Hello,
On Sat, 17 May 2008, Praveen A wrote:
> A very serious effort to get Windows refund from Lenovo is going on in
> ilugd. There is cases in Europe where people have got such a refund,
> but this is first time this issue is being taken seriously in India.
> Some magzines are involved in this at the moment. Any help to get wide
> coverage and discussion and importantly legal options would be great.
Here some things that I learnt about this issue when I bought my
laptop.
Many _manufacturers_ do offer the option of FreeDOS (or IBM DOS for
Lenovo) and some even offer some GNU/Linux distribution
pre-installed when they have "certified" that their machine works
with Linux ... but
a. Vendors need to place a bulk order with the manufacturer
to offer you this option. They are unwilling to place
a bulk order unless they _know_ that that many machines
will sell. (Note that if they later have to sell this
machine with a legal Windows, that version will cost them
more).
b. Vendors get incentives for bundling Windows programmes
which are "shareware" or 30-day trial versions; there are
even advertising placements! They pass on part of these
incentives to you as a discount. These discounts are
obviously unavailable if you do not buy Windows.
This to some extent means that vendors will offer only low-end
machines with the DOS/Linux option. The manufacturer's web-site will
also generally follow the same policy as vendors. At this point I
copped-out and bought a low-end laptop!
If you want to buy a high-end laptop then your best option is to ask
for a Windows refund from the manufacturer _after_ buying the machine
as the member of ilugd is doing.
You need to be quite careful to ensure that the EULA is not
accepted. Often the vendor will _helpfully_ unpack and install the
system for you and click through the EULA acceptance. It is not clear
that this acceptance is legally binding on you. Its not even clear
what the Indian courts think about click-through licenses!
I think that our best hope is to convince the manufacturers that
these are a few isolated cases and it is simplest for them to settle
the amount whenever it is asked for. You can also argue that if a
large number of people are asking for the refund it means that they
should drop condition (a) above.
This is only one aspect of the "Microsoft Eco-System".
Cynically,
Kapil.
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