The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal) [LWN.net]

The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)

Posted Sep 13, 2002 1:49 UTC (Fri) by rmdirms (guest, #2659)
Parent article: The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)

PLEASE, (don't read this if you're tired, hungry, or have only a 10-word retention span, hehe, laugh, okay?)

I have a beef with SONY. I have a Vaio PCG-FX215 and I too was unable to get the refund. I never even OPENED the wretched software baggies, and I fired up winme (the JOKE it is in IT circles) to debate whether or not I needed it to tell me some hardware info. Feeling disgusted, and suicidal ror even FIRING up the box, I promptly shut it down and inserted my Mandrake 8.1 CD. I felt less filthy, and felt elated with every day that I was steadily making one-for-one app replacements (aside from Lotus Approach and Lotus Wordpro... and BTW, I am one of the unmamed people mentioned in the "Replacements for access" articles written by Eric Foster-Johnson...

"A few readers also mentioned IBM/Lotus Approach, much preferring Approach to MS Access, but wanted to encourage IBM to port Approach to Linux.")

However it is SPECIOUS for microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation here and throughout intentional) to craft this devious, malignant, malicious (poision-loaded, ready to spew) TROJAN licensing. SO WHAT, microsoft, that I fired up the OS, I am NOT benefitting from it because I had no intent to do so. I even asked the Fry's electronics reps to refund me in the store prior to purchase and asked THEM to work it out with ms. I was resoundly told not gonna happen.

ms is so ^#*&%$* corrupt and filthy with this issue that it makes me want to plant my foot in gates' butt if he got within Thai kick-box range of me. Of course, I prefer my freedom vs being locked up for assault, but just as local communities are beginning to realise they have to put pressure on local police and county governments to increase patrols and decrease city dwellers' tensions, SO MUST THE DOJ AND FTC do towards microsoft for the benefit of the sofware community (free OR commercial)! It is time for the STORES to be compelled to make the refund IN THE STORE AT TIME OF PURCHASE. I wanted the VAIO, not ms foisted warez!

What is SO hard about it? America claims to be a "competition-lovin' country" yet the petty, filthy (they know which ones they are) law makers and lobbyists dare not call mircsotof on the carpet. I like Linux because it works, it frees me of ms to a GREAT degree, and it is INTERNATIONAL IN SCOPE, TONE, and FEEL! I don't think my having been born in the US requires me to "ally" with ms because it is a us company. I also think my tax dollars have done TOO much subsidizing of ms in the form of their getting off the hook. Too much money has been wasted in court for simply nothing useful to have resulted. And, yes, I BUY my ugrades. I don't download them for free. THo the publishes get little money I'd rather the count SOMEthing on their books other than "just another freebie download". I like Mandrake so much I've paid in the last 2 years for at LEAST 5 boxed sets, and about 4 from SuSE, and one from (then) Caldera. I have bought (to the detriment of the environment) at least 50 Linux-related tomes (nothing like dog-earing a book than bookmarking a file...) Yeh, I could have spent that money on windoze, but not MY money. MY money goes to hardware and to LINUX! I use win98 in Win4Lin because I am addicted to Lotus SmartSuite! (Hear that, IBM??? SmartSUITE, not Domino, NOT Notes, not your IBM small biz office suite...)

Again, I am in control of my physical faculties, and will not do anything physical to go to jail. But, I REFUSE to be silent about microsoft. I not just another sheep, and I will NOT be fleeced or shorn or bloodied by ms. MICROSOFT MUST PERISH! Either that, or their butts need to shape up or ship out. Every business has its time, and ms, your time is near if you keep increasing the stress and rhetoric. I want choice, not just in software, but in HARDWARE.

To SONY: I want to buy the latest Sony laptop that has a 16" LCD, removeable hard drive, and is still small enough to fit in a decent-sized Targus/RakGear backback. But, NO, I cannot get or find a Sony or other similar large/thin/beefy-powered laptop WITHOUT having to subsidize those CROOKS in Redmond. SONY, if you can take my laptop repeatedly for warranty, and eventually lose money on me if I want to play that game, they WHY not just sell me a burn-tested, NAKED laptop in the FIRST PLACE???!!! Get out of ms' flea-ridden bed, PLEASE! Work with OSDN and others and challenge that Hex-Pox out to take your (and Nints and GBoy's and Sega's) turf.

What, ms are CROOKS? YES! CROOKS! ANy company that holds its monopoly after being declared an ILLEGAL monopoly, kissed and patted away by the highest in the US leadership, and which refuses to be conciliatory to the Free Software and for-pay industry, such as relaxing restrictions on the sales of naked PCs, is a CROOK in MY book.

