Linked by David Adams on Sat 30th Aug 2008 16:20 UTC, submitted by michuk
Compulsory Windows purchasing by way of PC bundles is one of the biggest hurtles to alternative OS adoption. Some people have been able to fight it: "Reading the Slashdot article about Dave Mitchell from Great Britain, who got a 47 pounds refund from Dell for returning his copy of Windows was an inspiration for me to check, if it is possible in Poland, too. This is my success story."
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Member since:
2006-06-03
Microsoft have been found guilty of this in the past, and, IIRC, managed to get out of paying the fine.
However, the OEM licensing agreements with large companies are all trade secrets, and hevily defended by NDAs. So it is difficult to prove anything. There is evidence that Microsoft use fixed-term, re-negotiable licence agreements to force OEMs to play by their rules. If an OEM refuses to play nice, the next time the licence negotiations come round, they will find that the unit cost for Windows will have doubled, or something. This is very difficult to detect, and even more difficult to bring legal action against.