This is probably obvious, but for those who buy *used* laptops, CPUsed gives you the option of getting Win installed or not, and the credit you if you choose to opt out. (As I recollect, about $100). Peter On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 09:43:50AM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 09:54:59PM -0400, Ian Goldberg wrote:

...

I spent all afternoon on the phone with Dell. It turns out the Windows refund issue didn't even come up, because (get this), when you boot the computer, you're presented with a *Dell* screen that forces you to say you've read and agreed to all the EULAs for the software on the system.

Trick is, they don't give them to you.

No one at Dell seemed perplexed by this. I was being forced to say I've read agreements I don't have. So we didn't even get to the bit where I could point to the "refund" clause in the Windows EULA, since I was never presented with it in the first place.

The whole story:

http://www.cypherpunks.ca/dell.html

This is the next level above "click-through" licenses. Now, they figure no one reads the EULAs anyway, so why bother even providing a copy? They'll click "I've read and agreed" anyhow.

I wonder if it is time Dell started shipping a bit more paper with their machines. License agreements for example. :)

Well IBM does sell laptops with Linux preinstalled. Not sure if anyone else does, or if anyone sells laptops with no software at all.

Lennart Sorensen -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml

-- Peter D. Hiscocks Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada Phone: (416) 979-5000 Ext 6109 Fax: (416) 979-5280 Email: phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org URL: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~phiscock -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml