The Windows software and services market is a multi-billion dollar annual industry. So the answer to your question is clearly "yes".
And the Linux software industry is also quite lucrative, so the answer to the original statement is also clearly "yes". Linux usually just uses a different model, so the profits are not always as obvious..
On a personal note.. I have bought Linux software. World of Goo and the Penumbra trilogy to be specific. But I'm a home user, so don't buy much software anyway. Just because most is free to use doesn't mean all of it is. We get a lot of software free, but that doesn't mean we refuse to pay, just that we generally don't need to.
Yeah but Roy and his gang also bash the Gnome project so Novell's contributions to that probably doesn't matter to them. To Roy, Miguel and the Gnome project are worse than any evil ever imagined for *gasp* making free software that happens to do things that Roy doesn't approve of.
Point taken. But does anybody outside the Windows fanboys looking for a stereotype to wind up pay any attention to them?
3. Novell: 7.6%
I'll bet this really annoys those boycottnovell kooks.
Not to mention all the other stuff they do with Gnome and a few other bits.
Novell may have fallen for some Microsoft shtick, and to be honest, I think a lot of that was PR fluff that Big Steve pulled out of his backside at the most strategic point. But they are still pretty big contributors to the Linux platform as a whole. Good thing the open or death fanboys are so busy telling everybody how things should be done to actually bother the people who are getting things done.
On the other hand, I wonder if pursuing these sort of actions might not scare vendors away from open source?
Doubt it. How do you scare off a company that is already using a product within the license terms, and profiting from it? In the embedded world, Linux isn't some new thing that is trying to make a name. It's a well established well known option that many make full use of to speed development and cut costs significantly.
I wish him well on the lawsuit, but I won't hold my breath...
Well.. there are plenty of precedents, and they all seem to find on behalf of the buyer. Not to mention other companies providing the refund as a matter of course on application.
So I don't fancy Lenovo's chances much. Or at all really. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't reconsider all of a sudden.
I do not own a TV station or a newspaper, so no matter how I express myself, I simply cannot reach enough people. Its a waste of my energys to engage in something so futile.
Perhaps not.. But I do.. As does anybody who pays their TV license. This means that any legitimate political party is entitled to air time for party political broadcasts at election time. Can't remember the exact conditions that they have to meet to be a legitimate political party though. And as soon as one does it, they will all follow.
Imagine the scenario.. One representative from the Pirate party, one minister for culture, and one representative of the music industry. Jeremy Paxman acting as referee, and I know I'd watch it.
12 feet for my Logitech cordless mouse/keyboard combo. And only bought 2 years ago. An IR remote is a nicer way to control a PVR though, but you need a proper front end for that to work right.
A lot of the problems with wireless mouse/keyboard combos is down to positioning of the sensor, line of sight between the sensor and the peripherals etc, so your YMMV
Microsoft had announced that they had an RTM version, and now they make such a profound change. This is really odd. Is there any good explanation? Have they a separate, decoupled RTM process for the European versions? Has there never been a "Windows 7 E"?
And how much would it cost to get something adware-infested into the browser selection screen?
What profound change? A single change to the set of pre installed apps that the installer checks, a simple chooser screen set to autorun and that is it. It's about as profound as changing the default wallpaper.
First off, if 10 people do this, Amazon is going to find out what it really costs, and it isn't $65 or anything close to that.
So how many people have done it? 10 customers is a very small figure for a company the size of Amazon to even worry about. And please cite the source, so we know it isn't a wild guess. Because I have a slightly different theory.. Amazon got way more than 10 customers insisting on refunds. So they checked with legal and found they had no option but to comply.
I mean this as a genuine question, not as any kind of antagonistic statement. I have heard of five or six cases with various OEMs and retailers off the top of my head. And they are only the ones who have blogged about it. How many have done the deed and got the refund and said nothing.
And I agree.. I'm sure it is much closer to $30-40 than $65 too, but this is what the company decided. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if MS ate the extra to avoid each OEM finding out how much they were being charged for the Windows licenses.
Secondly, they are't going to do this without some kind of verification. It sounds like someone asked for money and they gave it to them. Great customer service but hardly something they can operate a business on. So unless there is a verifiable way to determine that XP has been irrevocably uninstalled I don't see this happening too much more.
Pretty simple to do really.
Call retailer and ask what verification they need. usually the license key should suffice.
Retailer calls OEM and applies for the refunds. Provides key as proof.
OEM calls MS with key and asks that the key be deactivated and a refund for the cancelled license be given.
Microsoft adds key to blacklist and at a minimum, makes anybody using that key automatically fail WGA.
