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NPR reports on Windows Refund Day
bad brains writes "This morning National Public Radio's show Marketplace had a report on the now infamous Windows refund day. They talked about Linux and the Australian Network Administrator they reported as starting it all. A run down on the story should be here, or you can goto Marketplace's site. " H: It looks like the information isn't up on the site yet-but I heard it this morning-good stuff. I've been reminded-Public Radio International actually does Marketplace, not NPR. Mea culpa.
9:50 EST... :o)
even if the refund stuff is good, if you play some games, you need windows98 (yours or one of yours friend
also i choose in a special store all the components of my PC, when i took it, on the HD there was windows95 (osr2.5) and plus! installed, they installed it to test the PC and the hardware (why plus! ?), anyhow i deleted it to install a french version
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"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
... Finally got there! :-)
:-)
Well, hope the Windows Refund Day will be as successful as the publicity that has surrounded it
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
i can't get a refund for mac0s, now theres a crappy os - try developing in that after having the luxury of the visual studio debug tools. I tried taking back redhat, just to see if it could be done, but no. I tried to get my school to take back sunos since they are switching everything to nt, but sun won't budge. our school spent several thousand dollars for the source to sunos, and it got us nowhere. we got the nt source for free (any schools/university can get the nt and windows ce source for free for "research purposes" as long as microsoft gets to check out what you do and possibly integrated it back into the os (and yeah, often times they even pay your school for the work - has linus or sun ever paid you for your fixes?).). doh, flamebait. i shouldn't do this drunk.
I'm sending my licence back to Microsoft in one of those $3 priority mail envelopes to:
Microsoft Corp
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Asking my money back because it crashed too much that I installed Linux. Yep, I used it and it was a PTA. I may not be legally bound for a refund, but I'm asking for another reason: I tried it and found it was a lemon.
Hey, what's up? Marketplace is actually a PRI show, not NPR. And it generally runs in the afternoon. So where was this excerpt?
My user group gave away HP OEM copies of DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 last year. What's the chance of getting a refund on this old lot? ;-)
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
I built my two machines, hence had no copy of Windows. But
when I eventually decided that I'd like a copy so I could play
the current games, I bought one for $65 from a dealer through
one of the Internet auction sites.
It was shrink-wrapped and looked legal. But I've been
wondering: Is there any reason why people can't buy/sell
copies?
(It also seems interesting that the going price for the full,
shrink-wrapped
Windows95 version on the auctions sites was around
$60-$70, about 1/3 of the price that MS sells it for retail.)
(which, of course, I'm not)
Late Sunday night I'd put up a big banner over any offices that are expecting visitors, saying, "Welcome Refund Seekers." That alone would be good for its humor value (similar to Hubert Humphrey's post-election comment, "Whoopee, we lost!").
Hire a band or a good DJ and have some music playing starting fairly early. Set out bagels and cream cheese, or chips and salsa, or some other Purina geek chow (and of course those famous free Microsoft sodas).
Have some suit give a speech at the normal opening hour thanking everyone for coming, outlining the plan below and stating that this is for ANY Microsoft product you don't like, not just Windows, provided they have the original EULA (not valid for free stuff downloaded from the Internet).
As each customer comes up, have them sign a short, readable, lawyer-free document that could be as simple as this:
"For value received of $20, Customer agrees to voluntarily relinquish his or her license to a single copy of ________________ (product), license number ________________ (enter license key or other identifying number).
"Microsoft agrees to donate the copy of _____________ described above to charity."
Have the customer and a Microsoft representative sign the agreement, fork over the $20, and everybody walks away happy. Microsoft gets more good publicity than it could possibly buy purchasing Super Bowl commercials with the same amount of money, something they desparately need. The customer gets something back for their software and doesn't have to fight with the OEM to do it. In fact in the US if the agreement is worded suitably (the software is actually donated by the customer to the William H. Gates III Foundation and the $20 is for the customer's time and trouble) the entire, retail amount of the software might be considered tax deductible. IANAL so I don't know but it sounds like it could work.
The downcheck, of course, is that Microsoft will never do this, which is a pity. I don't see why they wouldn't, because as I said the publicity would be invaluable. Every reputable mail order company in the US offers full money back if not satisfied. Nordstrom's once gave a customer a refund on a tire, even though they don't sell tires. Why do they do this? Because (1) they know most people won't go to the bother of a refund -- they're either happy with their purchases or figure it's too much effort, and (2) it makes for happy customers just to know a refund is available.
The other drawback, of course, is that some customers are not going to be satisfied with less than a full refund of the perceived cost of the product. I think most, however, will agree that something is better than nothing, and that they are unlikely to get anything from the OEMs without a great deal of time and effort. I dare say that for most of us, the amount of a full refund doesn't begin to approach the amount of effort it would take to get one. And for those who say it's not the money, it's the principle of the thing, this is a chance to prove it (grin).
-- Just Another Anonymous Coward
how much did they pay you for this FUD? i hope they didn't threaten to fire you. if you could tell me who to call to get easy "pro-microsoft" money for my posting, i would greatly appreciate it.
(This is partly in response to the guy who posted
about buying full version of '95 for 65 bucks)
Purchasing OEM copies of MS products for greatly
reduced prices and then installing those copies
on your personal machine is illegal.
Does anyone care about this? NO. MS realizes
that piracy is their best friend. It buttresses
their monopoly.
How rampant is this obvious shredding of the
EULA? This is big time crime. Go to an auction
site now and see all of the OEM copies for sale.
Its so hilarious. This is a bigger deal in my
opinion than Refund Day. MS anti-piracy policies
are a charade. They want piracy so that they
continue to be the standard.
Why are we doing this on Presidents' Day?
Visual Studio is good, but it's debugger sucks, since M$ is more concerned with preventing you from using the debugger to reverse-engineer M$ code than in helping you actually find and fix bugs...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I wonder if these restrictions are legal. Imagine buying a
car, being forced to pay for an installed radio that you don't
want, and then being told you're not allowed to sell the radio!
yeah you're right!
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
What a concept. Maybe in the Bible Belt, they could get support for something like that.
What the US needs is an Honesty Day, where we stop kidding ourselves about the quality of our politicans. But we'd never get the votes in Congress to pass that.
Has bill ever allow you sell his software
and keep the money?
Mainly because this year, those of us with some sense in our heads, realize its VERY inappropriate to celebrate president's day with a mattress sale
:)
> Why are we doing this on Presidents' Day?
To set a precedent.
My school also received the complete source to W95, NT, W2K, and Office! M$ paid us to just to look at it, and write testimonials. The nice guys from M$ said that, even though their own apps programmers can't see the OS source, and the OS guys likewise can't get the apps source, since we're neither one, and just students, we can see it all!
It's GPL'd too.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
... computer you broke the law and are a
criminal.
OEM copies can be bought and then must be
installed on a machine and sold, not used
for personal use.
tua mater
Doh! See my web site: so we can get some presidents (i.e. $) back.
http://www.deirdre.org/rebellion.html
anyone been able to find a realaudio copy of the story anywhere? i'd like to hear it.
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