From owner-freebsd-questions  Tue Jun  5 16:20:21 2001
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Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 16:22:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chuck Rouillard <chuckr@opus.sandiegoca.ncr.com>
To: Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com>
Cc: Flemming Froekjaer <flemming@froekjaer.org>,
	<mobile@FreeBSD.ORG>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: Laptop without Windows
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On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, Bill Moran wrote:

> Flemming Froekjaer wrote:
> >
> > I was looking at buying a Dell Inspiron 8000, but there was no option to
> > buy it without a windows os.
> > So i called them instead and explained that I wanted to use the laptop
> > with FreeBSD. They said that would be ok, but i would have to pay the
> > same price, as with the OS.
> > Is that normal?
> > I know Microsoft is not giving DELL free OS licenses, and I don't want
> > to support MS by buying there OS, when I'm not going to use it.
>
> As others have stated ... it's all too common.
> However, there was an instance of a very principal driven fellow who
> purchased a laptop (with windows preinstalled) and then proceeded to
> format the HDD without ever booting the system. Because of the specifics
> of the license agreement, he was able to get a refund on the price of
> the windows license (since he'd never used it)
> He only accomplished this after a great deal of fighting, but it can be
> done. I don't remember where, but the story (sort of a HOW-TO for
> putting it back in M$ face) is posted on the Internet somewhere. Do some
> searching if you feel like fighting for the cause on this one.
> If enough people fought over it, maybe companies like Dell would start
> offering alternate OSes on laptops, or laptops without OSes.

Once such instance:

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

.cr


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