[ubuntu-uk] Windows Free Laptops

[Rob Beard]

Paul Sutton wrote:

> No only that isn't it also about hardware support,  many years ago, 
> laptops were supplied with built in modems, that only worked with 
> windows, or to get them to work properly with Linux required more work,  
> so it also sends a message to suppliers that we not only don't want 
> windows but we also want hardware that is supported in Linux or similar 
> based operating systems.
> 
> We have similar issues i guess with propriatory (sorry can't spell it) 
> drivers,  again it causes issues,  but that is another discussion i guess. 
> 
> Don't forget that When you buy a laptop + windows MS get some of that 
> money as a sale of Windows,   so having a laptop minus windows should 
> work out cheaper for us.
> 
> Paul
> 

Personally I think that they should be forced to offer an option of 
buying Windows as an extra and cutting the price on the machines.  That 
way if you want Windows, just buy the specific Windows restore disc and 
licence sticker which is tied in to the machine and bung it in the 
machine.  Nowadays most machines come with a recovery partition anyway 
with the option to make recovery discs.  Since DVDs are cheap to 
manufacture in bulk the manufacturers could supply these as an extra and 
then the customer could restore the image themselves using these discs. 
  They could even probably put some sort of bootloader on the drive 
which asks the user to insert a recovery disc.

Then the savings could be passed on to the customers who don't want the 
recovery disc and they could choose if they wanted what version of 
Windows they wanted (say Vista Home Basic/Premium, Vista Business, Vista 
Ultimate, XP Home/Pro etc).

I doubt it's going to happen though unless the EU actually push for it 
and make it a legal requirement (and I don't mean none of this Windows 
Vista-N without Media Player, how many machines are shipped with this in 
the EU?  It should be enforced).

Rob


Rob