Links 19/05/2008: Important Windows Refund Precedence, Unbundling Near?
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-05-19 14:23:27 UTC
- Modified: 2008-05-19 14:23:27 UTC
GNU/Linux
- French court orders Windows refund [Not the first time]
In France, it is illegal to bundle software and to refuse to reimburse the customer for unwanted licences, under Article L.122-1 of the French Consumer Code. The Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled that offering an expensive refund option was tantamount to offering no refund option at all, hence finding for the consumer and requiring that Asus stump up.
- Uxi, a Cuban magazine dedicated to Free Software and Open Codes by the University of Information Sciences
- University of Havana Finally Switches to Free Software
- Avnet Electronics Marketing launches complete MicroBlaze Processor Linux Design Solution
- LM_Sensors 3.0.2 Released
- I swear, this is not another Unixfication post
Is Sun talking with Linus about moving ZFS to GPLv2, with the objective of fast tracking ZFS into a native Linux kernel implementation of the file system driver? Or is Linus considering moving the kernel to GPLv3, with Sun doing the same for OpenSolaris? Is Linux and Solaris DNA going to swap much quicker than previously thought?
- AMD FireGL V8600 On Linux
If we would have looked at the FireGL performance under Windows and Linux a year ago, the results would have been vastly different -- Linux would have lagged far behind the Windows driver. With the new OpenGL driver, however, these results are rather pleasing. In 3DS Max and UGS NX tests from SPECViewPerf, the Windows driver had a small performance lead over the Linux driver. However, in the CATIA, Maya, and Pro/Engineer tests, the Linux driver wound up on top.
- Mandriva 2008.1 KDE hits a sweet spot
Ubuntu
- Hate Ubuntu? It's normal!
The fact that many people dislike the top distribution is not really a problem. The problem is that many of these folks are extremely vocal on the Internet to express their opinions. While no intelligent reader will ever take them seriously, they do give the Linux community a bad name and discourage potential Linux users from joining us.
- [Ubuntu] Weekly Newsletter #91
F/OSS
User Security vs. Vendor 'Security'
- Microsoft confirms Windows adheres to broadcast flag
News that the world's largest software maker has voluntarily agreed to help broadcasters control the recording of their shows is bound to outrage enthusiasts of digital video recorders, as it represents the biggest threat to the practice known as time shifting since the FCC's attempt to require flag adherence.
- Microsoft Stockholder? Take Stock in This...
While we are passing along the subject of anti-virus and spyware, let me ask you this. While MS does offer a somewhat crippled product to protect Windows, they push me toward a subscription purchase to get the full monty. Why am I being cornered into purchasing a "fix" for a problem Microsoft created? Shouldn't the full application be offered as part of Windows? Let me ask you this as well. Why should I purchase and use a product that necessitates I purchase and use another product in order for the first product to work the way it is supposed to?
- Hackers compromise Red Cross earthquake relief site
- Spain arrests 'prolific' hackers
Law and Crime
Leftovers
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Linus Torvalds Blasts Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) for Attempting to 'Protect' Linux
- Like it 'protects' women
- New Record for GNU/Linux in Australia (at Microsoft's Expense)
- Windows is at an all-time low, GNU/Linux... all-time high
- Fighting Over Whose Pockets Are Deeper (or Who Borrows More Money)
- When processes favour those who are more wealthy (or more willing to go into infinite debt or steal money of other people) those processes match the attributes of lawfare rather than law
- Starting a Book With a Flawed Premise or Weak Hypothesis
- To me, Schneier is a sort of "RMS of sec"
- Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (30,000+ in 2025) Not About "AI", Just Business Failure
- "AI" is replacing... the old excuses for mass layoffs
- EPO People Power - Part XVI - Berenguer Does Not Speak German, So What Did He Tell German Police That Busted Him?
- based in Germany and does not speak the language
-
- Google Confidently Wrong, Nowadays Defaming People Too
- I can relate as people did this to me and to my wife
- What Happens When Americans Are Out of Office (Away From Work) for a Week? Vista 11 "Share" Falls to Just 10%.
- How's that for slow adoption?
- 2026 Will Have EPO Focus, People Will See What the EPO is Trying to Hide
- We certainly hope people will be held accountable
- EPO People Power - Part XVII - Drugged, Stoned, and Drunk at the Office During Working Hours (Campinos Friend and Propaganda Chief Has Long Done This)
- It's a total disgrace that press all over Europe is still trying to cover this up!
