Fifteen years of GarfNet |1995-08-18 to 2010-08-18

GarfNet is penguin-powered and full of unixy goodness! Yep! we're "open source" and enjoying every moment of it. Linux is serving us so well that there is hardly a whiff of the mighty Micro$oft on this site these days. Just penguins and of course, a goose!

Garfnet has become a huge site with many component parts. Here are some of the more useful bits, complete with nice, short URL's you can bookmark, scribble down on a stick-it note or (heaven forbid) memorise!

• All things Linux:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/linux
• Depth of field (DoF) calculator:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/dof
• Earthquake info:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/earthquake
• International weather from 3000 METAR stations around th planet:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/weather
• Internet radio tuner - connecting you to the best radio stations in the UK, Europe and around the globe:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/tuner
• Mr.Goose's Blog:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/mrgoose
• Pictures & media gallery:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/media
• Radio frequencies, reviews & information:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/radio
• Reference tables, battery equivalents etc.:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/tables
• Universal units converter:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/converter

• Technology articles:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/technical
• General articles:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/general

Rationale

At the moment, everyone who buys a PC from a UK supplier has to buy a Microsoft Windows license whether they want it or not. One has no choice, it is included in the price one pays. So, even if you are using one of the many free alternative operating systems such as Ubuntu, Debian or FreeBSD, you are still forced to pay money to a giant foreign corporation, Microsoft, regardless of whether you wish to use its products or not.

The Microsoft End User License Agreement states:-

"By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, return it to the retailer for a refund or credit."

Yet retailers are not honouring this. This means that Linux users such as ourselves are effectively forced to pay a what amounts to a tax, to a large foreign corporation even though we use none of its products.

What we plan to do about it

We are conducting a series of case studies illustrating the difficulty one has purchasing a PC in the UK without being forced to pay a "Microsoft Windows Tax". We use Linux on all our PC's and have done so for several years. Therefore we object most strongly being forced to pay for any Microsoft software licenses.

These studies are being documented and gathered in order to submit a formal complaint to the UK Office of Fair Trading and perhaps even to the EU Commission in the hope these regulatory bodies will finally put an end to Microsoft's monoploy and this iniquitous abuse of the market.

Meantime suppliers will be awarded "penguin points", (named after Tux, the Linux penguin) up to five points for customer care and up to another five for the degree to which they honour the EULA and don't force non-Windows users to pay for unwanted Windows licenses.

Marks out of five for customer care. That is, is the supplier friendly and helpful? Does it answer emails and enquires promptly?
Marks out of 5 for penguin-friendliness. That is, does the supplier either supply its machines OS free or will it refund unused Windows licenses without hassle & argument?
Overall rating	10/10 = the perfect Linux-friendly supplier. Unfortunately it seems that such a supplier does not actually exist here in the UK!

Microsoft Vista EULA

• http://download.microsoft.com/documents/useterms/Windows%20
  Vista_Home%20Premium_English_d16c019b-fa71-4fc9-a51d-a0621bddb153.pdf

UK Sale of Goods Act

• http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html

Other users who object to the Microsoft Windows Tax

• User refund for no Windows option
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm
• Dell Customer gets Windows refund
  http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/110706-dell-windows.html
• Linux programmer paid to uninstall Windows
  http://news.softpedia.com/news/
  Linux-Programmer-Paid-to-Uninstall-Windows-40133.shtml
• How to return your unused Windows license and get your money back:-
  http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-to-get-a-windows-tax-refund.html
• Getting a refund from PC World:-
  http://idunno.org/archive/2007/03/27/Getting-a-Windows-Refund-from-PC-World.aspx

This is a new series of case studies illustrating the difficulty one has purchasing a PC in the UK without being forced to pay a "Microsoft Tax". We use Linux on all our PC's and have done so for several years. Therefore we do not need, nor should we be forced to pay for any Microsoft software licenses.

We did some research and approached Dell UK to buy some of its rather smart-looking Vostro laptops, OS-free. Now Dell has a reputation for being fairly "penguin-friendly" and that it will build systems to the customer's specification. Moreover, its new Vostro laptops really are nice machines, with a good specification and a business-like apperance. We really wanted to buy some. I even transfered the money into our purchasing account ready to do the deal. Sadly, Dell's UK competely disinterested "sales team" managed to blow away any chances of that. Here's what happened...

Dell's Penguin rating

Marks out of five for Dell's customer care. (This would have been zero but Dell did actually manage to call us back once)
Marks out of 5 for Dell's penguin-friendliness
Overall rating	1/10 = hopeless!

