[clug] Dell EULA

[Alex Satrapa]

On 14 Apr 2004, at 13:21, Darren Freeman wrote:

> ... The problem is that I have to
> accept the Dell EULA by pressing any key, presumably as part of the 
> BIOS
> or bootloader.

Somewhere in there I'm sure there's a case for third party forcing 
(that's where A, in order to use B's product, is required by B to buy 
C's product, and that's illegal).

> So where are the originals that I paid good money for?

You didn't pay good money for original copies of the Windows XP 
Professional CDs - you paid for a drive with Windows XP Professional 
preinstalled. That's the way they come from the hard drive 
manufacturer. The CDs you've been supplied with are the OEM's "backup" 
or "recovery" CDs, used to restore the image of Windows XP Professional 
that is installed on that HDD.

> The EULA is not included, contrary to the on-screen prompt ...

Thus the "contract" is not complete, and you can't be asked to abide by 
it. Caveat vendor, I guess. Though no doubt some court somewhere will 
hold you liable for breach of some as-yet-undocumented law since you 
weren't able to divine some important fact that is contained in the 
non-existent documents.

Even worse, I suspect you'll find that the EULA is included in the text 
files that are part of the Windows XP Professional installation. So 
they're presenting you with the situation where you have to agree to 
the EULA before you read it.

> ... What are customers doing agreeing to things they
> can't even read?

Realising that no matter how they interpret the EULA, the deep-pocketed 
corporation's lawyers will convince the court to interpret it 
differently.

Thus you might interpret, "everyone has the right to speak without fear 
of persecution on grounds of race, religion or creed" as meaning that 
you have the right to express your own opinions. The corporation's 
lawyers will calmly point out that they are persecuting you on grounds 
other than race, religion or creed - and you'll still be up the creek.

I call it, "facing the awful truth and getting on with life." Other 
people label that as, "fatalism". They can label all they like, I'll 
just enjoy what little hope is allowed me in this oppressive 
authoritarian environment we're building ourselves :)

Regards
Alex Satrapa

"Everyone has 20/20 vision in hindsight" -- Old Proverb
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