The scripting language itself is just that -- A scripting language. It's some *developers* who choose to try and use it for tasks that it's not well-suited for.
There are legitimate reasons why you'd want to fetch data from the Web and process it by a Perl script. There are hundreds of Perl modules that let Perl scripts interface with and use data from tons of different data sources and formats. These things are useful.
If you were running this under NT, it sounds like a problem with either your port of Perl or NT itself. I have dozens of Perl scripts (many running fill-time) running under Linux here without so much as a hiccup. Memory, load and CPU usage are negligible and when the scripts are actively doing something, the system isn't taxed any more than if traditional programs were being used instead.
Before you diss the language, try looking to see if maybe your system or implementation of the language might be at fault.
All of my perl scripts are just as responsive and any load-time delays are unnoticable as any other C utility.
Though I do agree that often times Perl is touted as a fix-all language suitable for most any task. I use Perl for just about every little scripting task I need, simply because it's so much easier to use than most any other language I've dealt with, and it's actually *fun* to write under.
Let them do what they like. I might actually be contributing to this myself.
No company is going to voluntarily cut their market down to those few people that will end up owning a PIII or derivative processor with a functioning CPU ID mechanism.
If the application legitimately needs the horsepower, other competing vendors will surely be able to provide a compatible processor (without the CPU ID mechanism). Why in the *world* would a software developer CHOOSE not to sell to those people?
That's basically saying Windows 2002 will only run on processors that have this CPU ID. This means only Intel PIII and derivatives will be able to run Win2002.
Doesn't this seem slightly INSANE, or is it just me? If this bit of rubbish ever does come to pass, what's to stop competing CPU vendors from shipping all of their CPU's with the same valid ID (like, zero)? Or how 'bout an ID of the user's choosing?
You people are getting just a little bit too paranoid here.
Not all processors are ever going to support this CPU ID mechanism. For that reason, organizations and sites will NEVER require it in order for you to navigate or do normal things. More likely, e-commerce sites will offer to use it as an additional security benefit (for example, by not allowing purchases from another PC). This ID will never be a requirement. There are plenty of alternatives to Intel CPU's and I haven't heard of any of them implementing something similar.
This isn't like the web browser thing where all of the other competing vendors are going to decide to implement something similar. If they do, there will surely be a way to disable it (like there is now) for those that don't want to use it.
I think you're being pretty silly, myself. Your broad statements about Javascript being a "pile of crap" and a "security hole" are unfounded. Instead of absorbing all of the mass-media hype try educating yourself about what these technologies can and cannot do and how you can and will be able to control them.
Yes, vulnerabilities have been discovered in the various Javascript implementations, but they're typically patched shortly after their discovery and I know of no cases where they've been exploited maliciously.
If I see a comment scored at '1' and I think the comment really doesn't deserve that much attention, but shouldn't be wiped off the face of slashdot completely, I might decide to set its score to 0, which means I need to decrement it by one. If four other moderators are thinking along the same lines, that comment will end up with a score of -3.
If you force all Linux applications to be open-sourced, the only applications that will ever be developed under Linux in the future will be those created by die-hard OSS developers. The major corporations who make millions and billions developing software for other operating systems will not give Linux a second glance.
These companies make their money from selling their software products. You can't expect them to all suddenly drop what they're doing, release the source code to their flagship products, and convert to a profit-from-support type of business model. It's not going to happen.
The fact that corporations and major commercial software developers are porting their applications (for free or for sale) under Linux is an excellent achievement for the OS. It means that growth will proceed, new minds will be brought into the Linux arena and the operating system will find its way into more and more environments.
Having closed-source, proprietary software applications will not hurt Linux by any means.
If all of your posts are being MODERATED (not censored) down, perhaps that should tell you something about the quality of your posts?
Scores are adjusted downward for posts that are off-topic (irrelevant to the thread), inflammatory (trolls or flames or anything else that would start a stupid argument) or just plain obnoxious and offer no additional insight to the thread at hand.
There are literally dozens of moderators, and they're all volunteers. Most of them have proven themselves to be impartial and fair (though don't get me wrong, one or two of them can be relatively childish as has been demonstrated before).
Since there ARE so many moderators, it's usually quite likely that one moderator's lapse of impartiality will be noticed and corrected, but if ALL of your comments are being moderated, and you're posting them as an AC, really that says more about you than the moderators.