Job done. The license is now worthless. Even if it is still on the computer. Any fool can download a torrent of any version of Windows, but without a valid key, or one that is at least going to get past WGA, what is the point. And if you surf the net or install software from any but the most impeccable sources without being up to date patch wise, you are just asking for trouble.
The thing to remember is this.. Only two parties in the whole chain actually care what you are running. You and Microsoft.
There is nothing to stop Amazon or anybody else for that matter, being awkward. But there is also no reason for them to be awkward. The money is coming out of Microsoft's pocket, or should be.. So they lose nothing, and perhaps gain satisfied customers. Two stories in fairly quick succession about Amazon not being awkward about a perfectly legal and honest request is good PR. "My Amazon refund nightmare" is bad PR. Which do you think is the most welcome one?
Also... this refund is not Amazon or anybody else being nice. It's the retailer obeying the laws they are obliged to obey. And in some countries it has gone to court and the judge granted more than the usual refund plus costs. They have no choice. If they ring the OEM and get a lower than $65 figure, no problem. That is what they refund. The money is not the issue here, and anybody who is doing this is only minimally interested in the actual refund amount. The important thing is getting the refund at all.
IANAL but this is illegal in the UK. This is why EULAs are not enforcable over here (although I'm not sure if its been tested in court).
The seller/licensee cant dictate terms after the sale has been made.
Don't be so sure. Check the fine print on your ISP agreement. They have the right to modify the contract at their discretion, but they do have to advise you of it. And they may have to offer you the option to reject the terms, and cancel the license.
Steam solves the backup problem too though. I can install any game I've bought on a computer where I log in, just by downloading it. Valve really is DRM done right.
So you're saying whenever someone jumps on Amazon and starts selling books that they don't own, Amazon has to go replace those books with legit copies?
Yep.. Amazon are retailers. They have a responsibility to check that the items they sell are not being fraudulently offered for sale. Before they sell them.. If they are stupid enough to allow any random person to offer books for sale on their site, they have to take the consequences.
NWN2 barfs with a DirectX error (some missing string), No idea why VTMB dies (black screen, can only kill with ctrl+alt+del). Apparently the NWN2 problem is fixed in a build more recent than 7100, not sure about vampire.
There is a fix on the NWN forums that works. It involves changing a DirectX file for an older version. Seems there is something different that thh RC does that NWN 2 doesn't like. Works fine now though, and the release version will no doubt be updated to use the ordinary DX setup. Obsidian just decided to not to waste time supporting what is essentially a beta OS, and are waiting for the actual release.
DiskPart is the Windows tool, found in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management in XP. It's comparable to PartEd and GPartEd on Linux, but I prefer the GPartEd live CD because of its hardware drivers (now using Kernel 2.6.30) and rsync and dd for imaging.
I had a look around, and to be honest.. Not particularly impressed. It took more time to actually find out what diskpart was and a rough idea of how to use it than it would take to pop a live CD in the drive and clicky clicky done. I thought CLI stuff was supposed to be the devil's language for Windows users.. I mean how is Windows ever going to be ready for the desktop if it has to use command line stuff?
Thanks for the info. And if I am ever without a live CD in my tool box, I'll give it a go.
Dude, when was the last time you used Windows, back in the 3.1 days? Diskpart is pretty darn fast, but really all the tools these days are. I've used both gparted and diskpart recently, and I'd have a really hard time saying gparted was faster than diskpart. Of course, the reverse is true as well.
Dude.. About 2 months ago for a friend. Windows XP. Had to remove the Linux partitions as it was a spare disk I was lending her. I had a boot disk in my tool kit. Prior to using Gparted, I used to let the windows installer take it's own sweet time.. Hours and hours of sweet time in any sizeable disk..
Never heard of Diskpart. Does it run from the XP install disk on a fresh PC with no other OS?
Also, I'd prefer a WindowsPE disk for fixing any issues with windows these days. It's basically a 150mb (more or less, depending on what tools you add) bootable version of Vista. It runs almost all windows programs without a hitch, and is very very quick. There's some stuff that linux just can't do for windows.
To each their own. Although why I'd want to boot a Vista install is beyond me.
Any Linux disk does the most useful fix for Windows though.
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's already being used --> https://ssl.scroogle.org/
And Microsoft would NEVER use anybody else's IP.........
Absolutely.. If you come second, redefine the criteria for describing who was first.
The Windows software and services market is a multi-billion dollar annual industry. So the answer to your question is clearly "yes".
And the Linux software industry is also quite lucrative, so the answer to the original statement is also clearly "yes". Linux usually just uses a different model, so the profits are not always as obvious..
On a personal note.. I have bought Linux software. World of Goo and the Penumbra trilogy to be specific. But I'm a home user, so don't buy much software anyway.
Just because most is free to use doesn't mean all of it is. We get a lot of software free, but that doesn't mean we refuse to pay, just that we generally don't need to.
Linux users never pay for anything, so it doesn't even matter.
Do Windows users??
Yeah but Roy and his gang also bash the Gnome project so Novell's contributions to that probably doesn't matter to them. To Roy, Miguel and the Gnome project are worse than any evil ever imagined for *gasp* making free software that happens to do things that Roy doesn't approve of.
Point taken. But does anybody outside the Windows fanboys looking for a stereotype to wind up pay any attention to them?
3. Novell: 7.6% I'll bet this really annoys those boycottnovell kooks.
Not to mention all the other stuff they do with Gnome and a few other bits. Novell may have fallen for some Microsoft shtick, and to be honest, I think a lot of that was PR fluff that Big Steve pulled out of his backside at the most strategic point. But they are still pretty big contributors to the Linux platform as a whole. Good thing the open or death fanboys are so busy telling everybody how things should be done to actually bother the people who are getting things done.
On the other hand, I wonder if pursuing these sort of actions might not scare vendors away from open source?
Doubt it. How do you scare off a company that is already using a product within the license terms, and profiting from it? In the embedded world, Linux isn't some new thing that is trying to make a name. It's a well established well known option that many make full use of to speed development and cut costs significantly.
I wish him well on the lawsuit, but I won't hold my breath...
Well.. there are plenty of precedents, and they all seem to find on behalf of the buyer. Not to mention other companies providing the refund as a matter of course on application. So I don't fancy Lenovo's chances much. Or at all really. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't reconsider all of a sudden.
I do not own a TV station or a newspaper, so no matter how I express myself, I simply cannot reach enough people. Its a waste of my energys to engage in something so futile.
Perhaps not.. But I do.. As does anybody who pays their TV license. This means that any legitimate political party is entitled to air time for party political broadcasts at election time. Can't remember the exact conditions that they have to meet to be a legitimate political party though. And as soon as one does it, they will all follow.
Imagine the scenario.. One representative from the Pirate party, one minister for culture, and one representative of the music industry. Jeremy Paxman acting as referee, and I know I'd watch it.
No, it just has to make MS irrelevant.
Irrelevant is a bit of a stretch. Just make it non essential, and you have a severely damaged Microsoft empire.
12 feet for my Logitech cordless mouse/keyboard combo. And only bought 2 years ago. An IR remote is a nicer way to control a PVR though, but you need a proper front end for that to work right. A lot of the problems with wireless mouse/keyboard combos is down to positioning of the sensor, line of sight between the sensor and the peripherals etc, so your YMMV
The quality would be so bad at that size, would you even want to watch?
Yes. I regularly do. The quality is quite acceptable. Not HD obviously, but does anybody really expect it to be?
Indeed and this comment has been unfairly moderated as flamebait.
But then, taking criticism gracefully is a Windows problem.
Well, yeah. Only idiots would pay to look at Fox News.
Oh I don't know.. Fiction is still quite popular.
One tool one job I'd hate to see what your kitchen looks like
At a guess, very efficient.
Microsoft had announced that they had an RTM version, and now they make such a profound change. This is really odd. Is there any good explanation? Have they a separate, decoupled RTM process for the European versions? Has there never been a "Windows 7 E"? And how much would it cost to get something adware-infested into the browser selection screen?
What profound change? A single change to the set of pre installed apps that the installer checks, a simple chooser screen set to autorun and that is it. It's about as profound as changing the default wallpaper.
First off, if 10 people do this, Amazon is going to find out what it really costs, and it isn't $65 or anything close to that.
So how many people have done it? 10 customers is a very small figure for a company the size of Amazon to even worry about. And please cite the source, so we know it isn't a wild guess. Because I have a slightly different theory.. Amazon got way more than 10 customers insisting on refunds. So they checked with legal and found they had no option but to comply. I mean this as a genuine question, not as any kind of antagonistic statement. I have heard of five or six cases with various OEMs and retailers off the top of my head. And they are only the ones who have blogged about it. How many have done the deed and got the refund and said nothing. And I agree.. I'm sure it is much closer to $30-40 than $65 too, but this is what the company decided. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if MS ate the extra to avoid each OEM finding out how much they were being charged for the Windows licenses.
Secondly, they are't going to do this without some kind of verification. It sounds like someone asked for money and they gave it to them. Great customer service but hardly something they can operate a business on. So unless there is a verifiable way to determine that XP has been irrevocably uninstalled I don't see this happening too much more.
