2000 · 2014-10-25 04:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Ban the MS tax on Android instead by haruchai · 2014-10-25 05:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

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
Please by NotInHere · 2014-10-25 06:09 · Score: 2

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?
Re:The elephant can forget. The geek never learns. by thegarbz · 2014-10-25 11:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.
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. I can't seem to find one which doesn't say Windows 8.1 included in price in the specs. Note how I pointed to laptops? You ever realise that most of these issues don't seem to arise with PCs as people are able to build their own from the ground up?
Giving examples of the worst system integration you could find and using that as a reason why I should be forced to pay money to a company who's product I don't want to use is disingenious. Geeks tied up in knots about Linux Audio? There hasn't been a Linux distro I've used in the past 2 years where audio hasn't worked out of the box, then prior to the Pulseaudio debacle it also just worked though not as feature rich as now.
Now what is fraudulent is selling a product with a separate End User License Agreement, and then not accepting a return when that EULA is not accepted. Really sit down and have a read of the OEM Windows EULA next time you have a week or so free. There is a line in the EULA that says if you do not accept the terms of the EULA in full then you should remove the copy and seek a refund from the distributor. The only fraudulent act is not abiding by the very terms you try to force on your customers.
By the way I lied about the laptop. I do get a choice of OS. The choice is Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro. Amazing. I feel so empowered.
System 76 by westlake · 2014-10-25 12:35 · Score: 2

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.
OEMs and MicroSofts risk for the price by dutchwhizzman · 2014-10-25 16:51 · Score: 2

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.

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