Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[joe at invalid.address]

"David Schwartz" <davids at webmaster.com> writes:

> "Antoon Pardon" <apardon at forel.vub.ac.be> wrote in message 
> news:slrndlpdig.hdl.apardon at rcpc42.vub.ac.be...
> 
> >>     Microsoft had something you need so badly that you could not go into
> >> business without it. So they demanded from you that you pay them what 
> >> their
> >> software was actually worth to you. That is not extortion. Everyone who
> >> sells something tries to get the maximum possible value for it.
> 
> > If a company wants to be paid for things it didn't deliver, then I think
> > that is extortion. Microsoft want te be paid a license on windows for
> > P.C.'s that were sold without windows.
> 
>     I think you need to look up "extortion" in a dictionary. I can
> walk up to you and say "if you want me to mow your lawn, you must
> pay me $1 every time you smoke a cigarette". So long as you can say
> "no" and all that happens is that I don't mow your lawn (which I
> have no obligation to do anyway), it isn't extortion.

Extortion isn't the right word, of course. Nevertheless, being unable
to pay for a computer without also having to pay for an operating
system I don't want seems wrong to me.

Yes, I have alternatives, I generally buy components and put them
together myself. But why should I have to do that simply to avoid
paying  for an OS I'm not going to use?

The way this seems to work in practice strikes me as questionable at
best. Perhaps not illegal (IANAL so I don't know that) but certainly
one-sided. For one example, see

http://www.netcraft.com.au/geoffrey/toshiba.html

joe
-- 
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