[Nottingham] Microsoft's restricted boot

[Jason Irwin]

On 18/05/12 13:54, david at gbenet.com wrote:
> This is in  fact what happens right now. A Dealer's not selling Renault Ford BMW he's
> licensed to only deal with Ford etc.. They all keep their cars in their system for 3 years
> then you can go to your corner shop and by a 3 year old car Ford Renault BMW.
Umm...I am going to disagree there.  Maintenance/servicing can be
carried out by any competent person and not void warranties.  This
competent person can even be yourself, you just have to be able to show
that you are competent.  This came into effect in October 2003 under
block exemption 1400/2002
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Exemption_Regulation_%28EU%29

There are a few gotchas (like who can carry out warranty repairs, but
you don't pay for those anyway) but the EU is at least making some
effort to break the strangle-hold.

> Microsoft's whole strategy is to lock people in.
That's the strategy of almost all businesses, certainly of large corporates.

> The question is how? What about making it impossible to install or upgrade your O/S?
Forcing standards through the ISO committee that cannot be fully
implemented without infringing on patents is another.

J.