Pretty simple to do really. Call retailer and ask what verification they need. usually the license key should suffice. Retailer calls OEM and applies for the refunds. Provides key as proof. OEM calls MS with key and asks that the key be deactivated and a refund for the cancelled license be given. Microsoft adds key to blacklist and at a minimum, makes anybody using that key automatically fail WGA. Job done. The license is now worthless. Even if it is still on the computer. Any fool can download a torrent of any version of Windows, but without a valid key, or one that is at least going to get past WGA, what is the point. And if you surf the net or install software from any but the most impeccable sources without being up to date patch wise, you are just asking for trouble. The thing to remember is this.. Only two parties in the whole chain actually care what you are running. You and Microsoft. There is nothing to stop Amazon or anybody else for that matter, being awkward. But there is also no reason for them to be awkward. The money is coming out of Microsoft's pocket, or should be.. So they lose nothing, and perhaps gain satisfied customers. Two stories in fairly quick succession about Amazon not being awkward about a perfectly legal and honest request is good PR. "My Amazon refund nightmare" is bad PR. Which do you think is the most welcome one? Also... this refund is not Amazon or anybody else being nice. It's the retailer obeying the laws they are obliged to obey. And in some countries it has gone to court and the judge granted more than the usual refund plus costs. They have no choice. If they ring the OEM and get a lower than $65 figure, no problem. That is what they refund. The money is not the issue here, and anybody who is doing this is only minimally interested in the actual refund amount. The important thing is getting the refund at all.
IANAL but this is illegal in the UK. This is why EULAs are not enforcable over here (although I'm not sure if its been tested in court). The seller/licensee cant dictate terms after the sale has been made.
Don't be so sure. Check the fine print on your ISP agreement. They have the right to modify the contract at their discretion, but they do have to advise you of it. And they may have to offer you the option to reject the terms, and cancel the license.
With Wal Mart prices are LOWER. Maybe not for companies, but as a consumer Wal Mart's monopoly is a good thing for me.
Short term, yes. Long term. If All there is is Walmart, then why keep prices low? You have nowhere else to go..
Steam solves the backup problem too though. I can install any game I've bought on a computer where I log in, just by downloading it. Valve really is DRM done right.
Without an account?
So you're saying whenever someone jumps on Amazon and starts selling books that they don't own, Amazon has to go replace those books with legit copies?
Yep.. Amazon are retailers. They have a responsibility to check that the items they sell are not being fraudulently offered for sale. Before they sell them.. If they are stupid enough to allow any random person to offer books for sale on their site, they have to take the consequences.
NWN2 barfs with a DirectX error (some missing string), No idea why VTMB dies (black screen, can only kill with ctrl+alt+del). Apparently the NWN2 problem is fixed in a build more recent than 7100, not sure about vampire.
There is a fix on the NWN forums that works. It involves changing a DirectX file for an older version. Seems there is something different that thh RC does that NWN 2 doesn't like. Works fine now though, and the release version will no doubt be updated to use the ordinary DX setup. Obsidian just decided to not to waste time supporting what is essentially a beta OS, and are waiting for the actual release.
If you don't like the manufacturers' policies, buy from someone else.
Which manufacturers have a policy of ignoring the license conditions of the software they are installing?
DiskPart is the Windows tool, found in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management in XP. It's comparable to PartEd and GPartEd on Linux, but I prefer the GPartEd live CD because of its hardware drivers (now using Kernel 2.6.30) and rsync and dd for imaging.
I had a look around, and to be honest.. Not particularly impressed. It took more time to actually find out what diskpart was and a rough idea of how to use it than it would take to pop a live CD in the drive and clicky clicky done. I thought CLI stuff was supposed to be the devil's language for Windows users.. I mean how is Windows ever going to be ready for the desktop if it has to use command line stuff?
Thanks for the info. And if I am ever without a live CD in my tool box, I'll give it a go.
Dude, when was the last time you used Windows, back in the 3.1 days? Diskpart is pretty darn fast, but really all the tools these days are. I've used both gparted and diskpart recently, and I'd have a really hard time saying gparted was faster than diskpart. Of course, the reverse is true as well.
Dude.. About 2 months ago for a friend. Windows XP. Had to remove the Linux partitions as it was a spare disk I was lending her. I had a boot disk in my tool kit. Prior to using Gparted, I used to let the windows installer take it's own sweet time.. Hours and hours of sweet time in any sizeable disk..
Never heard of Diskpart. Does it run from the XP install disk on a fresh PC with no other OS?
Also, I'd prefer a WindowsPE disk for fixing any issues with windows these days. It's basically a 150mb (more or less, depending on what tools you add) bootable version of Vista. It runs almost all windows programs without a hitch, and is very very quick. There's some stuff that linux just can't do for windows.
To each their own. Although why I'd want to boot a Vista install is beyond me.
Any Linux disk does the most useful fix for Windows though.