Well, I said "whatever figure they use" because I'm not sure how they assess it. It wouldn't be too hard to use your overall income as the basis for the fine instead, which would include capital gains.
And secondly:
Well, the socialists deliberately derailed the economy so that they can get elected
Could you possibly explain, just what the hell you're talking about?
Re:Socialism does the same things.
on
Lulu Introduces DRM
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
If socialism makes a mistake, the whole nation suffers. If a company makes a mistake in the free market, life goes on.
Exactly. That's why when all those investment banks gambled massively, and lost, the whole nation shrugged it's shoulders and life went on. No recession, no need for the government to bail them out. I'd hate to live in some sort of socialist country, where the bad decisions of those companies could adversely affect the nation as a whole.
There is a big difference however between the definition of 'monopoly' and 'illegal monopoly'
Try to get this through your head :
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL MONOPOLY!!!
A monopoly is when a company controls so much of a market that there is effectively no competition, such as MS's 90 percent plus share of the OS market. That, in itself, is not illegal. even if MS had 100 percent, it would still not be illegal. No law would be violated.
What is illegal is abusing a monopoly. There are plenty of things which would be perfectly legal for a normal business, but become illegal for a monopoly. In MS's case, they broke the law by trying to leverage their OS monopoly into a monopoly on web browsers. The forced bundling of IE with Windows was an abuse their monopoly position. The important thing to note here is that the browser bundling would have been absolutly fine if MS did NOT have an OS monopoly, and the OS monopoly would have been fine if they did not bundle the browser.
There are many other ways a monopoly can run afoul of the law. Perhaps you might to read on monopolies law before you next decide to share your ignorance with the world.
Not sure why I'm bothering to reply to an AC, but I'm sick of seeing this particular misconception repeated on slashdot.
Slightly off topic, but reading about the convenience of full versions as opposed to upgrades reminded me of a funny story.
I had pirated copies of Windows 95, and a pirated copy of the upgrade to 98. Well, I must have installed those things a hundred times. Relatives, friends, building myself new machines. I was the "IT Kid" in the family.
So one day, I'm installing Windows 98 and playing bomberman with my friend Mark while I wait for the installer to run. First, I install Win 95, then I run the 98 upgrade installer. As it's running, Marks asks me why I installed Windows 95 first. I explain that I only have the 98 Upgrade. Oh, he says, didn't I know that you could run the install by booting off the upgrade disc. You only have to insert your 95 disc half way through to verify you have one, you don't have to actually install it first.
I must have wasted whole days of my life installing Windows 95 unnecessarily.
When Win98 was the most popular desktop OS, Linux users everywhere realized the general public thought that computer crashes and frequent reboots were a normal, inherent part of operating a computer. They were not, and Linux proved that, but there is/was widespread ignorance about these things and the general public continued to buy Windows
When windows 98 was the most popular Desktop OS, it was also the best desktop OS that would run on commodity hardware. Remember, The era of Win 98 was 1998 to 2000, at which point the state of the art Linux Distro was Red Hat 6, which had little or no support for a staggering amount of hardware. Want to use a win modem, or a webcam, or a USB printer? Best stick with win 98 then. Sure, Red Hat never crashed, but what use was that if my 56k modem didn't work?
Obviously things are better now, but don't go looking back with rose tinted glasses. The first Linux distro I ever used was Slackware 3.something, back in the mid-nineties, so I was perfectly aware that there were better alternatives out there, but I didn't switch to a Linux desktop completely till Red Hat 9, because there was always some show stopper of a problem with my hardware.
Slightly off topic here, but there is a lot more to learning curve than complexity.
For instance, typing "mkdir some_folder" is arguably less complex than doing "file -> new folder -> type folder name -> click OK". But in terms of learning how to create a new folder, the graphical method is easier, because you could probably figure it out for yourself, whereas to learn a CLI, you are pretty much forced to read a manual.
I have never used publisher, but I will bet that I could install a copy and create a pamphlet, albeit a very poor one, in less than thirty minutes without reading a single word of documentation. I have never used latex either, does anyone think I could do the same thing, or would I need to read a manual?
Of course, making it easy to produce crap might not be good thing.
1) Commercial developers don't understand the license--GPL and others.
2) Microsoft created a series of "lock in" technologies.