Censorship by definition is the banning or deletion of material you don't want others to see.
If you want to see the comments that are marked down, enter your user preferences and select an appropriate default threshold (-5?).
If you want EVERYONE to be be able to read something you post, try posting something relevant, on-topic and will not cause a flame war. If you just want to post something inflammatory for everyone to be able to read, this isn't the place. Try doing something productive.
Sometimes, there may be 2, 3 or 4 moderators reading through an article at any given time. To moderate, they simply click on a radio button and when they're through looking through the comments, they click on a submit button. Unfortunately, this means it's entirely possible that each of those moderators will end up simultaneously knocking a post down a point or two. They're not doing it to bring the score down to -4, they're each individually trying to bring it down to 0 or -1.
If you want an open forum - you MUST give us control over what we see, and say, and provide SOME level of responsibility.
This is precisely what the scoring system is for. We give you control over what you see by providing you with a persistent means of setting your threshold (check your user preferences). We give you control over what you say by allowing you to post whatever the hell you want, anonymously if you desire. I also believe the moderators tend to act responsibly in their moderation methods so as to separate the relevant, ON-TOPIC posts from the off-topic, irrelevant and inflammatory ones.
I'm an American, but I really dislike it when people go off spouting complete nonsense like this. To go and say that Russians are all liars and thieves is crap. Stop with the sweeping generalizations and get a clue.
Do you honestly think the US has never told a lie? Do you think the US has never stolen technology or used foreign intelligence like you describe?
The process of giving your enemy misleading information about your abilities and arsenals is called "counter-intelligence". That's right, it has a name. Every major nation does it. It's not like we all stood up and gasped when it was discovered that Russia was actually MISLEADING us. My God! They told a lie!
Perhaps you should educate yourself about some of the stuff your own country does before you judge others.
Either build the thing and prove your point, publish in a peer-reviewed journal rather than some hype-blurbs in Wired, or shut up. Until then, it's all just unfounded rumors.
And besides, it's not "censoring", it's "moderating". If you want to see the flames and counter-flames, adjust your threshold to -1, -2 or lower so you can see them.
The flames are probably being censored because they tend to be off-topic, irrelevant to the article and generally tend to cause inflammatory responses of their own.
If you disagree with the CONTENT of a post, feel free to respond in a rational manner and make your point. Flames and other useless drivel belong elsewhere.
Why is this so fucking difficult for people to understand?
Why must people descend upon every single Jon Katz article they see and proceed to bash him, the article, and Slashdot for making it available?
Do you people get routinely beat up at school? Do you feel you have to vent your pent-up frustrations and emotional problems using every outlet available to you? Do you feel like a wimpy geek at school and that slashdot is the only place that you can pretend to be superior?
These anti-Katz comments are NOT PRODUCTIVE. If you have nothing productive to contribute to an article YOU SHOULD NOT BE POSTING. If you see the headline for an article that does not interest you, DO NOT READ IT. Skip it like you skip every other uninteresting article on Slashdot.
I am amazed by the number of you that do this over and over again. It's pathetic. Get a life.
This thing isn't on the shelves yet. It could be that by the time they're ready to ship, prices will have fallen enough to make that price goal seem reasonable.
And I would expect them to be selling millions of these things (especially at that price).
I would buy one at the $350-400 price, but if it goes any higher I'd have to think a bit harder about it.
From what I read on Proxim's site, all they provide is a wireless ethernet type solution.
This appliance is compact, has a touch-screen for doing your web navigation, and has an embedded OS (appliance-style power-ons). It's significantly cheaper than a standard laptop and doesn't have all the messy hardware associated with laptops. Configuration requirements are kept to an absolute minimum.
I disagree. The reason I disagree is because I'm interpreting the EULA in a different fashion. I'm going to cut and paste from your version of the EULA and tell you how I'm interpreting it. Maybe you can see there's a bit of logic behind my reasoning then. I'm not going to say that I'm 100% accurate, but I believe this is how the EULA was meant to be interpreted.
Naturally you're licensing the OS, not the hardware. The problem rests on the definition of "product(s)" in the EULA:
the Microsoft software product(s) identified above ("SOFTWARE PRODUCT" or "SOFTWARE").
Note here that the word "product(s)" is preceded by the words "Microsoft software". They have essentially defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" and "SOFTWARE" to mean the Microsoft software products included in your purchase. The word "product" is left alone to mean (in this context), "commodity/commodities offered for sale."
