Guest ndeb Posted December 30, 2002 Report Share Posted December 30, 2002 http://www.netcraft.com.au/geoffrey/toshiba.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted December 31, 2002 Report Share Posted December 31, 2002 Read the whole thing, kinda interesting.. wonder what's in the license now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitz Posted December 31, 2002 Report Share Posted December 31, 2002 I'm no legal beagle but I think a provision like that is required in a license. I don't think you can sell someone something before they have a chance to read and accept the license and then when they do read the license deny them any means of returning the product for a refund if they don't accept the license. Can you imagine the marketing schemes possible if this were legal? Here's my EULA: You agree to pay XYZ company a yearly user's fee, to be established by XYZ company on a yearly basis, for a minimum of 10 years. . . . If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA then you may not use the software. How do you like that? Either you use the software and I get a user's fee and the original purchase price of the software or you don't get to use the software, I don't get the yearly user's fee, but I still get the original purchase price of the software. In other words, if you don't want to pay me the user's fee then you have just paid me for the priviledge of holding in your hands a software package that you can not use. Pretty sweet huh? Somehow I don't think that kind of situation would fly in a court of law. However, Toshiba may change their EULA to indicate that the whole computer must be returned. That would be fair, however, I think they would be required to refund any shipping unless they get the customer to agree to the EULA before shipping. Glitz. PS. If you do get something like that to work then please let me know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted December 31, 2002 Report Share Posted December 31, 2002 I admire the persistence displayed here. Put a big corporation in a position where it is going to lose money is always an effective strategy. I would have done one more thing, and that would be containg the business editor of my local newspaper, if I managed to muster up the persistence. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted January 3, 2003 Report Share Posted January 3, 2003 Having practiced law, I would bet your buns that Toshiba will be or has implemented a joint software/hardware license agreement and will have a formal policy implace regarding alternative OSes and their no-refund policy in the future... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ndeb Posted January 5, 2003 Report Share Posted January 5, 2003 Having practiced law, I would bet your buns that Toshiba will be or has implemented a joint software/hardware license agreement and will have a formal policy implace regarding alternative OSes and their no-refund policy in the future... The problem is that the EULA in question is the one for the MS$ OS, which Toshiba can hardly contradict. Only MS$ can change the EULA (its their software, after all) on the copy of the MS$ OS thats distributed with the Toshiba laptop. Now, if MS agrees to change the EULA from "there is a refund for this software if u don't use it" to "there is no refund for this software even if u don't use it" then we move into another war zone. Obviously, then the user must be made aware before he/she buys the system that he/she must pay for the non-refundable OS cost. Reading the MS$ EULA after getting the laptop (ordered over the internet) in hand will be too late. Basically, whenever a customer is at the point of buying the product (in a store or on the net), this notice hardware not sold without software must flash. Now, isn't that what the anti-trust case was supposed to prevent: force vendors to sell MS$ OS with each PC system ? Its obvious that Toshiba would have no problems refunding the software cost if they could recover the same from MS$, which they can't and thats why Toshiba (and others) are so reluctant. And even if they do refund the software at their own cost, they may end up being in the bad books of evil Bill. Looks like the anti-trust lawsuit has achieved nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitz Posted January 5, 2003 Report Share Posted January 5, 2003 No, I think what JaseP means is that Toshiba will put into their EULA something like: "If you do not accept the Microsoft EULA you must return both the software and the hardware to Toshiba". Glitz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ndeb Posted January 6, 2003 Report Share Posted January 6, 2003 Agreed. But why would Toshiba bother to do that if they could readily get refund from MS$ for each OS license ? I mean, if they can't sell hardware without MS$ software to customers who want exactly that, they are losing customers. Its because there is the same old lurking fear of a MS$ backlash: if u sell ur hardware without my software I will make u pay. Thats one of the things the anti-trust lawsuit was supposed to prevent but hasn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted January 6, 2003 Report Share Posted January 6, 2003 Toshiba CAN'T get a refund from M$ for unsused software. That was the whole reason that Toshiba was reluctant to honor the request. Toshiba's contract with M$ is one to supply a customized copy of M$ Windoze for every Toshiba laptop regardless of whether the end-user uses it or not. Toshiba then pays a bulk rate for the license and just copies that version over and over onto their HDs. M$ won't give refunds on the bulk rate OS, since they are not really selling individual copies (no individual disks, etc.). They take a discount on their product, but they also don't have the overhead either (disk reproduction, 1st line of support, etc.), plus entrenching their position as the dominant OS (installed by default). They (Toshiba) need to change the wording of the license on the customized OS to reflect their (presumed) policy regarding no returns. If someone then decides to purchase just the hardware part of it, they are then violating the license agreement and simply "own" their purchased hardware. Toshiba would not then be under obligation to supply support for any resulting failure. Toshiba is [then] not required to "un-bundle" their hardware/software solution. The "solution" of the DOJ suit is that M$ is required not to COMPELL the use of its OS on the manufactures's product. They simply are permitted to continue to charge a per HD license cost (similar to a site license agreement). However, they cannot tell Toshiba not to release a model of their laptops with Linux (or some other OS) installed. Their OLD license agreements required the manufacturers to sell machines ONLY with a M$ OS pre-installed. The end result is that it makes sense for Toshiba to still only sell pre-installed M$ OSes, but they are not COMPELLED to do so... pretty sneaky, huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ndeb Posted January 12, 2003 Report Share Posted January 12, 2003 Toshiba's contract with M$ is one to supply a customized copy of M$ Windoze for every Toshiba laptop regardless of whether the end-user uses it or not. Toshiba then pays a bulk rate for the license and just copies that version over and over onto their HDs. M$ won't give refunds on the bulk rate OS, since they are not really selling individual copies (no individual disks, etc.).Thats a very interesting situation since now M$ can raise the bulk rate (which they always can) if Toshiba dares to ship laptops with no OS. If someone then decides to purchase just the hardware part of it, they are then violating the license agreement and simply "own" their purchased hardware. Toshiba would not then be under obligation to supply support for any resulting failure. What about a bad hard-drive ? Would that also lose support ? The "solution" of the DOJ suit is that M$ is required not to COMPELL the use of its OS on the manufactures's product. They simply are permitted to continue to charge a per HD license cost (similar to a site license agreement). However, they cannot tell Toshiba not to release a model of their laptops with Linux (or some other OS) installed. Their OLD license agreements required the manufacturers to sell machines ONLY with a M$ OS pre-installed. The end result is that it makes sense for Toshiba to still only sell pre-installed M$ OSes, but they are not COMPELLED to do so... pretty sneaky, huh?In other words, MS$ can charge a per HD license cost for a HD (on a Toshiba laptop) which is not carrying MS windoze ? If thats the case, sneaky is an understatement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HaloScan Posted January 13, 2003 Report Share Posted January 13, 2003 It's troubling that you have to go through so much just to get it without MS software. Thanks for pointing this out however. I'll have to do this next time I buy a computer. If only more people would do this. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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