Windows refund: stymied

[Ian Goldberg]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 03:37:25PM -0400, Keith Mastin wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 21:54, Ian Goldberg wrote:
> >> The whole story:
> >>
> >> http://www.cypherpunks.ca/dell.html
> >
> > This is now on /.  A good opportunity to muster ppl if any linux.ca +
> > response to Dell + is desired.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Lloyd +
> 
> I agree to where I've been sseing this thread going, but I have a question...
> 
> Where will this all lead to? We send a petition, they look at it and
> dismiss it because they have an agreement that stipulates they sell all
> desktop systems with M$ software pre-installed.
> 
> Are we asking them to break that agreement? What is their incentive to do
> it voluntarily? A bunch of people screaming unfair business practices
> isn't nearly as potent as one individual in court screaming no fair.
> 
> Dell is a business, so they make decisions based on the bottom line. M$
> must have offered them something (or the appearance of something?) in the
> agreement they have together, and locked them in hard with a bunch of
> fancy legal mumbo-jumbo.
> 
> The opensource community has to have something that they can see in their
> future bottom line or they won't budge. Why should they if it isn't
> plesing to shareholders?
> 
> That's my thoughts on all this... Ian? Seems the ball's in your court.
> what's your thoughts on the goal for a final outcome of all this?

I really doubt they have an agreement with MS that says that they have
to get consumers to agree to the license before they have a chance to
see it.

Kat's suspicion is that when the first license screen you saw was the MS
license one (that contained the "return for a refund" clause), they were
getting bothered by people trying to do that.  So they put this screen
up first.  Now, by the time you ever _see_ the "return for a refund"
clause, you've already agreed to the license.

[My first /.ing!  :-) ]

I'd love it if they just removed the logically impossible requirement
at boot.  Simply displaying the EULAs to which the user needs to agree
would be sufficient.

(Well, and I'd like leads on laptops in the CA$1500-CA$2000 range that
run Linux.)

Thanks,

   - Ian
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