If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is not accompanied by a new computer system or computer system component, you may not use or copy the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
IOW, If you didn't get the OS along with a computer, you can't use it. This is normal, since the OS is considered a bundled item meant to be packaged with the PC and nothing but the PC. You can't re-sell the OS, basically (well, I guess you can, but the buyer isn't legally allowed to use it according to the EULA).
The next few sentences serve to further narrow down what exactly the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is.
If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, Manufacturer and Microsoft Licensing, Inc. ("MS") are unwilling to license the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to you.
OK, here we approach the heart of the problem. If you don't agree to the EULA, you're not allowed to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (note the caps here). This is normal, obviously.
In such event, you may not use or copy the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, and you should promptly contact Manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused product(s) for a refund.
And here's the key bit. Here they say you're not allowed to do anything with the software and that you should contact the people you purchased your system from (the manufacturer) for instructions on returning the unused product(s). Note here that they did NOT say "SOFTWARE PRODUCT". This means that the standard English definition of "product" applies: A commodity offered for sale. You bought a PC system. You paid a single sum of money in exchange for a single commodity. The PC manufacturer isn't offering to sell MS Windows to you. They're offering to you a choice as to which MS OS you wish to put in your finished system. If they had intended to allow you to exchange *only* the OS for a refund, the license would have been worded with the previously defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" phrase instead of the plain-english "product(s)". Do you see where I'm coming from here?
This means that the manufacturer is NOT required to separate any part of your purchase and allow you to exchange parts for a refund. If they don't, obviously that's bad PR and not very good customer service, but they are in no way obligated legally to provide that refund.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but you should really consider both sides of the coin here. I'm waiting to hear from a "real" lawyer or a judge as to how this wording was meant to be interpreted legally, but this is not, by far, a simple matter. Everyone's making too many unfounded assumptions.
The problem with this example is that the individual pieces of hardware in the pre-configured system aren't covered by a separate EULA that states that you can return them for refund.
The main point of contention hinges on whether or not the EULA can be shown to state what you assume it states here. If the EULA doesn't specifically provide for a return of the OS on its own, it makes the OS just as much a part of your computer system as any other bundled application or hardware component.
If you don't want them, you may not be able to return individual pieces, but you can sell them to achieve an even bigger savings on your system; unlike the software covered by the M$ EULA, which, for the OEM version, says you can't even delete it from the computer you bought it with and install it on another computer.
Correct. The OS you received as part of your computer system is NOT a separate product. It came as part of the system and you may not (legally) use it unless it's on that system. You can sell it if you want, but the buyer is not legally allowed to use it according to the license. That's just a licensing issue. If you buy the OS in a store you obviously don't have these restrictions.
Hardware and software are not one and the same.
I agree, but from a licensing and bundling point of view, they're all value-adding features. The manufacturers have agreements with bundled software vendors that are nearly identical with the hardware vendors.
Also, from that logic, if you purchase a system with the following characteristics:
CPU Modem Monitor Keyboard Mouse OS Office Suite
Should you be able to return ANY ONE of those items in exchange for a refund? They're selling you a pre-configured, bundled system for a reason. If you want to "build your own" so to speak, you should go through a different vendor or take advantage of a different offer provided by the manufacturer.
I can't just look through the catalog and say "Hmm.. here's a nice decked out system for 300$ less than what it'd take for me to have them put it together like that." I can't take that 300$ PC and start saying, "I don't want this or that, so deduct those costs from the price." You bought the entire system as-is. You can't simply strip it down and offer to return bits and pieces for an even bigger cost savings.
1. The EULA is between the purchaser and *Microsoft*, not the PC manufacturer. So, as a party to the agreement, Microsoft probably would be held responsible if the PC manufacturer fails to provide the specified relief.
This makes sense, but I'm reasonably sure that the manufacturer also signed an agreement with Microsoft saying they'd uphold their end of the licensing scheme. I'll concede that it's not entirely the manufacturer's fault, but they certainly are not without blame here.
In any event, the refund can only be obtained from the manufacturer. The end user purchased the system from the manufacturer, not from Microsoft. The only thing these people could have possibly accomplished by going to Microsoft was publicity and/or a prodding by Microsoft to get the manufacturer's to honor what they feel is their end of the bargain. They may have succeeded in at least one respect.
What matters is what the EULA says, and it specifically allows a refund for *the unused software*, not the entire system
I was hoping not to get drawn into this argument again. The EULA is a legal document with wording and phrasing that has specific legal interpretations. You may *think* you understand what it's saying, but you should at least admit that you might be misinterpreting it.
As I recall, the term "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" (note the caps) is defined in legal fashion inside the EULA while "product" (lower case) retains its plain-english definition. You purchased a computer system from the manufacturer. It was advertised as a Pentium/233 (whatever) with Win98. That is the "product". You can't just arbitrarily re-define "product" to mean "software product" because it fits your needs. If the EULA intended for you to be able to simply return the *OS* portion for a refund, they would have used the previously defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" in place of "product".
Of course, like I've said before, I'm not a lawyer either, but I have a reasonable amount of experience interpreting legal documents. Please consult a competant contract lawyer and/or a judge. Don't *assume* that just because you can read and write English that you automatically are able to understand all the details and legal implications of a software licencing agreement that teams of lawyers spent weeks if not months drafting.
I will agree that it's possible I'm wrong here, but it's also possible that you are too. Only a judge can truly decide that.
You can't. MS is in no way liable or responsible for getting you your refunds. The fact that the manufacturers aren't cooperating is not MS's problem.
That's not to say that MS isn't in some way indirectly at fault for making it difficult for the manufacturers. The bad publicity is obviously not a good thing, and the media stunt probably had at least some effect in "our" favor, but really that's all it was. Nothing tangible could have come out of protesting against Microsoft here. No refunds.
Of course, I'm convinced that most people's interpretation of the EULA is flawed in the first place. I don't think the customer *should* be able to simply ask for a partial refund for their system because they don't want to use the OS that was bundled with it. But that's a subject already hammered into the ground...
By "stable" of course I assumed you meant applications ran on it without problems or library incompatibilities.
As far as *stability* goes (i.e. crashing), Red Hat's never crashed on me once (when I wasn't using an early 2.1 kernel). Applications that failed to work with glibc were upgraded (the "correct" way to solve this problem), and everything works perfectly now.
Slashdot Mirror
The scripting language itself is just that -- A scripting language. It's some *developers* who choose to try and use it for tasks that it's not well-suited for.
There are legitimate reasons why you'd want to fetch data from the Web and process it by a Perl script. There are hundreds of Perl modules that let Perl scripts interface with and use data from tons of different data sources and formats. These things are useful.
If you were running this under NT, it sounds like a problem with either your port of Perl or NT itself. I have dozens of Perl scripts (many running fill-time) running under Linux here without so much as a hiccup. Memory, load and CPU usage are negligible and when the scripts are actively doing something, the system isn't taxed any more than if traditional programs were being used instead.
Before you diss the language, try looking to see if maybe your system or implementation of the language might be at fault.
All of my perl scripts are just as responsive and any load-time delays are unnoticable as any other C utility.
Though I do agree that often times Perl is touted as a fix-all language suitable for most any task. I use Perl for just about every little scripting task I need, simply because it's so much easier to use than most any other language I've dealt with, and it's actually *fun* to write under.
Let them do what they like. I might actually be contributing to this myself.
No company is going to voluntarily cut their market down to those few people that will end up owning a PIII or derivative processor with a functioning CPU ID mechanism.
If the application legitimately needs the horsepower, other competing vendors will surely be able to provide a compatible processor (without the CPU ID mechanism). Why in the *world* would a software developer CHOOSE not to sell to those people?
That's basically saying Windows 2002 will only run on processors that have this CPU ID. This means only Intel PIII and derivatives will be able to run Win2002.
Doesn't this seem slightly INSANE, or is it just me? If this bit of rubbish ever does come to pass, what's to stop competing CPU vendors from shipping all of their CPU's with the same valid ID (like, zero)? Or how 'bout an ID of the user's choosing?
You people are getting just a little bit too paranoid here.
Not all processors are ever going to support this CPU ID mechanism. For that reason, organizations and sites will NEVER require it in order for you to navigate or do normal things. More likely, e-commerce sites will offer to use it as an additional security benefit (for example, by not allowing purchases from another PC). This ID will never be a requirement. There are plenty of alternatives to Intel CPU's and I haven't heard of any of them implementing something similar.
This isn't like the web browser thing where all of the other competing vendors are going to decide to implement something similar. If they do, there will surely be a way to disable it (like there is now) for those that don't want to use it.
