Hello, everyone. I just wanted to see what trouble I could stir up this evening with an article I found this morning. I'm surprised Fred didn't send it on. If you don't think of MS as the Evil Empire yet, this may well push you over the edge. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/18589.html This article raised many questions in my mind. Predominantly, though, is this: Just how far can Microsoft go in its pursuit of pirates without overstepping the mark ? How much of this power can be wielded beyond US borders ? Let's say that I buy a shiny new PC from Gateway, for the sake of argument. I order it without an OS, since I intend to install a lovely fresh copy of SuSE on it, and don't want to have to pay the MS Tax. A vigilant Gateway employee then calls up MS and says "Stoo just bought a new machine without an OS. Please add another point to my score, as I am trying to win my own yacht from the MS 'Shop Your Customers for Profit' promotion". The next thing I get is a phone call from a drone in Redmond. The call goes something like this... Drone - "Mr. Powell, it has come to our attention that you just bought a whizz-bang new Gateway PC without an OS. We will be sending the PC police (http://www.bsa.org) over to make sure you bought a valid Windows licence for that PC." Me - "Sod off ! It's running Linux." Question; can they still send the PC police round to check and see if I actually have Linux on the box ? What about the other PCs here that may or may not be running Windows ? Can they check those just because they're here and they feel like it ? How about my friend's PC in the corner that I will be upgrading with a new processor in a couple of days ? I don't know if he has a valid Windows licence or not. I certainly can't produce one for it myself. And finally, how long is this kind of behaviour going to be tolerated before someone sees the light and puts a stop to this kind of thing ? Let the battle commence... Stuart.