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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 RamiK on Tuesday March 02 2021, @09:49PM (3 children)
It extends to bundled software licenses from 3rd party market leading vendors that could otherwise be avoided using competing software.
Btw, your car analogy doesn't work since the license isn't from a third party and there's regulatory issues where the software must be approved as part of the car anyhow.
A better question is where does this put Google's bundling of gApps: My guess is that Google would be required to add a home screen app linking to alternative app stores list like how Microsoft was forced to link to browser and search alternatives when you started Explorer for the first time.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02 2021, @11:02PM (2 children)
The microsoft license explicitly states that you can get a refund from the place you bought the computer their os was bundled with, if you disagree to the terms of the MS license. The EU courts are enforcing this provision of this specific license.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 03 2021, @09:24AM
True, and those refund terms are the result of a major anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday March 03 2021, @01:23PM
A Microsoft license being violated by Lenovo would reimburse Microsoft. Not the end user.
This is a regulatory issue with Microsoft's license wording simply repeating what EU regulations and previous court ruling required of them to notify their users and partner vendors about. They're also putting it in the license to make sure the license won't need renegotiation if the regulations change regardless if it's in their favor or not. It prevents having to notify end users about small regulatory changes every other week.
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