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Get your Windows license refund

en.refund4freedom.org

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Re: Get your Windows license refund

#341

Post by inigyou »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #338
inigyou wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... If the product is as good. Sadly if you buy a worse product for ideological reasons, it's still a sacrifice.

These are as good or better than the majority of PCs, though not yet Macs, and improving. But what you gain in freedom, privacy, and informed consent is priceless. Enjoy the golden handcuffs if feature X is more important to you than respect. It may be, who knows.

In the case we're talking about it's only about sending money to Microsoft one-time in the transaction, and the product itself comes with no handcuffs.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#342

Post by vel0city »

flerchin wrote: post #332
vel0city wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it doesn't work at all with the Macbook on my shelf from 2024. Doesn't install, doesn't boot. I'd say that's pretty important for an OS.

Ah. Yeah I don't know how they can even charge money for it then.

Well, you asked what's wrong with it, and being entirely unusable on a lot of the target hardware its trying to address sure seems like a problem. I didn't realize I needed to give them money to properly speak true statements.

I don't blame them, it's not like Apple makes it easy for them. They're definitely working hard on the project and I wish them luck. But one can't act like it's actually a viable OS to generally run on M series hardware. It kind of works on a select few models.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#343

Post by vel0city »

cgrealy wrote: post #290
janalsncm wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d imagine the choice would be Windows (+$120) Linux ($0) DIY ($0)

Linux wouldn't be zero. There's still a cost involved in installing the OS, even if it's miniscule and automatable. You can bet your life that laptop manufacturers are going to charge you for it.

And properly supporting it as well. Look at all the major brands supporting Linux on their computers, several even go so far as maintaining their own distros.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#344

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"Consumers should be able to buy laptops without any specific operating system, and should not have to pay the license price if they don't want to."

How to make sales when generally no one wants to buy what you are selling, e.g., a proprietary software license

Tie the product to another product that generally everyone wants to buy, e.g., personal computers

Preinstall the proprietary software on the computer

Make it difficult to replace the software (OS) with an alternative, e.g., a UNIX-like OS

This worked for Microsoft

If the consumer buys a laptop and overwrites (erases) Windows with a freely available, open source OS, then why should she pay for a Windows license

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#345

Post by mixmastamyk »

inigyou wrote: post #341
mixmastamyk wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are as good or better than the majority of PCs, though not yet Macs, and improving. But what you gain in freedom, privacy, and informed consent is priceless. Enjoy the golden handcuffs if feature X is more important to you than respect. It may be, who knows.

In the case we're talking about it's only about sending money to Microsoft one-time in the transaction, and the product itself comes with no handcuffs.

You pay with your data and self-respect, dealing with a micro-abusive partner. This continues as the purchase cycle repeats, including the tendency to get locked into proprietary software contracts.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#346

Post by inigyou »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #345
inigyou wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case we're talking about it's only about sending money to Microsoft one-time in the transaction, and the product itself comes with no handcuffs.

You pay with your data and self-respect, dealing with a micro-abusive partner. This continues as the purchase cycle repeats, including the tendency to get locked into proprietary software contracts.

You don't, because you install Linux on it immediately.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#347

Post by mixmastamyk »

inigyou wrote: post #346
mixmastamyk wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay with your data and self-respect, dealing with a micro-abusive partner. This continues as the purchase cycle repeats, including the tendency to get locked into proprietary software contracts.

You don't, because you install Linux on it immediately.

That hasn’t been enough in almost twenty years. Most things are in the cloud now. Try running OpenSnitch for a demonstration.

There have been numerous examples of malware and spyware in proprietary firmware.

Best to clean house completely, starting with hardware you can trust. And everyone’s purchases compound due to investment.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#348

Post by kqp »

graypegg wrote: post #91
kqp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that? I’m genuinely asking. I’m aware of big companies generally paying lower rates for things, but I believe that’s usually driven by the increased leverage a big buyer has, while Asus has absolutely no leverage, if they switch to Linux today they’ll be out of business tomorrow. It certainly costs MS less to deal with one professional org than a million flaky individuals, but price is determined by…

Asus selling millions of PCs a year that each pester their users to make a Microsoft account is well worth a major discount to them than any sort of additional OEM licensing revenue. Giving Asus cheap licenses lets them sell cheaper units to more people. And yeah, Asus DOES need to sell windows laptops because the market demands it, but it doesn't mean they need to follow all of Microsoft's rules/goals. ("Pleeeeease…

Thank you.

Cheaper → more licenses and also more post-license profit, yes, agreed, hence my (admittedly oblique) wellness comment, but this is also true of direct to consumer prices, and my question is specifically about any price difference between the two.

PC makers intermediating other MS objectives makes sense.

Re market access, does Asus actually increase the size of the Windows market, or sell to people who’d otherwise buy Windows another way? I think you’re saying yes, a big PC maker plays a part in getting more people to buy Windows more often, and that’s the biggest thing I was missing.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#349

Post by milon »

jonathanberger wrote: post #311
milon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds reasonable to have the opportunity to buy hardware without software you do not intend to use. Though, I do assume that from the POV of the company selling the software, it would be ideal for the customer to not have a choice. I guess companies also want free ice creams and pony rides.

> ideal for the customer to not have a choice Let's say you and I bump into each other in the town square and we each have some things we might be willing to give the other if we get the right thing in return. In that situation I'd think both sides have the right to offer what they like and both sides can choose freely whether to accept what is offered. What is different about this town square and your relationship t…

That's easy: The town square bump situation involves having the right to offer what you like and choosing freely, and my relationship to, say, Dell, or Lenovo, or Framework, or Apple, is that I can have money, they can build hardware, I can spend money on their hardware, and I might even be able to buy hardware+software that I like with the money I have.

What I don't have is a factory/expertise/resources to build the hardware myself if Dell, Lenovo, or Apple decide to start offering things that you or I do not want. I was very careful to say as such: If you're selling the software, the ideal situation for you would be that the buyers have no other choice other than you. That's the "free pony ride" you think customers are wanting, but these companies are actually getting.

The world doesn't run on analogies and situations don't become equal because they look similar. Evidently you could argue about incentives to build software going away, or anything else, but I would like to reiterate that the ideal situation for me, as a customer, would be for me to have a _choice_ in whether I buy the software or not. Not having the choice, i.e., by being told to "just not buy hardware" is not the ideal situation for me as a customer.

And just as you are arguing for the ideal situation for the companies, I'm arguing for the ideal situation for the customer.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#350

Post by d3Xt3r »

KnightHawk3 wrote: post #333
d3Xt3r wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, Linux phones are becoming more and more viable as a daily-driver. We just need more folks to start using them.

I just need a phone which can call triple zero in Australia, I all not yet aware of any.

Fair point, but we still need people (like Linux enthusiasts) in Australia to buy these phones and complain to the manufacturer to add support for any missing features needed for 000, and work with the carriers to whitelist the devices. If no one buys these devices in the first place and no one complains about it, Linux phone makers would have little incentive to resolve the issue.

Maybe the Aussie Linux users could get together and work together with Linux Australia[1] to act as an intermediary and work something out.

[1] https://linux.org.au/

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