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The Free Software Foundation Europe(FSFE) (no connections to the Free Software Foundation(FSF), despite the name) has logged a win in Italy in court for the freedom to choose the operating system on new computers. Luca Bonissi won after two years of court battles. He won the first round in a kind of small claims court, but Lenovo responded by lawyering up and attacking. The court eventually rejected all of Lenovos argument, confirming that the right to reimbursment for pre-installed software is due. Further, an additional 20k EUR in damages were awarded to Bonissi.
In a historic judgment in Italy, in a case initiated by FSFE supporter Luca Bonissi, Lenovo was ordered to pay 20,000 euros in damages for abusive behaviour in denying to refund the price of a pre-installed Windows licence. In a motivating gesture for the Free Software cause, Luca donated 15,000 euros to the FSFE.
[...] It should go without saying that everyone should be able to freely choose the operating system to run on their personal computers. Free Software is about granting the liberty for people to freely run software they desire and, consequently, decline the software not respecting their freedom. But Microsoft and the vast majority of hardware manufacturers dishonour this principle by dictating which operating system their customers must use, forcing them to run Windows even when they simply do not want to.
See also the FSFE Windows Refund Guide and the Racketware Guide about how to avoid the Windows Tax.
Previously:
(2014) Windows Tax now Illegal in Italy
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 02 2021, @08:52PM (2 children)
So many people bought in to the MS-DOS and PC-compatible world who didn't take Apple seriously. Periodically it would be heard in the industry by people who probably just hated Apple for some reason, that Apple would go bankrupt. Yeah, Apple was the company that was going to go bankrupt every single year since 1981.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Thursday March 04 2021, @01:11AM (1 child)
In 1997, Apple was seriously staring down bankruptcy. The filing was imminent until Bill Gates saved Apple with a $150M contribution to Apple that he probably hoped was going to ward off the DoJ.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 04 2021, @04:16PM
That is very true.
Apple management didn't believe their own Power PC story. They continued to not make enough new Power PC models and make too many 68K models -- the ones nobody wanted to buy new any more. They suddenly had $1 Billion in inventory nobody wanted to buy.
Totally stupid move. Totally the fault of management.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.