Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> The Battle (Continued)
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | At 9AM, the man from Toshiba (keeping him anonymous. From now on his
> | name is "Tosh") decided to phone me. He was irritated by the last email
> | and decided to confront me on the phone... His confrontation was
> | intimidating, but not enough to scare me off. I have too much invested
> | into this to be put off by a phone call. From the conversation, I noted
> | a few things:
> |
> | 1) He clearly hadn't read, or maybe understood, the emails that I have
> | sent him. I could tell this by the way that he was still asking me
> | questions that I have quite clearly stated the answers to, in the
> | emails.
> |
> | 2) Scare tactics from multinationals these days are expected, if not
> | welcomed.
> |
> | 3) He tried to convince me to take down my blog entries and publications
> | of these conversations because they may be seen as slanderous, and
> | "pulling down the company". I explained to him how I have not once said
> | that Toshiba are a bad company. Rather, I have applauded their good
> | notebooks, and also their great support on open source platforms. What
> | I have done, is ask some questions that no one else is willing to ask.
> | Questions that everyone is pretending not to have the answers for.
> `----
>
> http://soupofchicken.blogspot.com/2006/10/battle-continued.html
>
> There is precedence as someone (from France, I suspect) had the cost of
> Windows XP refunded.
>
>
>
> Also see:
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Instead of fretting about getting a refund for a nice box with that
> | legacy system that bogs down and crashes for no reason every other
> | week, I would encourage users to save their money a little longer until
> | they can afford the nicer boxes with no operating system, or that comes
> | with a modern, robust system, such as GNU/Linux, already installed.
> | After all, we sure don't want to encourage the folks at Microsoft to
> | develop more shoddy software. It's kind of like buying a Yugo because
> | it's cheap. It's cheap for a reason, and you get what you pay for.
> `----
>
> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/65792/
>
>
> How To Find A Computer With GNU/Linux Pre-Installed
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | One LXer reader's quest to find and list vendors selling computers
> | with GNU/Linux pre-installed leads to the development of a GNU/Linux
> | vendor database.
> `----
>
> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/66518/
>
> There was also a COLA discussion on lack of choice access laptop vendors.
> This discussion later reached the European Commission and many prominent
> Web sites, e.g.
>
> EU investigating new complaint about Microsoft
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | European Union regulators are "studying" a consumer complaint that
> | Microsoft Corp. forces computer makers to sell machines that are
> | preloaded with Windows, excluding other operating systems such as
> | Linux....
> |
> | The complaint comes as the regulator threatens to fine Microsoft as
> | much as 2 million euros, or $2.5 million, a day for not complying with
> | a 2004 antitrust ruling. The commission also has cautioned the company
> | about bundling products into its new version of Windows, which will be
> | released next year.
> `----
>
> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/276088_msfteu01.html
I find it amazing that you can't get a refund for something you neither
wanted in the first place or used at all... In anyother retail situation,
the vendor would simply not include the unwanted add-on or refund the cost
of it. ONLY microsoft gets away with this... and it's time to stop the
madness.
--
Jerry McBride
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