Whilst I'm sure both of those play a part, they are by no means the main reason. After all, if MS lock-in was such a huge obstacle to porting games across platforms, the 360 would have more system exclusives. There is a far more simple reason why there are so few commercial Linux games. Market share.
Not market share in the conventional sense though. Let me explain.
Generic Blockbuster Games inc are planning to release their new game, Mediocre First Person Shooter VII: The Shootening, this summer,and are considering investing in porting it to Linux. Is this worthwhile? Only if the investment will bring in more revenue, by selling more copies. Now on the face of it, sure it would, because Linux has, according to TFA, 2.5 percent of the desktop market. If GBG port MFPS VII, they can all buy it, right? Wrong.
For a start, only hardcore gamers with expensive rigs can play the latest games, so only a sub-set of the 2.5 percent are potential customers. Now, ask yourself a question. How many hardcore gamers with expensive gaming rigs do you know who only play games with native Linux versions?
You yourself are playing a game with no Linux version. How would NCsoft have stood to make any more money from you by providing a windows version of Guild Wars?
30 million Linux users are irrelevant. The potential market for Linux video games is vanishingly small, if you discount the people who would buy the windows version in the absence of a linux port.
Well, to go even further off topic, look at it like this:
The two major candidates are Bill and Ben. You disagree with both of them, but find Ben marginally less objectionable. Now one of either Bill or Ben WILL, with absolute certainty, win the election. So, even though you might agree whole heartedly with the policies of candidate Bob, it would still make sense to vote for Ben, since Bob has no chance of winning, but your vote could help stop Bill winning.
You could argue that voting for your truly preferred candidate is never a waste, and I can certainly see that point of view. On the other hand, I suspect an awful lot of people who voted for Nader wished Gore had won in 2000.
Or, put another way, a blow job is more fun than having a testicle amputated, but if your choice is lose the gonad or die of testicular cancer, asking the nurse to go down on you will be very little help.
No, the points that I was taking issue with were your math mistakes (assuming that Linux gamers were somehow a much smaller fraction of Linux users than Windows gamers were of Windows users)
Oh I see. Actually, I think you'll find that ten percent is a huge over estimation of how many people game on windows, never mind linux. Hell, I doubt ten percent of consumer desktops could even run the latest games.
we would always be willing to do so. Today, yes. In two or three years? Not so much
So, if in two or three years there are still next to no major games coming out on Linux, will you wipe your XP partition and stop buying games? Because if not, if you're just going to carry on buying the windows version, why bother porting?
Windows is dangerously close to dropping below 90% of the market
Yes it is, and I'm thrilled, but what I'm trying to say is that market share is not all that relevant. It wouldn't matter if Linux had fifty percent, because if all the Linux gamers dual booted like you, then there is no need to port.
One additional thing worth pointing out is that most of the market lost by windows over the last two years has gone to Apple, not linux. And when did Apple start making these huge inroads? when they switched to x86, thus allowing everyone to dual boot windows. Although linux does now look as though it might make serious inroads in the netbook sector, those machines are hardly likely to be used for gaming.
My preference for gaming under Linux is a pragmatic one. At this point, I only keep the Windows partition around for gaming
You admit you buy the windows version of games, so why should developers port to linux? You might be happier, but why would they care? If, in the absence of a linux port, you're going to buy the windows version of a game, then how would they stand to gain by porting it to Linux?
Think about it. FPS 3: The shootening, comes out for windows, and you and I buy it, making the developers $20 in profit. You would have preferred a linux version. Twelve months later FPS 4: The Dramatic Sub-Title* is released. This time the developers have gone to the time, effort and, crucially, the expense of porting it Linux. I buy the windows version, you buy the Linux one. The developers make, um, $20 dollars. how are they better off?
Now don't get me wrong, I use Linux, and I don't really care about this subject, since I've pretty much given up on PC gaming (although I have a terrible suspicion that the new starcraft is going to suck me back in ), but I don't see big developers starting porting many games any time soon.
*This one adds dual wielding, and a cool bullet time mode. IGN give it 9.5/10.
WoW for Linux would have sold 144 copies in it's first 6 weeks
True as that may be, Blizzard would not have sold 144 extra copies. Some of those 144 people who would have bought the Linux version bought the PC version instead, and booted to windows to play it. It would be irrelevant if Linux WoW would sell 10,000,000 copies. If 9,999,000 of those people are willing to dual boot and buy the windows version instead, then why bother porting?
