Ezekiel wrote:
> What gives the EC the right to go to an independent business like a
> computer OEM and dictate to them how they can or can't sell computers to
> their customers?
Much the same thing as gave the E.U. the right to tell British Telecom that
while it owned all the lines and exchanges in the U.K., it was in a
monopoly situation, and must make its lines and space in exchanges
available (at a fair price) for use by other providers.
Inside of 10 years, rulings such as these reduced (for example) the cost of
my trans-Atlantic calls from the equivalent of 1 USD per MINUTE to 1 USD
per HOUR over a period of a few years, and gave me the choice of over 100
Broadband providers rather than one.
> Should they also have the right to go to a small Linux company (something
> like TuxMachines, etc) and tell them - "No... you are not allowed to
> preload an OS because we say so."
Of course - assuming that the E.U. legislated that computers must be
sold "bare".
I think that to be extremely unlikely though, and hence my willingness to
accept that it would be preferable to allow the installation of an (any)
OS, but NOT to make it a condition of sale. The easiest way to do that
looks (to me) to always sell with a Trial Version, for which one can later
pay if one wishes to continue using it.
There's an obvious argument re. Macs of course.
Perhaps the E.U. will look at that if/when Macs have over 80% of the
Market? :-)
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