I had contact with both the dealer, http://bluelink.nl/, and IBM/Lenovo themselves. I wanted to make sure I would get the refund before I bought anything. The way it was arranged in the end was probably the simplest solution. The windows flavour involved was XP.
IBM/Lenovo were actually very easy to convince. I called them because I had heard of the plans discussed in this article. They even offered to talk to unhelpful dealers for me. Bluelink needed a little more convincing, but I just kept politely and clearly invalidating any arguments they came up with against giving me a refund. This article by Serge Wroclawski http://www.linux.com/articles/59381 was very useful. The counters to all the arguments they came up with are there. I remained friendly and polite the whole time, but the people at Bluelink probably still thought I was some kind of crazy zealot making a fuss.
After my initial phone call to Bluelink asking for a written offer, all communication with them went via email. That way I had more time to think about what I said and compose a convincing message (I can be a bit clumsy on the phone), and there was a written record as well. I also took IBM/Lenovo up on the offer to talk to Bluelink for me. I have no idea what the IBM/Lenovo guy said to Bluelink to make it work, though, because I never saw that communication.
There must be other manufacturers and vendors where this could work as well. My previous laptop was an ASUS, which I bought without any OS on it about 5 years ago. Back then manufacturers were a lot less helpful. I remember talking to several manufacturers before buying the ASUS and being completely stonewalled. Because of my good experience with ASUS, I contacted them this time around too, and they seemed quite willing to help. But I didn't manage to get the store where I bought my previous laptop to cave quickly enough, so I didn't pursue it when I could get an acceptable configuration from http://zepto.com/, where you can buy empty notebooks. I still preferred the specs of the thinkpad. I had almost given up on it when I got an offer with a preemptive windows refund from Bluelink.
The OEM price of windows is much more than 50 dollars.
I managed to buy a thinkpad T60 in the Netherlands a few weeks ago with a preemptive windows (XP) refund. The dealer removed the OS and gave me a discount for the OEM price, which was 129.71 euros, about 190 dollars.
I would have been happy for Lenovo to give that money to a random linux distribution, but now I can decide myself which one gets it.
Slashdot Mirror
Mary Tsingou is an example of a woman who should have been famous for her programming, but she didn't get the credit for her work.
A pdf of the Physics Today article about her and what she did: http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/thierry.dauxois/PAPERS/pt61_55.2008.pdf
I had contact with both the dealer, http://bluelink.nl/, and IBM/Lenovo themselves. I wanted to make sure I would get the refund before I bought anything. The way it was arranged in the end was probably the simplest solution. The windows flavour involved was XP.
IBM/Lenovo were actually very easy to convince. I called them because I had heard of the plans discussed in this article. They even offered to talk to unhelpful dealers for me. Bluelink needed a little more convincing, but I just kept politely and clearly invalidating any arguments they came up with against giving me a refund. This article by Serge Wroclawski http://www.linux.com/articles/59381 was very useful. The counters to all the arguments they came up with are there. I remained friendly and polite the whole time, but the people at Bluelink probably still thought I was some kind of crazy zealot making a fuss.
After my initial phone call to Bluelink asking for a written offer, all communication with them went via email. That way I had more time to think about what I said and compose a convincing message (I can be a bit clumsy on the phone), and there was a written record as well. I also took IBM/Lenovo up on the offer to talk to Bluelink for me. I have no idea what the IBM/Lenovo guy said to Bluelink to make it work, though, because I never saw that communication.
There must be other manufacturers and vendors where this could work as well. My previous laptop was an ASUS, which I bought without any OS on it about 5 years ago. Back then manufacturers were a lot less helpful. I remember talking to several manufacturers before buying the ASUS and being completely stonewalled. Because of my good experience with ASUS, I contacted them this time around too, and they seemed quite willing to help. But I didn't manage to get the store where I bought my previous laptop to cave quickly enough, so I didn't pursue it when I could get an acceptable configuration from http://zepto.com/, where you can buy empty notebooks. I still preferred the specs of the thinkpad. I had almost given up on it when I got an offer with a preemptive windows refund from Bluelink.
Hope this helps!
Syonax
The OEM price of windows is much more than 50 dollars.
I managed to buy a thinkpad T60 in the Netherlands a few weeks ago with a preemptive windows (XP) refund. The dealer removed the OS and gave me a discount for the OEM price, which was 129.71 euros, about 190 dollars.
I would have been happy for Lenovo to give that money to a random linux distribution, but now I can decide myself which one gets it.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
The Telegraph article gets a pretty high score.
It would have been a lot cooler if it had been a working Geiger counter in an iPod case.
It is basically the same as a Minolta DiMAGE, except it has a larger and better CCD.