While I agree with some of what you say (although I can assure that the QA alone for porting to multiple OS's is anything but trivial), there is a very simple reason why most major game publishers have little or no interest in Linux. Let me explain.
What percentage of Linux users do you think are gamers? Shall we say ten percent? OK, now, what percentage of that ten percent do not have a windows machine for playing games, and exclusively game on linux? Ten percent again? Personally, I think both these numbers are probably two high, but what the hell. OK, that is the sum total of the of the market from which you could gain extra sales by porting to linux.
Admittedly, I pulled the numbers out of my ass, but do you really think there are hordes of frustrated gamers out there sat in front of Linux boxes waiting for a port of GTA IV? Like I said, my numbers are probably too high. You are talking about a vanishingly small segment of the market. Sure, if there was a Linux port of, say, Dawn of War, I know several people who would have bought it, but each one of them bought the PC version instead, so the publishers gain nothing by porting it.
Just to establish, up front, that I do NOT believe aliens have visited earth. But, supposing they do:
If you were an alien, where would you land your craft? In the middle of nowhere, where there is no one around to mess with you or your stuff, or in the right in the middle of Central Park, where the Bloods or the Crips might gank you and jack your ride?
Why, exactly, would they care whether we knew about them or not? Suppose that proof is found that aliens exist. They have the technology to cross interstellar distances, so it's a fair bet that they are massively more advanced than us. What are we gonna do about it? I'm pretty sure whales are aware that humans exist, but there's fuck all they can do to stop the Japanese whaling fleet.
ell. The point is that "graphics pros" and other users of Adobe software, like Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc, does NOT use Windows, OSX, Linux or any other OS. They use their applications
Bingo. And they already use those applications on windows and OSX. No doubt if Adobe released photoshop for linux, some of those people would switch, although I doubt it's anything like a significant number. But even if it was, say 5 percent of their userbase ( which, since linux accounts for less than 1 percent of the desktop market, is probably a huge, huge overestimate), so what? They already use Adobe products, on windows and OSX. What does Adobe gain by selling them the next version on a different platform? They would have bough it anyway on their old platform.
No, what will get adobe and all the rest to port apps is a large installed base of customers who are chomping at the bit to buy their software. For that to happen, we need OEM linux machines on sale in PC World.
Whilst I agree with most of that, I don't think that the lack of a Linux port of Photoshop is anything to do with adobe lacking backbone. I'm sure if they thought there was a significant market, they'd port it. Unfortunately, I suspect that the number of graphics pros itching for a linux native version of Photoshop is a tiny, tiny fragment of the market.
If one and two on your list came to pass, three would probably follow in short order, backbone and vendor lock-in or not.
I just don't like OSX. I admit my experience using it amounts to a few hours in total, but I just don't get on with the GUI. And before anybody flames me, I'm NOT saying it's a bad GUI, just that I don't like it.
Secondly, yes the principle. I'm not an RMS style zealot, and I have no problem using closed source proprietary software, but I develop OSS in my spare time, and I prefer to use it wherever possible.
Thirdly, every other PC in the house, five in total, runs Linux. I use the same desktop config on all of them, I'm comfortable with it, and don't want to have to switch between two different GUIs.
Then under UK law, you would be entitled to a full refund from the retailer, as per the Sale of Goods act. No arguing, no question. Goods sold by a retailer must be fit for purpose. Obviously, a copy of windows you can't install is hardly fit for purpose ( I know, I know, it's not fit for purpose anyway).
That might be the case in the US of A ( not sure, as my lack of knowledge regarding US law is surpassed only by my lack of interest in US law), but over here in good old blighty we certainly can resell copies. CEX, a large high street retailer of second hand computer goods, will happily flog you a used copy of XP pro or home. Link
Actually, I'm typing this on a (very old) Toshiba, and yes, I do normally just stay plugged in. In my experience with laptops, they all have shitty battery life after the first eighteen months, so I don't normally pay much attention to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I said "whatever figure they use" because I'm not sure how they assess it. It wouldn't be too hard to use your overall income as the basis for the fine instead, which would include capital gains.
It's not a harsher punishment. It's exactly the same punishment. Five percent of your monthly wage.
(Or whatever figure they actually use)
I bought them both. And Crash.
Why limit yourself to only one free tape a month?
