Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft to Struggle to Force People to Buy Windows

Poor puppies!

Puppy



Summary: Action in France shows Microsoft's grip on OEMs eroding, leaving room for GNU/Linux instead

JUST over a week after Microsoft got caught trying to use the boot sequence to boot the competition out of the way (eliminating the 'curse' of competing, e.g. with excuses and lies), there is still coverage about it and possibly legal action. Microsoft is extremely unlikely to get away with it, which is why we didn't feel the need to cover it all that much. Several years ago we wrote about French OEM-related actions -- public protests striving to stop the forced sales of Microsoft Windows along with new computers. Although not much happened since these actions were reported some years ago (we covered the issue in early site posts about OEMs), it was clear that Microsoft already struggled to sell the story about lack of choice being of benefit to the customer.



AFUL and the FFII took further action some months ago and brought the issue to EU politicians who did express some interest in taking real action. Whether related to this or not, there is a breakthrough in France.

"France getting ready to eliminate forced purchase of OS," writes someone in USENET about this new report which says: "Amendments to France's draft law on 'reinforcing consumers' rights, protection and information' have been proposed with the purpose of putting an end to bundled hardware/software sales, the French advocacy organisation for free software and open standards APRIL announced on 27 September 2011.

"AFUL and the FFII took further action some months ago and brought the issue to EU politicians who did express some interest in taking real action.""Bundled hardware/software sales, APRIL explained, consists of an anti-competitive commercial practice that prevents consumers from purchasing a computer without having to pay for pre-installed software. The public discussions on the draft law at the National Assembly (the lower house of Parliament) started on Wednesday 28 September 2011.

The poster cites Cablegate and asks: "What is Microsoft, a third rate software company, to do but contact the US embassy and complain so that the US embassy can go trolling the French on behalf illegal Microsoft industrial support.

"Nothing is too sacred for Microsoft including interfering in the self determination of the French nation through use of US diplomatic services."

"Best news I've read in a while, but then this Bill still has to pass, and you can be guaranteed Sweaty [Ballmer] is filling his grease gun and violin case as we speak," writes Homer. "Assuming France can resist Microsoft's inevitable "lobbying", this is good news for the whole of Europe, not just France, since even if the rest of Europe doesn't adopt the same policy then we can all just buy our PCs from France - Windows Tax-free.

"If the PCs landed in France first, then it can be shipped to anywhere in EU by a third party and make a heck of a saving when sold in markets and and small shops," wrote the original poster again. "The thing that is most worrying that could scupper this legislation is still what the US diplomats are doing behind everyone's back acting on the orders of Microsoft to interfere in French self determination."

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
 
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: Game Recommendations, Schizo Language
Links for the day
Growing Older and Signs of the Site's Maturity
The EPO material remains our top priority
Did Microsoft 'Buy' Red Hat Without Paying for It? Does It Tell Canonical What to Do Now?
This is what Linus Torvalds once dubbed a "dick-sucking" competition or contest (alluding to Red Hat's promotion of UEFI 'secure boot')
Links 20/11/2024: Politics, Toolkits, and Gemini Journals
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: 'The Open Source Definition' and Further Escalations in Ukraine/Russia Battles
Links for the day
[Meme] Many Old Gemini Capsules Go Offline, But So Do Entire Web Sites
Problems cannot be addressed and resolved if merely talking about these problems isn't allowed
Links 20/11/2024: Standing Desks, Broken Cables, and Journalists Attacked Some More
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: Debt Issues and Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban
Links for the day
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024