Taking HP to the BBB...?

[Evan Leibovitch]

I. Khider wrote:
> Richard Weait was super-helpful by introducing me Bob Gobeille who 
> works at the HP Open Source Program Office. Bob spoke with the World 
> Directory at HP and got them to change the warranty policy on HP 
> products for Linux users. This means that HP, like Toshiba, Averatec, 
> Asus, et al will fully back their hardware warranty for servicing if 
> Linux is installed. Bob informed me that a circular was passed down to 
> HP call centre managers to spread the good word for Linux users.
Good to see this is resolving well. Certainly HP as a company was not 
completely badmouthing Linux; they appear to have invested 
significantly, for instance, in a unique Ubuntu-based netbook user 
interface -- http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7556806272.html

HP servers certainly support Red Hat and SuSE, and their Linux printer 
support is the best in the industry. So it was a matter of one arm of HP 
that was acting badly. A company-wide complaint would have been not only 
pointless but lacking credibility.

> Of course, Jamon spoiled the victory when he posted about how I can 
> get a refund on the Windows OS. (Those Linux users, give 'em an inch 
> and they want a kilometer! ) Now I will settle for nothing less than 
> complete removal of the Windows OS AND an OS refund with the machine 
> upon purchase.
The refund is usually very small, considering the small amount OEMs pay 
for their copies (and especially if those copies are subsidized by 
pre-loaded trials of antivirus, etc).

Besides, often companies will put useful hardware diagnostics on their 
Windows partitions. If some hardware fails to work under Linux, booting 
to Windows is helpful in tracing whether it's a driver or software problem.

(For instance: a recent kernel update -- 2.6.27-11 -- broke the driver 
for the Realtek Ethernet chipset, a very common one in laptops.)

Certainly booting Windows will help you with the helpdesk...

If a system doesn't ship with Windows I won't load it. But if it DOES 
ship with it I just reduce its partition size to about 6GB, put Linux on 
the rest, and set it up for dual boot. Getting the money back in the 
past has usually not been worth the hassle and the Windows partition 
just might come in handy -- if you already have it.

> This is great information and I will spread it to other Linux users I 
> know to ensure they do not pay the Windows tax.

If your time has any value at all you'll be paying more than double that 
tax to ask for the refund.

- Evan

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