I think you're being pretty silly, myself. Your broad statements about Javascript being a "pile of crap" and a "security hole" are unfounded. Instead of absorbing all of the mass-media hype try educating yourself about what these technologies can and cannot do and how you can and will be able to control them.
Yes, vulnerabilities have been discovered in the various Javascript implementations, but they're typically patched shortly after their discovery and I know of no cases where they've been exploited maliciously.
If I see a comment scored at '1' and I think the comment really doesn't deserve that much attention, but shouldn't be wiped off the face of slashdot completely, I might decide to set its score to 0, which means I need to decrement it by one. If four other moderators are thinking along the same lines, that comment will end up with a score of -3.
I think his points were essentially valid.
If you force all Linux applications to be open-sourced, the only applications that will ever be developed under Linux in the future will be those created by die-hard OSS developers. The major corporations who make millions and billions developing software for other operating systems will not give Linux a second glance.
These companies make their money from selling their software products. You can't expect them to all suddenly drop what they're doing, release the source code to their flagship products, and convert to a profit-from-support type of business model. It's not going to happen.
The fact that corporations and major commercial software developers are porting their applications (for free or for sale) under Linux is an excellent achievement for the OS. It means that growth will proceed, new minds will be brought into the Linux arena and the operating system will find its way into more and more environments.
Having closed-source, proprietary software applications will not hurt Linux by any means.
If all of your posts are being MODERATED (not censored) down, perhaps that should tell you something about the quality of your posts?
Scores are adjusted downward for posts that are off-topic (irrelevant to the thread), inflammatory (trolls or flames or anything else that would start a stupid argument) or just plain obnoxious and offer no additional insight to the thread at hand.
There are literally dozens of moderators, and they're all volunteers. Most of them have proven themselves to be impartial and fair (though don't get me wrong, one or two of them can be relatively childish as has been demonstrated before).
Since there ARE so many moderators, it's usually quite likely that one moderator's lapse of impartiality will be noticed and corrected, but if ALL of your comments are being moderated, and you're posting them as an AC, really that says more about you than the moderators.
Censorship by definition is the banning or deletion of material you don't want others to see.
If you want to see the comments that are marked down, enter your user preferences and select an appropriate default threshold (-5?).
If you want EVERYONE to be be able to read something you post, try posting something relevant, on-topic and will not cause a flame war. If you just want to post something inflammatory for everyone to be able to read, this isn't the place. Try doing something productive.
Sometimes, there may be 2, 3 or 4 moderators reading through an article at any given time. To moderate, they simply click on a radio button and when they're through looking through the comments, they click on a submit button. Unfortunately, this means it's entirely possible that each of those moderators will end up simultaneously knocking a post down a point or two. They're not doing it to bring the score down to -4, they're each individually trying to bring it down to 0 or -1.
If you want an open forum - you MUST give us control over what we see, and say, and provide SOME level of responsibility.
This is precisely what the scoring system is for. We give you control over what you see by providing you with a persistent means of setting your threshold (check your user preferences). We give you control over what you say by allowing you to post whatever the hell you want, anonymously if you desire. I also believe the moderators tend to act responsibly in their moderation methods so as to separate the relevant, ON-TOPIC posts from the off-topic, irrelevant and inflammatory ones.
I'm an American, but I really dislike it when people go off spouting complete nonsense like this. To go and say that Russians are all liars and thieves is crap. Stop with the sweeping generalizations and get a clue.
Do you honestly think the US has never told a lie? Do you think the US has never stolen technology or used foreign intelligence like you describe?
The process of giving your enemy misleading information about your abilities and arsenals is called "counter-intelligence". That's right, it has a name. Every major nation does it. It's not like we all stood up and gasped when it was discovered that Russia was actually MISLEADING us. My God! They told a lie!
Perhaps you should educate yourself about some of the stuff your own country does before you judge others.
Either build the thing and prove your point, publish in a peer-reviewed journal rather than some hype-blurbs in Wired, or shut up. Until then, it's all just unfounded rumors.
s/Wired/Slashdot
And besides, it's not "censoring", it's "moderating". If you want to see the flames and counter-flames, adjust your threshold to -1, -2 or lower so you can see them.
The flames are probably being censored because they tend to be off-topic, irrelevant to the article and generally tend to cause inflammatory responses of their own.