I still have them all in boxes in the attic.
Firstly, who said I was a socialist?
And secondly: Well, the socialists deliberately derailed the economy so that they can get elected
Could you possibly explain, just what the hell you're talking about?
If socialism makes a mistake, the whole nation suffers. If a company makes a mistake in the free market, life goes on.
Exactly. That's why when all those investment banks gambled massively, and lost, the whole nation shrugged it's shoulders and life went on. No recession, no need for the government to bail them out. I'd hate to live in some sort of socialist country, where the bad decisions of those companies could adversely affect the nation as a whole.
haven't heard anyone else talk about this feature.. so I don't know how common it is, or if it's one of those unspoken things
The first rule of ad-free slashdot is you don't talk about add free slashdot.
There is a big difference however between the definition of 'monopoly' and 'illegal monopoly'
Try to get this through your head :
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL MONOPOLY!!!
A monopoly is when a company controls so much of a market that there is effectively no competition, such as MS's 90 percent plus share of the OS market. That, in itself, is not illegal. even if MS had 100 percent, it would still not be illegal. No law would be violated.
What is illegal is abusing a monopoly. There are plenty of things which would be perfectly legal for a normal business, but become illegal for a monopoly. In MS's case, they broke the law by trying to leverage their OS monopoly into a monopoly on web browsers. The forced bundling of IE with Windows was an abuse their monopoly position. The important thing to note here is that the browser bundling would have been absolutly fine if MS did NOT have an OS monopoly, and the OS monopoly would have been fine if they did not bundle the browser.
There are many other ways a monopoly can run afoul of the law. Perhaps you might to read on monopolies law before you next decide to share your ignorance with the world.
Not sure why I'm bothering to reply to an AC, but I'm sick of seeing this particular misconception repeated on slashdot.
IANAL, but IHALD.
Slightly off topic, but reading about the convenience of full versions as opposed to upgrades reminded me of a funny story.
I had pirated copies of Windows 95, and a pirated copy of the upgrade to 98. Well, I must have installed those things a hundred times. Relatives, friends, building myself new machines. I was the "IT Kid" in the family.
So one day, I'm installing Windows 98 and playing bomberman with my friend Mark while I wait for the installer to run. First, I install Win 95, then I run the 98 upgrade installer. As it's running, Marks asks me why I installed Windows 95 first. I explain that I only have the 98 Upgrade. Oh, he says, didn't I know that you could run the install by booting off the upgrade disc. You only have to insert your 95 disc half way through to verify you have one, you don't have to actually install it first.
I must have wasted whole days of my life installing Windows 95 unnecessarily.
When Win98 was the most popular desktop OS, Linux users everywhere realized the general public thought that computer crashes and frequent reboots were a normal, inherent part of operating a computer. They were not, and Linux proved that, but there is/was widespread ignorance about these things and the general public continued to buy Windows
When windows 98 was the most popular Desktop OS, it was also the best desktop OS that would run on commodity hardware. Remember, The era of Win 98 was 1998 to 2000, at which point the state of the art Linux Distro was Red Hat 6, which had little or no support for a staggering amount of hardware. Want to use a win modem, or a webcam, or a USB printer? Best stick with win 98 then. Sure, Red Hat never crashed, but what use was that if my 56k modem didn't work?
Obviously things are better now, but don't go looking back with rose tinted glasses. The first Linux distro I ever used was Slackware 3.something, back in the mid-nineties, so I was perfectly aware that there were better alternatives out there, but I didn't switch to a Linux desktop completely till Red Hat 9, because there was always some show stopper of a problem with my hardware.
Slightly off topic here, but there is a lot more to learning curve than complexity.
For instance, typing "mkdir some_folder" is arguably less complex than doing "file -> new folder -> type folder name -> click OK". But in terms of learning how to create a new folder, the graphical method is easier, because you could probably figure it out for yourself, whereas to learn a CLI, you are pretty much forced to read a manual.
I have never used publisher, but I will bet that I could install a copy and create a pamphlet, albeit a very poor one, in less than thirty minutes without reading a single word of documentation. I have never used latex either, does anyone think I could do the same thing, or would I need to read a manual?
Of course, making it easy to produce crap might not be good thing.
1) Commercial developers don't understand the license--GPL and others.
2) Microsoft created a series of "lock in" technologies.
