Re: [Fsfe-uk] Mac OS X refund

[Jon Grant]

I'll just jump in here.

> AIUI, OS X is significantly cheaper than Microsoft Windows, so the refund is
> likely to be negligible compared to the cost of the machine.
>
> Actually, I find the whole refund thing slightly curious - you wouldn't go
> to Ford and say "give me a refund, I want to install my own car radio". If
> you can't find a supplier who unbundles [hardware from software|cars from
> stereos], that is pretty much your problem.

If Ford was saying "you can accept the Stereo, or if you decline we
are happy to refund the cost the Stereo would have cost (had you
bought it)" then I see no issue with decline to accept it. Any
software license is "acceptable", or "declineable". Equally online
sales are covered by Distance Selling, so when it arrives we all have
the right to decline it. And I am sure they would rather not have to
return the whole lot just because we took their offer to "decline" the
software license.

[...]
> > 1) you could get a similar spec laptop for WAY under half the price,
>
> Really?

I compared the first MacBook laptop with the identical spec Dell
laptop, the mac was about £50 more. The Dell came in at £800 or so as
I recall.

> > 7) you will be frustrated by little hardware tweeks apple have made
> >     to make the thing look nicer while significantly breaking some
> >     fundamental function of you computer. An example would be my Mac's
> >     lack of a CD eject button. When my OpenFirmware decides to b0rk
> >     it's self after an upgrade because yaboot got the wrong device
> >     path to my primary hard disk (did I mention I hate OpenFirmware?)
> >     I literally have take my computer appart and manually force the
> >     CD draw out of the drive, which I cant imagine is healthy for it,
> >     just so I can put in a Live CD and rescue my system.
>
> Your frustration is other people's elation. Personally, I love not having a
> fugly hardware eject button.

When using GNU+Linux one is certainly still necessary. I encounter
removable media mount problems nearly every week on all my Kubuntu and
Mandriva installs. Even the Kubuntu 7.10 live disc fails to create
proper icons on the desktop to files on the different partitions.
Nearly all my USB sticks fail to be unmounted from time to time,
meaning I have to reboot or sudo root before I can umount them... not
ideal for new users. My friends Debian install has the same issues
with an external USB2 Western Digital drive.

Jon