If you disagree with the CONTENT of a post, feel free to respond in a rational manner and make your point. Flames and other useless drivel belong elsewhere.
Why is this so fucking difficult for people to understand?
Why must people descend upon every single Jon Katz article they see and proceed to bash him, the article, and Slashdot for making it available?
Do you people get routinely beat up at school? Do you feel you have to vent your pent-up frustrations and emotional problems using every outlet available to you? Do you feel like a wimpy geek at school and that slashdot is the only place that you can pretend to be superior?
These anti-Katz comments are NOT PRODUCTIVE. If you have nothing productive to contribute to an article YOU SHOULD NOT BE POSTING. If you see the headline for an article that does not interest you, DO NOT READ IT. Skip it like you skip every other uninteresting article on Slashdot.
I am amazed by the number of you that do this over and over again. It's pathetic. Get a life.
This thing isn't on the shelves yet. It could be that by the time they're ready to ship, prices will have fallen enough to make that price goal seem reasonable.
And I would expect them to be selling millions of these things (especially at that price).
I would buy one at the $350-400 price, but if it goes any higher I'd have to think a bit harder about it.
There are Java IRC (and telnet?) apps available. There's no reason you can't just use one of those.
From what I read on Proxim's site, all they provide is a wireless ethernet type solution.
This appliance is compact, has a touch-screen for doing your web navigation, and has an embedded OS (appliance-style power-ons). It's significantly cheaper than a standard laptop and doesn't have all the messy hardware associated with laptops. Configuration requirements are kept to an absolute minimum.
It's simple, portable and efficient.
It's not the same thing at all.
I disagree. The reason I disagree is because I'm interpreting the EULA in a different fashion. I'm going to cut and paste from your version of the EULA and tell you how I'm interpreting it. Maybe you can see there's a bit of logic behind my reasoning then. I'm not going to say that I'm 100% accurate, but I believe this is how the EULA was meant to be interpreted.
Naturally you're licensing the OS, not the hardware. The problem rests on the definition of "product(s)" in the EULA:
the Microsoft software product(s) identified above ("SOFTWARE PRODUCT" or "SOFTWARE").
Note here that the word "product(s)" is preceded by the words "Microsoft software". They have essentially defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" and "SOFTWARE" to mean the Microsoft software products included in your purchase. The word "product" is left alone to mean (in this context), "commodity/commodities offered for sale."
If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is not accompanied by a new computer system or computer system component, you may not use or copy the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
IOW, If you didn't get the OS along with a computer, you can't use it. This is normal, since the OS is considered a bundled item meant to be packaged with the PC and nothing but the PC. You can't re-sell the OS, basically (well, I guess you can, but the buyer isn't legally allowed to use it according to the EULA).
The next few sentences serve to further narrow down what exactly the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is.
If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, Manufacturer and Microsoft Licensing, Inc. ("MS") are unwilling to license the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to you.
OK, here we approach the heart of the problem. If you don't agree to the EULA, you're not allowed to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (note the caps here). This is normal, obviously.
In such event, you may not use or copy the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, and you should promptly contact Manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused product(s) for a refund.
And here's the key bit. Here they say you're not allowed to do anything with the software and that you should contact the people you purchased your system from (the manufacturer) for instructions on returning the unused product(s). Note here that they did NOT say "SOFTWARE PRODUCT". This means that the standard English definition of "product" applies: A commodity offered for sale. You bought a PC system. You paid a single sum of money in exchange for a single commodity. The PC manufacturer isn't offering to sell MS Windows to you. They're offering to you a choice as to which MS OS you wish to put in your finished system. If they had intended to allow you to exchange *only* the OS for a refund, the license would have been worded with the previously defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" phrase instead of the plain-english "product(s)". Do you see where I'm coming from here?
This means that the manufacturer is NOT required to separate any part of your purchase and allow you to exchange parts for a refund. If they don't, obviously that's bad PR and not very good customer service, but they are in no way obligated legally to provide that refund.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but you should really consider both sides of the coin here. I'm waiting to hear from a "real" lawyer or a judge as to how this wording was meant to be interpreted legally, but this is not, by far, a simple matter. Everyone's making too many unfounded assumptions.
The problem with this example is that the individual pieces of hardware in the pre-configured system aren't covered by a separate EULA that states that you can return them for refund.
The main point of contention hinges on whether or not the EULA can be shown to state what you assume it states here. If the EULA doesn't specifically provide for a return of the OS on its own, it makes the OS just as much a part of your computer system as any other bundled application or hardware component.