Whilst I'm sure both of those play a part, they are by no means the main reason. After all, if MS lock-in was such a huge obstacle to porting games across platforms, the 360 would have more system exclusives. There is a far more simple reason why there are so few commercial Linux games. Market share.
Not market share in the conventional sense though. Let me explain.
Generic Blockbuster Games inc are planning to release their new game, Mediocre First Person Shooter VII: The Shootening, this summer,and are considering investing in porting it to Linux. Is this worthwhile? Only if the investment will bring in more revenue, by selling more copies. Now on the face of it, sure it would, because Linux has, according to TFA, 2.5 percent of the desktop market. If GBG port MFPS VII, they can all buy it, right? Wrong.
For a start, only hardcore gamers with expensive rigs can play the latest games, so only a sub-set of the 2.5 percent are potential customers. Now, ask yourself a question. How many hardcore gamers with expensive gaming rigs do you know who only play games with native Linux versions?
You yourself are playing a game with no Linux version. How would NCsoft have stood to make any more money from you by providing a windows version of Guild Wars?
30 million Linux users are irrelevant. The potential market for Linux video games is vanishingly small, if you discount the people who would buy the windows version in the absence of a linux port.
Well, to go even further off topic, look at it like this:
The two major candidates are Bill and Ben. You disagree with both of them, but find Ben marginally less objectionable. Now one of either Bill or Ben WILL, with absolute certainty, win the election. So, even though you might agree whole heartedly with the policies of candidate Bob, it would still make sense to vote for Ben, since Bob has no chance of winning, but your vote could help stop Bill winning.
You could argue that voting for your truly preferred candidate is never a waste, and I can certainly see that point of view. On the other hand, I suspect an awful lot of people who voted for Nader wished Gore had won in 2000.
Or, put another way, a blow job is more fun than having a testicle amputated, but if your choice is lose the gonad or die of testicular cancer, asking the nurse to go down on you will be very little help.
So what? They still bought it.
No, the points that I was taking issue with were your math mistakes (assuming that Linux gamers were somehow a much smaller fraction of Linux users than Windows gamers were of Windows users)
Oh I see. Actually, I think you'll find that ten percent is a huge over estimation of how many people game on windows, never mind linux. Hell, I doubt ten percent of consumer desktops could even run the latest games.
we would always be willing to do so. Today, yes. In two or three years? Not so much
So, if in two or three years there are still next to no major games coming out on Linux, will you wipe your XP partition and stop buying games? Because if not, if you're just going to carry on buying the windows version, why bother porting?
Windows is dangerously close to dropping below 90% of the market
Yes it is, and I'm thrilled, but what I'm trying to say is that market share is not all that relevant. It wouldn't matter if Linux had fifty percent, because if all the Linux gamers dual booted like you, then there is no need to port.
One additional thing worth pointing out is that most of the market lost by windows over the last two years has gone to Apple, not linux. And when did Apple start making these huge inroads? when they switched to x86, thus allowing everyone to dual boot windows. Although linux does now look as though it might make serious inroads in the netbook sector, those machines are hardly likely to be used for gaming.
Thanks for proving my point.
My preference for gaming under Linux is a pragmatic one. At this point, I only keep the Windows partition around for gaming
You admit you buy the windows version of games, so why should developers port to linux? You might be happier, but why would they care? If, in the absence of a linux port, you're going to buy the windows version of a game, then how would they stand to gain by porting it to Linux?
Think about it. FPS 3: The shootening, comes out for windows, and you and I buy it, making the developers $20 in profit. You would have preferred a linux version. Twelve months later FPS 4: The Dramatic Sub-Title* is released. This time the developers have gone to the time, effort and, crucially, the expense of porting it Linux. I buy the windows version, you buy the Linux one. The developers make, um, $20 dollars. how are they better off?
Now don't get me wrong, I use Linux, and I don't really care about this subject, since I've pretty much given up on PC gaming (although I have a terrible suspicion that the new starcraft is going to suck me back in ), but I don't see big developers starting porting many games any time soon.
*This one adds dual wielding, and a cool bullet time mode. IGN give it 9.5/10.
No offence, but I think you missed my point
WoW for Linux would have sold 144 copies in it's first 6 weeks
True as that may be, Blizzard would not have sold 144 extra copies. Some of those 144 people who would have bought the Linux version bought the PC version instead, and booted to windows to play it. It would be irrelevant if Linux WoW would sell 10,000,000 copies. If 9,999,000 of those people are willing to dual boot and buy the windows version instead, then why bother porting?
