Ends slavery
Microsoft software
Posted on 9/30/2014
After XP, Microsoft to not have any more apt. Operating systems increasingly heavy and complex, full of bugs and security holes, and so have continued to churn out a new OS on average every two years. We arrived at the fifteenth version of Windows in the last thirty years, and who is to be born will be called Windows 9 The “technical preview” will be released by mid-October to manufacturers, enterprises and developers while landing on the official market is expected by the next spring. The real problem, however, will be to convince the end users because the more savvy you are already accustomed to using Ubuntu, or some other open source operating system with less success, but always free. All lighter, simpler, which does not require continuous hardware upgrades, and hence the new charges. The problem is now known and in constant circulation: who buys a PC, if it is not Apple, sometimes begins to ask without the operating system, especially without the newest member of the Windows family.
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Free to not buy the OS of Microsoft
Alessandro Mancini
The Supreme Court judgment n. 19161/2014, published on September 11, ruled that those who buy a computer with a preinstalled operating system, but I do not subscribe to the license, may refuse to use it and ask them to return it, becoming at the same time the seller to reimburse part of the software and by keeping the hardware.
Quest’eclatante judgment comes at the end of a long process that began when a consumer Florentine (computer consultant of the ‘Association for the rights of users and consumers) has sued the ‘HP (Hewlett-Packard, renowned producer of Pc) for a refund of € 140 operating system Windows XP Home Edition and Microsoft Works 8 installed on a computer he bought. The defense argued that the HP hardware (the physical part of the PC) and the operating system were inseparable.
The case drew attention on what is written in the license to use the operating system Microsfot (Eula): “If you do not agree to the terms of this agreement, you may not use or duplicate the software and you should promptly contact the manufacturer for information on returning the product or products and conditions for reimbursement in accordance with the provisions established by the producer himself. ” For the prosecution, therefore, HP did not want to recognize the value of the clause stating that the license was drawn up unilaterally by Microsoft. Microsoft itself did then appeal in Appeal losing. In 2010, the Antitrust even gave reason to the original judgment.
Today we come to the end of the story with the final ruling of the Supreme Court, which gives reason to the consumer: either there are no technological obstacles or negotiating obstacles in finding two separate contracts. The packaging at the source of hardware and operating system Microsoft Windows-answer, in fact, in essence, a trade policy aimed at the forceful spread of the latter in the retail hardware.
In this way, reflections would occur in cascade in order to the imposition of additional software applications on the market which spread at the end customers would be strong incentive and conditioning, if not actual need, in more or less intensive constraints of compatibility and interoperability with the operating system tend monopolist.
eventuality concrete, the Supreme Court concluded, as to be in many respects been the subject of restrictive measures and sanctions by the antitrust agencies of the United States and the EU Commission itself.
Between end user and production house of the software does not incur, in practice, no contract required (unless, of course, does not require the user to express a positive will), because, if a consumer wants to buy a product, does not mean that he, therefore, urge the other, since there is no connection negotiating binding.
With this judgment, therefore, opens to Italy a completely new scenario, which opens the door to a large amount of potential actions that could be immediately accepted by computer manufacturers. And even if it was the loser in HP, Microsoft could be the suffer the most serious consequences, given its business model is derived, in large part, from the large-scale distribution of their product that users are often lazily standardized.
Alessandro Mancini
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