- Gemini Links 28/12/2025: Health Ordeals and Discontinued Pedals
- Links for the day
- Slop About "Linux" Came Only From One Slopfarm This Weekend
- Another day has passed with no LLM slop found in our RSS feeds
- Links 28/12/2025: 'Digital Detox' and Slop "Backlash Grew Massively in 2025"
- Links for the day
- Links 28/12/2025: "Mass Quitting Apple" and "Generative AI Industry is Fraudulent, Immoral and Dangerous"
- Links for the day
- Links 28/12/2025: Fascination, Holidays, and Mormonism
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's Weapon Against the Reality of XBox (the Console) Dying Seems to be LLM Slop
- XBox is dead/dying
- Raffles for the Immaterial: Unauthorised Bingo for Red Hat "Vouchers"
- This is IBM and some slop images
- Andy Farnell on Standing Up Against Technological Oppression
- some portions from it
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 27, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 27, 2025
- Once Again, GAFAM Deletes All Your Data, Only Corrects This After Millions of People Lead an Uproar Online ("Richard Stallman Warned Us About This")
- No lessons learned, eh?
- You Know Your Critics Are Jealous and Have Inferiority Complex When...
- One day we'll write about all this in great depth
- "But Corruption is Everywhere"
- "We'll always have Polio..."
- Challenges for EPO Insiders to Try to Tackle in 2026
- Nothing will get solved as long as the circus that runs this show tries to keep the circus going
- Days Without Slop About "Linux"
- It's time to move on
- Links 27/12/2025: Canada Post Strike Called Off, Debate About Europeans "Working Over Christmas"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/12/2025: Household Appliances and Flight Fright
- Links for the day
- Links 27/12/2025: US Cracking Down on Whistleblowers, Expanding Bombardment Campaigns Worldwide
- Links for the day
- Resuming EPO Coverage Today, Can António Campinos 'Survive' Cocainegate?
- We said we'd continue in the weekend
- Links 27/12/2025: More Attacks on Media (Meduza Co-founder Sentenced to Prison in Absentia), "What Owning Music Means To Me"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/12/2025: geminiprotocol.net Downtime and Capsular Gemlog Manager
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, December 26, 2025
- Tossing Embarrassing News Under the Christmastime Bus
- This isn't just some coincidence; those are conscious choices
- Victim-Blaming in Debian
- Verhelst previously did blame-shifting when Debian suicide clusters happened
- IBM Cuts in Japan, Red Hat is Attached to a Sinking Ship
- IBM, which controls Red Hat, is a rapidly shrinking company
- Manchester United Dumped Microsoft Because Qualcomm Sort of Did
- The Windows PCs were an utter failure
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) Supported by Unconventional Digital Bartering Communities
- But no strings attached
- Geminispace: 5,000 Capsules in 2026
- There are 4.8k now
- Gemini Links 26/12/2025: Careful What You Eat and "My Secret Santa"
- Links for the day
- The Indigenous Community Versus Corporate AstroTurt and 'Cancel Culture'
- Good people will recognise exactly what's happening here and respond to it tactfully
- Richard Stallman: Epstein is a Serial Rapist. Bill Epsteingate: Epstein is a Friend.
- Supporting the FSF (or Richard Stallman) is supporting those who asserted Epstein had serially raped women
- The Paradox of GAFAM: Saying You Protect Women, Appointing Abusers of Women to Run the Company
- older articles
- Censored by FreeBSD Core Team Secretary, Reinstated After Talking About it in Public
- FreeBSD misfiring a CoC?
