Europe proposes unbundling Microsoft Windows
"Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market."
"Operating systems, it says, are not a natural monopoly, requiring just one supplier. Instead, in a competitive market, there would be a broad compatibility between different supplier’s products." -- Read more
The report makes some excellent and rarely heard points in favor of actually legislatively forbidding the bundling of an operating system with computers sold.
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Although this would
Although this would definitely be a slap into Microsoft's face, it would also hinder the way GNU/Linux is just starting to spread, by being pre-installed onto PCs and notebooks.
I'll try to follow this topic and see what happens.
Considering the german government planning on using a trojan for unnoticed online-investigation I don't see this getting support from Germany, which currently, as far as I remember, is playing the boss of the EU for a year.
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does it hurt the penguins?
Although this would definitely be a slap into Microsoft's face, it would also hinder the way GNU/Linux is just starting to spread, by being pre-installed onto PCs and notebooks.
The article links to a pdf that makes some things more clear. In short: Unbundling does not necessarily mean selling without an operating system, offering a few OS choices and the choice "no OS" would work too. It's not convenient for shops in shopping streets though, but those might sell preconfigured DVDs of various OSes as options with the computers.
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Just in time for the Apple
Just in time for the Apple x86 changeover too.
But this is early days really, a submission to the commission is a long ways from a parliamentary vote with skulduggery at every hands turn, and then the legal wrangling starts. By the time it gets through we'll have ubuntu 'mutant man' out and people will wear shiny suits and have personal jet packs.
That said, it has to start sometime and it takes how long it takes, so long as we're moving in the right direction. The facts that software patents have been rejected so far and the court upheld the regulator on microsofts law-breaking are encouraging.
If the EU rejects software patents in particular it'll save me an awful lot of work in buying land and establishing a principality named Freedonia.
Mrs. Teasdale: Your Excellency, the Ambassador's here on a friendly visit. He's had a change of heart.
Firefly: A lot of good that'll do him. He's still got the same face.
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