If you don't want them, you may not be able to return individual pieces, but you can sell them to achieve an even bigger savings on your system; unlike the software covered by the M$ EULA, which, for the OEM version, says you can't even delete it from the computer you bought it with and install it on another computer.
Correct. The OS you received as part of your computer system is NOT a separate product. It came as part of the system and you may not (legally) use it unless it's on that system. You can sell it if you want, but the buyer is not legally allowed to use it according to the license. That's just a licensing issue. If you buy the OS in a store you obviously don't have these restrictions.
Hardware and software are not one and the same.
I agree, but from a licensing and bundling point of view, they're all value-adding features. The manufacturers have agreements with bundled software vendors that are nearly identical with the hardware vendors.
Also, from that logic, if you purchase a system with the following characteristics:
CPU
Modem
Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse
OS
Office Suite
Should you be able to return ANY ONE of those items in exchange for a refund? They're selling you a pre-configured, bundled system for a reason. If you want to "build your own" so to speak, you should go through a different vendor or take advantage of a different offer provided by the manufacturer.
I can't just look through the catalog and say "Hmm.. here's a nice decked out system for 300$ less than what it'd take for me to have them put it together like that." I can't take that 300$ PC and start saying, "I don't want this or that, so deduct those costs from the price." You bought the entire system as-is. You can't simply strip it down and offer to return bits and pieces for an even bigger cost savings.
1. The EULA is between the purchaser and *Microsoft*, not the PC manufacturer. So, as a party to the agreement, Microsoft probably would be held responsible if the PC manufacturer fails to provide the specified relief.
This makes sense, but I'm reasonably sure that the manufacturer also signed an agreement with Microsoft saying they'd uphold their end of the licensing scheme. I'll concede that it's not entirely the manufacturer's fault, but they certainly are not without blame here.
In any event, the refund can only be obtained from the manufacturer. The end user purchased the system from the manufacturer, not from Microsoft. The only thing these people could have possibly accomplished by going to Microsoft was publicity and/or a prodding by Microsoft to get the manufacturer's to honor what they feel is their end of the bargain. They may have succeeded in at least one respect.
What matters is what the EULA says, and it specifically allows a refund for *the unused software*, not the entire system
I was hoping not to get drawn into this argument again. The EULA is a legal document with wording and phrasing that has specific legal interpretations. You may *think* you understand what it's saying, but you should at least admit that you might be misinterpreting it.
As I recall, the term "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" (note the caps) is defined in legal fashion inside the EULA while "product" (lower case) retains its plain-english definition. You purchased a computer system from the manufacturer. It was advertised as a Pentium/233 (whatever) with Win98. That is the "product". You can't just arbitrarily re-define "product" to mean "software product" because it fits your needs. If the EULA intended for you to be able to simply return the *OS* portion for a refund, they would have used the previously defined "SOFTWARE PRODUCT" in place of "product".
Of course, like I've said before, I'm not a lawyer either, but I have a reasonable amount of experience interpreting legal documents. Please consult a competant contract lawyer and/or a judge. Don't *assume* that just because you can read and write English that you automatically are able to understand all the details and legal implications of a software licencing agreement that teams of lawyers spent weeks if not months drafting.
I will agree that it's possible I'm wrong here, but it's also possible that you are too. Only a judge can truly decide that.
Maybe you can't legally do anything to M$
You can't. MS is in no way liable or responsible for getting you your refunds. The fact that the manufacturers aren't cooperating is not MS's problem.
That's not to say that MS isn't in some way indirectly at fault for making it difficult for the manufacturers. The bad publicity is obviously not a good thing, and the media stunt probably had at least some effect in "our" favor, but really that's all it was. Nothing tangible could have come out of protesting against Microsoft here. No refunds.
Of course, I'm convinced that most people's interpretation of the EULA is flawed in the first place. I don't think the customer *should* be able to simply ask for a partial refund for their system because they don't want to use the OS that was bundled with it. But that's a subject already hammered into the ground...
By "stable" of course I assumed you meant applications ran on it without problems or library incompatibilities.
As far as *stability* goes (i.e. crashing), Red Hat's never crashed on me once (when I wasn't using an early 2.1 kernel). Applications that failed to work with glibc were upgraded (the "correct" way to solve this problem), and everything works perfectly now.