Every few months or so, another "I got a Windows refund" or "I tried to get a Windows refund and failed" blog entry shows up in the Linuxsphere.
If you look at the Linux preinstalled options out there, they're kind of pitiful--not available in all countries, available from only certain vendors with limited and/or overpriced models. And the days of a build-your-own computer being significantly cheaper than buying a prebuilt model are over, especially if you're into a laptop or netbook.
So what's a Linux user to do? Buy Windows preinstalled? Let Microsoft brag that it's selling 10 Windows 7 licenses per second?
Some have argued that people should just keep trying to get Windows refunds. I would disagree. The refund process is really convulated and, more importantly, is not guaranteed to work. You could document yourself refusing the license, send something back to the vendor, be on a customer support phone call for hours, or make several phone calls and write emails back and forth... and still not get a refund. And, chances are, the more that people try to get refunds, the harder refunds will be to get.
Some have argued, as I have in the past, that we should all just buy Linux preinstalled. Vote with your wallet, instead of petitions. The problem with that, as I said before, is that there just aren't enough options. Linux users tend to be a picky lot. Dell, ZaReason, and System76 are niche vendors even for the niche computing population that is Linux users. A niche of a niche will get nowhere, because when it comes down to it, people want they want, and they also want generally what's cheaper (which is not Linux preinstalled).
There is a third option, which may be worth exploring. I'd be curious to know what others think. How about setting up a Linux counter, but a different one? I heard about Linux Counter years ago when I first started using Linux, and after five years as a Linux user, I still haven't signed up for it. Why? Because I think it serves no purpose. There are, as of this writing, 126,399 Linux users registered at Linux Counter. What does that tell you? Not really a whole lot. The kind of Linux counter I'm interesting in exploring would have a point, though, and the point would be exactly the opposite of Microsoft bragging about how many Windows licenses it sells a minute. This Linux counter would count how many unused Windows licenses Linux users were forced to buy in order to get the kind of computer they wanted. Would that be interesting to see? What do folks think? Would you actually sign up for such a counter? Are there, in fact, a significant chunk of Linux users who buy Windows preinstalled but never use Windows?
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Originally Posted by aysiu
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