WHo do IIIIII need to be to complain? I just need only to be a consumer/prosumer. If SONY (in the case of my preferred laptop maker) is wont to play ball, then I invite any hardware/laptop makers to start blaring their horns in my direction:

I want a thin laptop that looks like a Dell/Sony, not like a gizmo. I want it to have a side-removeable hard drive in a caddy so I can swap out various OS in their spare caddies like the Dell Latitudes of the 1997/98 year. I want TWO PCMCIA slots AND TWO USB 2.0 ports. I want SIDE removeable batteries. I don't like tilting the case and bending rear plugs and risking my warranty. It can be AMD (since right now InSmell inside is litigating the company Yoga Inside). I want a smooth flat lid so I can mount my sleek, New Media Corporation speakers (since laptop speakers are so cheap and tinny...). I want a laptop that will let me BOOT from a PCMCIA-based disk, and I want a chassis-located switch or BIOS soft setting that'll let me and Mandrake choose at boot time which disk to boot (saves swapping and such). This would spare me (on this PCG-FX215 from removing some 11 screws, wearing out the grounding foil, weakening the disk connector ribbon, and so on...)

The RakGear/Targus backpacks (Identical with those with "Vaio" bubbles on them, effectively saying "STEAL ME" on a subway...) with the strong collapsible plastic shelving (I got mine from MicroCenter, $65, diff from the above Targus bags) are awesome. I might look like a "backpack bomber" with mine fully stuffed (It'll take an hour to verfy everything is legit), but in it I carry my BJC-85, and my Vaio laptop and power supplies for both. I stuff into the outside rightside pouch my 8-plug Fellowes polygonic-shaped surge strip with 6' cable . I get my Targus USB/Par/Ser port adaptor in there, too, as well as my flat 3-fan laptop cooler (1/2 inch thin), several CDs and DVDs, 2 PDAs, my sony spare battery and its holder, my tooth brush and paste, two EZ-CAM II web cams, BOTH PDA docking cradles, my Warrior/Bullet drive enclosure, several adaptors and cables, and even my LinkSys BEFSR EtherFast/Cable DSL Router and my GigaFast switch and their power supplies, too. Oh, and I also fit in there my New Media speakers, some extra ink cartridges for the BJC-85, plus some USB smart media adaptors AND about 30-50 sheets of blank paper.

Talk about ROAD WARRIOR! And this all adds up to about 50lbs on my back. It wore me oOUT at the SF Linux Expo since I didn't bring a dolly, hehe.

Anyway, I am SERIOUS about breaking MS hold. The ONLY use I have for ms is win98 and THAT only until IBM/Lotus re-write and update SmartSuite or OpenSource it to the world (since it's languishing, I don't see how IBM/Lotus make much money off it anyway, except to hold the rights to it). I have published a series of rants begging IBM to make their asleep-at-the-wheel Lotus unit do something about the languishing SmartSuite. Currently, they prefer to to try to Domino and Notes anyone asking for SmartSuite ports. Some of us are small-time, mom&pop, non-programming, too-used-to-SmartSuite types who would like to see SmartSuite and OpenOffice.org/StarOffice be merged. Approach, as a front-end would be KILLERTASTIC on top of MySQL, PostgresQL and any other database back end, even on Oracle. Lotus made a GREAT move back in the early 90's or whenever they bought San Mateo-based Approach Software. That database frontend is AWESOME and I sorely need it. But, now that I found at Fry's a copy of DataArchitect and alread purchased Rekall, and reinstalled Mandrake to fit on my 30-GB disk, I will retry installing Rekall and cross my fingers that my reinstall dragged in some libraries I might have removed before.

BTW, if you need a THIN, THIN THIN PCMCIA-based solution to plug in external laptop-sized (2.5 inch) disks, get the one from Apricorn. It's called EZ-GIG. It's WORTH the $70 since you can dispense with the cheesy, smoke-gray case and rubber shock pad. The PCMCIA card is removable from the cable, and the cable attaches diRECTly to the hdd vice some fragile intermediary container-based adaptor. It complements my Warrior/Bullet Drive.

Also, the refurbed Iomega CD-RW 16x10x40 speed Model CDRW6402-EXT-B plays and reads, but burning is an issue. Keeps failing. I'll have to return it. See, Iomega, the neg pub you get. I have GOT to know why SOOO many "refurbs" are at Fry's. More of THEM than the unsold new of the same model. What's up? Might try working with Linux hardware/software teams so your gear (probably designed with UNIX tools, then dumbed-down/"marketized" for ms windoze, and stripped of any Linux-Friendly features... Not just Iomega, but many others... One of my former employers used UNIX tools to design hardware destined for the windoze world, yet was hostile toward Linux/UNIX in the public...

