On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:03 PM, M Henri Day <mhenriday@gmail.com> wrote:
2011/4/22 Simos Xenitellis <simos.lists@googlemail.com>
FFII and the AFUL (two free-software associations) have started a
crowd-sourcing effort
to provide information to the European Commission Competition agency
about
the lack of choice for the consumers when it comes to computers and
compulsory pre-installed Windows.
Original press-releases:
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/Share%20your%20operating%20system%20bundling%20tales%20with%20the%20EU
http://aful.org/communiques/share-your-operating-system-bundling-tales-with-the-eu
Here is my take to simplify the message,
http://simos.info/blog/archives/1198
How is this relevant to LibreOffice? The source of the problem is the
bundling of Microsoft
Windows to the new computers. The manufacturers get discounts for the
licenses if they support
only Windows, if they promote only Windows on their websites and ads,
and
so on.
If this relationship weakens, we may see a chance for LibreOffice on
new computers,
or Linux computers that obviously have LibreOffice.
tl;dr: Visit
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/forms/consumer_form_en.html
to report cases where you could not buy a computer without Windows,
while you had not need for Windows.
Simos
«If this relationship weakens, we may see a chance for LibreOffice on new
computers, or Linux computers that obviously have LibreOffice.»
'tis a consummation. Devoutly to be wished. But somehow I find it
difficult
to envisage either Joaquín Almunia eller Alexander Italianer going that
far....
I do not understand the comment.
What we do is report to the EU the cases we know, where we were forced
to buy a computer
with pre-installed Windows, although we did not need Windows (either
we use Linux
or we already had a Windows license).
It's up to the Competition agency of the European Commission to take
appropriate action.
That's their job.
Our job, and the initiative from the FFII and AFUL, is to report cases
to the EC Competition agency.
Simos