- Links 26/12/2025: Chatbot Toys Terrorising Children, US Undeclared "War on Terror" Unilaterally Extends to Nigeria During Holidays
- Links for the day
- Links 26/12/2025: French Postal Services Under Russian Attack, U.S. Cheetos Accuse People Who Obstruct Information Warfare by Russia of "Censorship"
- Links for the day
- Debian's Daniel Kahn Gillmor is Wrong, Signal is No "Gold Standard" (It's Also Promoted by Proponents of Back Doors)
- I'm not too sure why Debian or the ACLU would wish to associate with this
- Next Year Will be the Year of Quantum, Just Like 2020, 2015, 2010, 2005 and So On
- "Quantum" is the future
- The Silent Power of Coercion Over Speech
- The important thing is optics
- Kazakhstan Doesn't Need GAFAM Datacentres (Spy Hubs)
- Suffice to say, as far as we can gather nothing came out from the empty (false) promises of GAFAM's "data centers in Kazakhstan"
- So Simple That You Can Touch and Feel It
- In light of recent experiences
- Christmas Music Project: Back to When Music Was Music
- now Canonical (or Ubuntu) says we should make available tens of gigabytes of disk space
- Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Under Attack by Cross-Network Spam Floods
- So far we've been spared (our network has not been targeted at all) [...] Let's hope the spam won't discourage the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who still use IRC
- An "AI-Infused" Windows
- Microsoft Windows isn't becoming a worthless pile of garbage by accident
- Microsoft Laid Off Over 30,000 People This Year, Coders Are "Too Expensive"
- Go get some popcorn. Microsoft "slopware" is about to get real!
- Critics Have Long Said Microsoft Produces "Slopware", Microsoft Wants to Prove Them Right
- Slop instead of code is a step in the right direction?
- The Top 8 Innovations of IBM in 2025
- What innovations will come out from IBM in 2026?
- And as the Year Turns...
- The significance of new years isn't based on geology or astronomy or anything like that
- Appliances Versus Computers
- Replacing a computer inside an object of some kind or inside an appliance (which nowadays includes "modern" cars) isn't simple and isn't cheap
- A Dark Side of Europe
- They try hard to silence people who speak about these issues
- Why People Love Techrights (and Also Loved "Boycott Novell")
- I will continue to publish for many decades to come
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, December 25, 2025
- Browsing Techrights With a GUI and 10 Megabytes of RAM Per Tab
- Some people say it's not possible in 2025, maybe in part because they depend on very bloated software
- A Tribute to Richard Stallman
- It's about knowledge and sharing
- Links 26/12/2025: Impermanence, Salt and Thermometer, Freetube
- Links for the day
Comments
fruit of the loon
2008-05-19 23:02:34
Roy Schestowitz
2008-05-19 23:09:41
So Fia lore Inn
2008-05-19 23:19:25
It should be argued, at least for PC gaming, they have a monopoly on the desktop with gaming, as most people need to use DirectX properly in order for the games to work. Sure Wine, Cedega, and other projects are making some progress and some games may work, and believe me I try every few weeks to see how it is coming along, but again Microsoft still continues its dirty deeds. They lie about Linux and Windows interoperability, "They said it couldn't be done!" Novell agreement bullshit just like the Corel agreement in 2000 or 2001, where Corel Linux was promptly spun off and money/support from Corel to Wine apparantly dried up. Time and time again they come in and either buy out or pollute the environment with thier proprietary crap, and we read another dismal Microsoft article after article every few weeks or more.
If Microsoft is so devoted to bringing Linux and Windows together, I don't see anything on their vast labrynth of shit at Microsoft.com indicating this. Where is the repository of interoperability Linux and Windows software on Microsoft.com? Oh, but you can still get their bullshit "Facts" on Windows and Linux, and that's about it. At least Google has a repository you can add to your Linux install for software from them. In my opinion, don't think Moonlight ("Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? I ask that of all my friends") will last much longer or work well for Linux users should Silverblight (Silverlight) suddenly become popular through payoffs and slight of hand corporate tricks.
If you ever want to have Microsoft come clean, no, I don't believe it would ever happen unless the DOJ finally came down hard and raided their offices, took their hardware and software and forced them to release the code and all of the various undiscovered backdoors waiting to be found, it just won't happen. IMO, Microsoft has demonstrated time and time again it will fight tooth and nail against any punishment against them.
We will all be cleansed if true justice were ever to prevail, but in the "United States of Advertising", most of the people in power are paid off, with big pharma and other corporate overlords always padding the handshakes and votes. It is a lost cause, you know it, I know it, but you'll still piss away your vote to one of the two parties who bend over for big pharma to slide in the money and the overpriced medications pop out the other end as we all struggle under the yoke of this dismal fucking world.
Come clean? Microsoft? The whole system is mired in filth.
Good luck.
We now return you to your normal life, ostrich head in the sand, millions of tokers/beer drinkers who raise their fist while watching Fight Club and return to their soap opera pitiful lives of slavery as the credits roll.
Vote for Wesley Snipes for President in 2008, neither one of the big parties will get anything done, they are a part of the problem.