Well, this is too long now...

Thank You Linus, Richard, Doc, Eric, Andy Tridgell, all the Linux mags/rags, LUGs, OSDN/FSF, Argentina, China, Peru, Germany, all of you fueling the interest on the governmental and public-interface level... You'll be generously lease in the long run, since you're not myopically mired by "how much can we make NOW?" syndrome...

If you like the theme to underdog, see my twist at my site at www.jabybi.com titled "underdong"

Regards,

David Syes, Linux Convert, Fanatic, Mantric, etc...

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The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)

Posted Sep 13, 2002 21:24 UTC (Fri) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Thanks, Salsaman.

I am glad you enjoyed it. Every once in a while I can tirade in a way that downright brings people to giggles, and in the same crowd some would want to behead me, regardless of the law and freedom of speech. BTW, I replied to the Toshiba Standoff also on Newsforge. Except, there I replied to a guy who ranted about Toshiba selling secrets of the propeller milling machine to Russia... My intro is the only difference to what you read hear. The rest is just the same imperious heresy I posted which you already read...

I did, however, forget to mention my ordeal with Gateway, back in Jan/Feb of 2000. Boy, it was an ordeal.

On the phone, the sales lady refused to let me buy the system naked. I told her I was going to put Mandrake and SuSE Linux on it, and that I didn't even NEED nor did I WANT windoze. I did manage to get her to agree to send me a LOGITECH mouse. Guess what. I got an ms mouse. So, I threw the #$^%er in the box in a corner for a year. I then had need to buy a propane mini-torch and one day.... I got out my Sony HandiCam and made a home video burning and scolding ms and their wretched every-where mouse. The fumes got noxious, and I did feel guilty about pollution, but one day, I will release the defecatious defamation of his lord bill's rodent. Anyway...

I know that companies get volume discounts, but I find it astounding to think that they are NOT getting any kickbacks at all. After all, if only 2,000 of their 40,000 buying, legit, honest Customers ask for a naked system, then what's it to Dell or Gateway. Hell, they didn't WRITE windoze, and so any loss is inflicted BY microstorf. See, if a PC maker ships 55,000 units, the cost of windoze is X. If they tell ms (miscreatn) they THINK they'll ship "48,000 windozed-based PCs" and don't mention "naked PCs", then miscreant will charge them for a license for X amount. Now if Gateway stunningly ships, instead, 75,000 units, they'd BETTER tell ms, otherwise the market will be skewed and eventually traced back to the supplier.

However, if Gateway ships 375 units naked, really, what's it to ms, except the beginning of a trend. And, NOOOOOO, they can't have any of THAT crap hanneping, right? So, anti-trust, BAM! BAM!! (of the gavel) it's time to HAUL ms' butts back into court.

I STILL am boggled by their getting off the the meat hook for D*)King with the (our own) video testemony. Just let me or you fiddle with video surveillance showing we actually dragged the girlscout cookie pusher INTO the house and jacked her up for pushing cookies. Yep, WE''d BE in JAIL. Cannot get away with saying she pushed her way in and tried to force cookies sales.

I don't buy this apologist "what the market will bear" and "supply and demand" crap that is leveled in defence of ms. After all, THEIR stuff SHIPS, is PUSHEd on the world. Linux, no, we have to fight tooth and nail. Heck, from day one, almost, ms was scheming and probably hiding in seemy, stinky closets, choking themselves up over the biggest pyramid scheme in history (other than government taxation and religious quarrels, if you don't mind...)

So, the government, by not directly pouncing ms in a way that REALLY is substantive, that HURTS, and that leaves them humbled and limping (and maybe with a crowbar or Dremel spinning up their small intestine's upper and lower trap doors), is just SUBSIDIZING ms.

Unfortunately, this war effort going on is just one GREAT big convenient smokescreen for a number of things but for ms it works out just fine. Prince Geo is a buddy, however labyrinthine the "club org chart" is, and you can BET ms won't be facing a meat hook anytime soon, at least not by any lawmakers and enforcers. So, It is up to the UK to do what the US greed keeps the law from having the cajones to do:

From LWN's very own front page....