While I agree with some of what you say (although I can assure that the QA alone for porting to multiple OS's is anything but trivial), there is a very simple reason why most major game publishers have little or no interest in Linux. Let me explain.
What percentage of Linux users do you think are gamers? Shall we say ten percent? OK, now, what percentage of that ten percent do not have a windows machine for playing games, and exclusively game on linux? Ten percent again? Personally, I think both these numbers are probably two high, but what the hell. OK, that is the sum total of the of the market from which you could gain extra sales by porting to linux.
Admittedly, I pulled the numbers out of my ass, but do you really think there are hordes of frustrated gamers out there sat in front of Linux boxes waiting for a port of GTA IV? Like I said, my numbers are probably too high. You are talking about a vanishingly small segment of the market. Sure, if there was a Linux port of, say, Dawn of War, I know several people who would have bought it, but each one of them bought the PC version instead, so the publishers gain nothing by porting it.
Just to establish, up front, that I do NOT believe aliens have visited earth. But, supposing they do:
If you were an alien, where would you land your craft? In the middle of nowhere, where there is no one around to mess with you or your stuff, or in the right in the middle of Central Park, where the Bloods or the Crips might gank you and jack your ride?
Why, exactly, would they care whether we knew about them or not? Suppose that proof is found that aliens exist. They have the technology to cross interstellar distances, so it's a fair bet that they are massively more advanced than us. What are we gonna do about it? I'm pretty sure whales are aware that humans exist, but there's fuck all they can do to stop the Japanese whaling fleet.
Please explain why you would make a swap drive out of RAM?
Oh how I wish I had mod points.
ell. The point is that "graphics pros" and other users of Adobe software, like Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc, does NOT use Windows, OSX, Linux or any other OS. They use their applications
Bingo. And they already use those applications on windows and OSX. No doubt if Adobe released photoshop for linux, some of those people would switch, although I doubt it's anything like a significant number. But even if it was, say 5 percent of their userbase ( which, since linux accounts for less than 1 percent of the desktop market, is probably a huge, huge overestimate), so what? They already use Adobe products, on windows and OSX. What does Adobe gain by selling them the next version on a different platform? They would have bough it anyway on their old platform.
No, what will get adobe and all the rest to port apps is a large installed base of customers who are chomping at the bit to buy their software. For that to happen, we need OEM linux machines on sale in PC World.
Whilst I agree with most of that, I don't think that the lack of a Linux port of Photoshop is anything to do with adobe lacking backbone. I'm sure if they thought there was a significant market, they'd port it. Unfortunately, I suspect that the number of graphics pros itching for a linux native version of Photoshop is a tiny, tiny fragment of the market.
If one and two on your list came to pass, three would probably follow in short order, backbone and vendor lock-in or not.
Well, three reasons actually:
I just don't like OSX. I admit my experience using it amounts to a few hours in total, but I just don't get on with the GUI. And before anybody flames me, I'm NOT saying it's a bad GUI, just that I don't like it.
Secondly, yes the principle. I'm not an RMS style zealot, and I have no problem using closed source proprietary software, but I develop OSS in my spare time, and I prefer to use it wherever possible.
Thirdly, every other PC in the house, five in total, runs Linux. I use the same desktop config on all of them, I'm comfortable with it, and don't want to have to switch between two different GUIs.
Then under UK law, you would be entitled to a full refund from the retailer, as per the Sale of Goods act. No arguing, no question. Goods sold by a retailer must be fit for purpose. Obviously, a copy of windows you can't install is hardly fit for purpose ( I know, I know, it's not fit for purpose anyway).
it is illegal to resell old copies of Windows XP
Seriously?
That might be the case in the US of A ( not sure, as my lack of knowledge regarding US law is surpassed only by my lack of interest in US law), but over here in good old blighty we certainly can resell copies. CEX, a large high street retailer of second hand computer goods, will happily flog you a used copy of XP pro or home. Link
Try not to wince too much at the prices.
Actually, I'm typing this on a (very old) Toshiba, and yes, I do normally just stay plugged in. In my experience with laptops, they all have shitty battery life after the first eighteen months, so I don't normally pay much attention to it.