This is the second article in a new series of case studies illustrating the difficulty one has purchasing a PC in the UK without being forced to pay a "Microsoft Tax". We use Linux on all our PC's and have done so for several years. Therefore we do not need, nor should we be forced to pay for any Microsoft software licenses. This week we focus on Laptops Direct.

Laptops Direct is part of a British-based chain, run by Buy It Direct Ltd. whose sites are mostly registered to an address in Huddersfield:-

• Unit A, Trident Business Park, Leeds Road. Huddersfield, HD2 1VA, United Kingdom

Or registered to individuals with a few kilometres of there. Basically Laptops Direct is an on-line bucket-shop that sells new and refurbished laptops at very reasonable prices. Despite its pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap ethos, Laptops Direct also has considerable expertise in the business and good technical knowledge with regard to the inner workings of Laptop PC's. So we felt that Laptops Direct it would be a good bet for meeting our computing needs. Its site offers potential customers the ability to ask questions to the pre-sales team via an on-line form. So we did, three times between 2009-07-09 & 2009-07-10. Initially it would not respond. When I finally wrote a very stiff email asking why it did not want our business, it finally did respond - although this response was quite astonishing!.

Laptop Direct's Penguin rating

Marks out of five for Laptop Direct's customer care.
Marks out of 5 for Laptop Direct's penguin-friendliness
Overall rating	0/10 = even worse than Dell!

On 2009-11-26, I wrote to Acer UK to establish what its policy was regarding the Microsoft Tax. This was its response:-

Hello, Thank you for contacting Acer.

Regarding your enquiry,

The value would be £33.95 for vista home premium.

This can only be refunded within 30 days of purchase and to get it
refunded you would need to send the laptop into the acer repair centre
to have the HDD formatted.  This would not be covered under warranty so
would cost £51.99.

Regards
Jonathan
Acer Technical Support Team

This is one of the most shameful responses so far and justifies raising the matter with the OFT all on its own. In a nutshell, it means you would end up paying Acer £18.04 in order not to pay the Microsoft Windows Tax. Interestingly, having studied the MS EULA(s) carefully I can find no reference to any of this.

---

Acer's Penguin Rating

Marks out of five for Acer's customer care. (By rights, this ought to be a negative number, consdering Acer actually tries to charge you in order to exercise your consumer rights.)
Marks out of 5 for Acer's penguin-friendliness
Overall rating	0/10 = avoid!

I have written back to Acer UK, requesting that it points me to the part(s) in the Microsoft EULA that say you need to return the machine and that the hard drive would need to be formatted in order to claim your consumer rights, and that you would be charged for doing so. I eagerly await its response.

Two events this week could herald in the clash of the titans as the two global IT giants, Google & Microsoft slug it out for global internet dominance. Or so one might believe.

1. MS started rolling-out its much-hyped Microsoft Online Services (MOS). The new services are scheduled to be available to customers by mid-July 2009. Basically MS is trying to make a series of its applications available on-line. These sit upon the Azure Services Platform, Microsoft' new cloud based OS, intended to rival Google Apps
2. Meantime on 2009-07-07 Google announced its new Linux-based Chrome OS operating system that some believe could unseat MS Windows from the "top slot"  - especially on lightweight machines such as netbooks.

Unfortunately the new Google Chromium open source browser is not included in the Ubuntu software repositories yet. Therefore installing it is a little more complex than other Ubuntu applications. But it still takes less than five minutes. Here's how...

1. You need to tell your system to connect to the appropriate software repository. That is, you need to add a line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file similar to this:-

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu {your version of Ubuntu} main

Where {your version of Ubuntu} could be hardy, intrepid, jaunty or karmic. There are several ways this can be achieved. Probably the simplest and most meaningful way for most Ubuntu users is to edit the file manually by using the command:-

GarfNet's upgrade to Joomla 1.5.x is now complete. Even better, the rather nasty "$live_site" bug reported in our last site blog item is now fixed. Many thanks to Joomla developer, Ian MacLennan for providing us with a timely patch:-

• http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/
  ?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=16930

This is a brief introduction to Internet radio. In a nutshell, GarfNet has just installed a brand new internet radio & TV tuner. This appears when you click the Internet Radio item on left side of the page. The "tuner" then automagically appears at the top of the left hand column, just above the Index. It actually has a built in video player too - though it is rather small. Immediately beneath the video window there is a pick-list. This where you may select the radio station of your choice.