"The London-based Commission on Intellectual Property Rights has issued its final report on intellectual property law, especially with regard to developing countries. There is much to be found there in favor of free software and freedom of access to information in general. "Where suppliers of digital information or software attempt to restrict 'fair use' rights by contract provisions associated with the distribution of digital material, the relevant contract provision may be treated as void. Where the same restriction is attempted through technological means, measures to defeat the technological means of protection in such circumstances should not be regarded as illegal." "

You gotta love it, if I read it correct.

So somebody needs to get a FOOL&STOOL saver and shrink-wrap ms (freeze first, lest the brown stuff leak all over your machine...) heheh

Anyway, I have to admit here, that I DO comment Gates (upper case respect here for the next words finishing this sentence) for donating charity and resources for AIDS research and HEALTH-related/protein-distribution programs he & miss-Mindy (Hey, is Bill "MORK", or DORK) underwrites. However, I thoroughly despise the gates (lower-casing/deprecation here intentional for the following and paragraph-preceeding material) for letting his megalomania machine get out of control.

Monopolies on tooth brushes and scissors and tires are hard to maintain. Consumers can ALWAYS find alternatives and actually get them easily and relatively cheaply. But, not so with pre-built, mass-produced, in-your-face-at-work and at-home computers. No, gates, Uncle Fester, and the scarecrow (mr skinny) just HAVE to have the market to themselves. Well, not on MY chinny-chin-chin, Allchin... You can BET on it! I notice ballmer is doin' his bop & gloat (read Mop & Glo) jigs all over the stage. I wonder how many times he might have almost slipped. They WOULD be mopping the floor up with HIM if he fell. Dude must think he's the Albino/Alternate Universe version of James Brown. Heyaahhhhh, huyh, Kama-su-pama-shoo, noo-noo... yyyhooooo , heyahhh.... I think his insurance company told him to be a bit more careful. After all, he might LOOK like the merger of Uncle Fester and WEEBLE WOBBLE. But, if HE falls, he WILL stay DOWN! HEHEH EHeheh I crack myself up... A LOt of times...

ANyway, Toshiba, Gateway, Dell, HP, and others should be put on NOTICE. LIVE BY micostorf's SWORD, YOU WILL PERISH BY micsotorf's SWORD! Plain and simple. Quick using tiresome "market economics" excuses and bogus statistics to prop up your houses of cards. You can MAKE or help MAKE markets if you just sit down and chat with Sun and IBM and Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, LSB and others who NEED a decent, fair door-opening. As for "queer or weird" GUIs, hey, the Customer demand (especially from interest free-loading or rabid and PAYING Customers) will MORE than justify and vindicate your OPEN support of Linux. Besides, Toshiba and Sony are Japanese companies. Why embrace Linux back home and leave pro-Sony Customers to the wolves here in the States? C'mon Sony. You need to reign in your New York and LA staff who are a bit too comfy or under-watched on this side of the pond (regardless of their birth place, Sony, you REALLY need to keep tabs on your overseas offices so they don't make decisions that'll haunt your reputation...)

Regards,

David the Imperious Impudent Impetuous anti-ms Wretch

The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)

Posted Sep 14, 2002 10:23 UTC (Sat) by billabong_services (guest, #3682) [Link]

This article has angered me a lot. I have made a personal resolution to ensure that my actions legally deprive Microsoft of revenue wherever possible.

The refusal by microsoft, and it's resellers raises an interesting point. All microsoft software is licensed, and not sold. This is to side-step consumer legislation, which insists that products must be of merchantable quality. Licensing also allows Microsoft to insist that you do not publish benchmark results. On the other hand books and other published work, are only covered by copyright laws. If you buy a book, you can do whatever you like, except sell copies. I’m no lawyer, but the distinction seems pretty clear to me.

A licence only comes into effect if there is an agreement from both parties. This agreement is sought from the purchaser at the time they open the shrink wrap on the media, or agree to the activation of preinstalled software. If the purchaser does not agree with the terms, they can receive a refund, and the agreement has in effect never been made. Effectively the sale has been nullified, so you cannot use the software.

However if you do not agree to the licence terms and there is no refund, then the licence agreement is clearly not made. If you make serious attempts to nullify the sale but microsoft refuses, then you have clearly BOUGHT the software. You have not agreed to the terms. You still have the software, and as long as you don’t sell copies of it, you can do what you like You could review, benchmark, reverse engineer to your hearts content without breaking a licence agreement. You are only limited by legislation

Undoutably, microsoft lawyers have a defence prepared for this eventuality, but they would have to make it in court. This would be the place where they would be reminded about the European court ruling that prohibited Microsoft from insisting that a manufacturer sell MS software with all PCs in order to be granted volume discounts.

Microsoft cannot have it both ways.

Ashley Chapman (www.billabong_services.co.uk)