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From: Owain on 27 Dec 2009 13:15 On 26 Dec, 23:37, Tony van der Hoff wrote: > Sure. But the point being discussed, as opposed to your new one, is > there's nothing illegal about it. We don't like it, but until the mass > market's there, manufacturers aren't going to bother. Surely the purpose of competition legislation is to prevent anti- competitive practices. > Buy your laptop from Amazon, or whoever, partition off the disk, and > install Linux. You're getting it cheaper, and you can accept Windows > thrown in at that price. But you are having to buy Windows, and give money to Microsoft, even if you don't want to. If the operating system market were open and competitive there would be a fair range of manufacturers, products and prices so you could choose whether or not you wanted to pay for a Microsoft product (and the Microsoft product were offered at a fair and transparent price). Owain
From: Mark Hobley on 27 Dec 2009 16:08 Owain <spuorgelgoog(a)gowanhill.com> wrote: > Surely the purpose of competition legislation is to prevent anti- > competitive practices. > But you are having to buy Windows, and give money to Microsoft, even > if you don't want to. Indeed. We want to be able to buy laptops without Microsoft Windows. Refusing to unbundle the operating system from the laptop is anti-competitive practice. It would be nice to see retailers getting fined for refusing to unbundle products. Mark. -- Mark Hobley Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/
From: Owain on 28 Dec 2009 07:06 On 26 Dec, 23:37, Tony van der Hoff wrote: > Say I'd quite like a Ford with a Ferrari engine. I'll ask the dealer. > Nope, he won't play. There's a surprise. Neither would the engine, probably. But you are free to buy a Ford with (say) Michelin tyres and a Sony stereo, remove the tyres and stereo and sell them to someone else, without contravening any conditions enforced by Michelin and Sony. Owain
From: Ivor Jones on 28 Dec 2009 08:49 On 28/12/09 12:06, Owain wrote: > On 26 Dec, 23:37, Tony van der Hoff wrote: >> Say I'd quite like a Ford with a Ferrari engine. I'll ask the dealer. >> Nope, he won't play. There's a surprise. > > Neither would the engine, probably. But you are free to buy a Ford > with (say) Michelin tyres and a Sony stereo, remove the tyres and > stereo and sell them to someone else, without contravening any > conditions enforced by Michelin and Sony. Hmm. Try getting spares for a Sony computer. Ivor
From: chris on 5 Jan 2010 06:41
On 28/12/09 12:06, Owain wrote: > On 26 Dec, 23:37, Tony van der Hoff wrote: >> Say I'd quite like a Ford with a Ferrari engine. I'll ask the dealer. >> Nope, he won't play. There's a surprise. > > Neither would the engine, probably. But you are free to buy a Ford > with (say) Michelin tyres and a Sony stereo, remove the tyres and > stereo and sell them to someone else, without contravening any > conditions enforced by Michelin and Sony. This is where the car analogy always falls down. You own a car (and parts thereof). You don't own software, you've only bought a licence for it. Thus, you're limited to what you can do with the software as per the licence. This is why OSS is better ;) |