Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 14:05:07 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Bill Paul <wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Dell 8) Message-ID: <357EE6F3.E9BA19DA@softweyr.com> References: <199806091905.MAA11228@hub.freebsd.org>
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Bill Paul wrote:
> 2) Deduct the cost of all M$ software licenses from the purchase price
> of the machine. If you look at Dell's online store, you'll see that
> if you take a machine that's configured with LoseNT or LoseNT server
> by default and make another OS selection, the price of the system
> drops. (It seems now that asking for LoseNT workstation adds about
> $84 to the price, versus a couple hundred dollars for LoseNT server.)
> However, the one time I located a Dell OptiPlex desktop configuration
> that allowed you to choose 'No Operating System,' I noticed that the
> total price of the system did not go down when I told it not to
> include Lose95 in the configuration.
>
> There are only a couple of ways this could happen. One possibility
> is that M$ is selling Lose95 licenses to companies like Dell so
> cheaply that Dell can simply afford to eat the cost and not bother
> charging customers extra whether they ask for Lose95 or not. The
> other possibility, which is far more likely, is that Dell is paying
> for the licenses in bulk and is increasing the cost of all their
> machines to subsidize the purchase of the licenses from M$. What
> this means is that customers that _don't_ buy Lose95 end up subsidizing
> the cost of Lose95 licenses anyway. When I buy a machine, I want to
> pay for the hardware that I ordered: I don't want to pay for somebody
> elses' Lose95 license.
Companies like Dell sell you a Lose95 license with every system you buy,
whether you want it or not, install it or not. The only way out is to
"upgrade" to a LoseNT license. This scheme is mandated by Microsoft.
This is the "per-system" license the FTC is complaining about. I still
don't understand why FreeBSD users want to pay for Lose95 licenses on
machines they're not going to run Lose95 on! (Hint: don't buy your
computers from Dell, Gateway, Compaq, et al. Find a local distributor
and build your own machines).
At my local wholesaler, a Win95 license bought with a motherboard or
a hard disk costs $69 without hardcopy manuals. I image Microsloth
discounts this considerably for companies with the volume of Dell and
Gateway, so they can afford to sell it to you for $89 even with their
ridiculous margins. Office 97 goes for $109 (or so). If you find a
vendor that will sell you the machine without paying the Microsloth
tax, you're money ahead.
> 4) Computers and boxes shipped without any M$ software should not be
> festooned with "Designed for Micro$oft Lose95" stickers. If I'm not
> paying to use M$ software, I'm not paying to advertise it either.
> (I still don't know why they put these stickers on monitors.)
They're not going to do that, because they can't afford to divert 1% (or
so) of their cases around the moron sticking the stickers on. They do
need to make sure the stickers come off cleanly so I don't have a gummy
spot on my computer after I rip the damned thing off, though. ;^)
I bought a PC case last year that had an "Intel Inside" sticker on it
in the box. I had to go hunt down my bottle of "Goo Gone" to get the
gummy spot off. It seemed horribly inappropriate, since this was the
case for my wife's AMD K5 system.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
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