Re: Dell Linux blog -- Bull! This is just unexplainable!

[Jonathan <j.e.drews@worldnet.att.net>]

On Sun, 2004-02-08 at 16:56, Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote:

> All this is quite entertaining to a friendly Linux audience, but allow
> me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Can anyone making claims point
> to any hard evidence in the way of testimony or exhibits in the DOJ
> lawsuit against Microsoft? 

No, I can't do it.

> Where's the beef?

I will offer one other really strange anecdote. My friend, Damian, ended
up buying a KSPEI box because WalMart would only sell him an OS-less
computer, if it came *without* memory. I told him to call WalMart
customer support and their reply was "We can't sell you the memory
because it would conflict with suppliers in your area". That is what
they said. So he bought one from Steve and Kara.

 The fact that the DOJ found no hard evidence does not mean that it is
not there. It just means the Justice Dept is inept. Al Capone killed
lots of people but they could never prove it; they finally nabbed him on
tax evasion.
 Look at this way. Microsoft sells you a computer but if you want to
decline the EULA you cannot read it. How can the government allow people
to be coerced into agreeing to contracts that they cannot read? Here is
a case in point:


Dell’s no-nuke notebook

EXCERPT:
Goldberg wanted to read the licences’ terms and conditions because he
intended to install Linux rather than accepting the Windows licence
agreement. But he soon discovered that he couldn’t read the agreement in
the box without accepting it first.

“Customer agrees that it will be bound by the license agreement once the
package is opened or its seal is broken,” Dell’s terms and conditions
stated.

He phoned Dell and was told he should use a friend’s Net connection to
read the software licence on the Dell Web site.

“If they had said anything reasonable, we would have been happy to just
install Linux on the thing and be done with it,” wrote Goldberg on the
Cypherpunks Web site. “But they were saying that anyone who uses a Dell
laptop [with this startup screen] has to lie about having read the
licences, and just blindly agree to them.

“That’s unacceptable enough that [the laptop’s] going back.”

http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/5903D4641509E44CCA256E12000E37B9

My point is, Doc, that just because the government did not find any
wrong doing does not mean that it is not going on.





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