I would think that IBM might be a little interested in this situation. I mean where is it writing, in a contract, or by local, state, or federal statue that a IBM PC "must" have a windows license? Since when did it become a violation of any sort to replace an OEM computer systems OS to one of the owner's/users choice. If I am correct in my assumption, the only time you need to have a Windows license is when your actually using that OS, otherwise how do they figure that your in violation of some agreement of a license of a non-existant OS that isn't being used. Oh, forgive me..... If you have a PC then naturally you "must" be running Windows since all OEM computers come with Windows "pre-loaded"! I guess in their minds the only way you can obfiscate your acceptance of the Windows license is to never have boot the OS in the first place? Since to install the OS you must agree to the lisence in order to install. But wait, IBM agreed to the license in order to install the Windows OS, and you just decided to install the OS of your preference? My god man, the unmittigated Gaul you must pocess,... How dare you use your brain!!! These guys wanna make me puke! Cheers, Curtis On Saturday 06 April 2002 21:55, Jon Biddell wrote:
At 11:00 5/04/02 -0800, Mark Doucette wrote:
I think another nice touch would be for business' <especially those threatened by CAAT>, to switch to linux and open source, then as a show of *admiration* for MS, send all of there windows software back to MS. Wouldn't they crap if they started getting thousands of cd's in mail, maybe with a little note saying "Switched to Linux/Open Source". Of course I would scratch the hell out of the disks first cuz they'd probably try to resell those usable ones haha.
Sorry for the hairbrain stuff...still haven't had my first cup 'o' jo of the day.
We had a software audit by M$ recently, where they sent a team from one of the big accounting firms to do the dirtywork.
Now, my PC has a BIOS powerup password, as it's been tampered with by the desktop dweebs before (I manage the network - over 50 servers - on my OWN !!), so I wasn't worried about them getting into it.
When they arrived, I just sat back and watched the fun - three "technicians" couldn't get the machine to power up, let alone boot.... The Director glowered at me, then winked....
They then asked me for the password (they were sitting at my machine when I got to work, so no way was I co-operating !!), which I refused, on the grounds of "commercial confidentiality of the data on the PC". They then explained what they were going to do, and how the program worked. They REFUSED to allow me to scan their disks for viruses.
I presented them with an agreement that they all were to sign, indicating that they would be responsible for any damage or misuse of the data on my computer, and that they were "technically competant to conduct this audit", which they refused to sign.
After about 1/2 hour of this, the MD came down and "explained" that I was to allow this or I would be sacked.
So I unlocked the machine, and lo, it booted into SuSE 7.3.... They DEMANDED that it be booted into Windows, which I refused as I didn't run it at the time (I run certain non-Linux apps under VMWARE)... They threatened that I HAD to have a Windows licence on the PC, as it is an IBM - at which point I powered off the machine and politely told them to piss off.
So much for Microsoft's "honesty".