Getting “Windows tax” refund
Buying a new computer with Windows (or some other system) maybe has the advantage of offering a usable operating system – not debating its quality here –, but the worse part is that it costs. A lot. According to certain cases, it can reach the same cost as the hardware, making the computer twice as expensive as it could be.
Still computers continue to be sold this way, and one could ask: how can that be? Well there are different answers, because of lobbying from Microsoft, fear of the vendors to propose something new… This leads to the current, unacceptable situation, in which one can hardly buy a computer without Windows or Mac pre-installed. Without knowing the separate prices of hardware and software too, and thus without getting the economic advantage of a free software solution (often at-no-cost).
However, this situation is not legal. Because this is practically called a “tying” case, the software being bundled, tied with the hardware, products should be sold separately. And a lot of cases, in the past few years, have shown that courts tend to agree with this. Many users, in France for example, have been able to get a complete refund of the Windows license, sometimes even of other installed software. As often, it has been harder for the first ones doing it, the companies would not want to do anything about it until sued… But with the phenomenon growing, the experience of users describing successful procedures, the practice has become easier.
This is not only the law, but a user freedom that’s flouted. And many users would probably think twice if the prices would be separated, like “what, this computer costs 300€ and I must still pay 100€ just for Windows”. This is a very good publicity for free software. Maybe a bit rough, because people will mix free beer and freedom. This is however no big deal: bringing more people to just know free software is definitely a good thing.
That’s why the FSFE should probably do more about it, advertise throughout the world. There already exist this page, which would gain from having more visibility, explaining the different procedures, giving advice about how not to pay for software you do not want.