[Nottingham] Share your operating system bundling tales with the EU

[David Aldred]

On 21 April 2011 08:41, Michael Erskine <msemtd at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On 21 April 2011 08:24, Simon Osborne <flibble at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Unless I'm missing something, what is the problem here? All Linux
> > users that I know are perfectly able and capable to install a variant
> > of Linux onto any PC that came with Windows. Since computers with
> > Windows installed are subsidised by Microsoft they are cheaper to buy
> > than the same machine with Ubuntu or no OS installed. So to me it's
> > perfectly logical to take advantage of Microsoft and buy the cheaper
> > hardware and replace the OS with Linux.
>
> Maybe they are cheaper - but they shouldn't be! There's the problem :D
>
>
> And an interesting problem it is.

Consider this: if MS are subsidising the machines to such an extent that it
costs less than nothing, net, to get a copy of Windows (so a machine with
Windows costs less than one without it), what's in it for Microsoft?
Presumably on-sales conversions, in sales jargon; sales of other MS
products, and perhaps attracting people to Bing and generating an ad-based
income.

If on the other hand MS have contracts with businesse which prevent them
selling computers at a base price without Windows, and thus push up the
prices of alternatives, then there's a simple answer: that's an illegal
practice in the EU, so find an EU supplier of computers, and leave the
Ameicans to sort out their own problems.

So it's only an issue for proponents of alternatives if they are motivated
by being anti-MS, rather than pro-alternative.  If you're simply pro-Linux,
then as Simon says, getting a machine to run Linux on at lower cost isn't an
issue.

If you're taking the line that Linux should be the system of choice and that
the general public would flock to it in droves if they had the alternative
on the shelf, then I really think you've got much bigger issues to address.
The problems with wide acceptance of Linux aren't down to availability: they
are much more, in fact, down to what Simnon also said:

> All Linux
> users that I know are perfectly able and capable to install a variant
> of Linux onto any PC that came with Windows.

...thus defining the Linux marketplace as the people who are more
technically capable.   I reckon the key issue with Linux is that it is
written by techies, who fail spectacularly to communicate to non-techies.
And 90%+ of computer users are non-techie, and will stick with Windows
because it's familiar and their friends and colleagues use it.

And when they stray into looking at Linux-oriented websites they too often
find a jumble of tech-speak and very poorly written documentation, and they
run a mile.  I'm amazed that no-one in places like Canonical or Fedora has
yet worked out that for documentation for the general user, a wiki in which
all the contributors are technically minded is an extremely bad idea.


David Aldred
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