[plug] HP to ship the NX5000 (laptop) with SUSE pre-installed.

[Michael Holland]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Senectus . wrote:

> > > For those on the hunt for "MS tax" free and linux supported laptop.
> >
> > Tax free? I believe the Linux version costs the same as the XP-home
> > version. Is that because MS still charges for OEM licensing on a
> > per-box-shipped basis ? ie part of your money still goes to Microsoft.
> > Have any of the court cases managed to change that?
> >
> The story said that the linux version is 60 bucks less so I'd say its

60 bucks less than XP-pro. Same price as optional XP-home.

> and as for the MS tax, The OEM licence doesn't apply here because
> there is nothing to license and there is no "dos tax" anymore because
> hard drive manufacturers now use "free dos" and other OS's on their
> drives.

Eh? Not sure what you are talking about there.
The "windows tax" ( a joke on the historical window tax, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax ) refers to the compulsory
bundling of MS-windows with laptops. In the past, even laptops with
pre-loaded Linux included the Windows CDs, since you had paid for it.
  That is a result of Microsoft licensing conditions. Looks like it still
applies here.

What is "dos tax" ? I know hard drive can be bundled with OEM windows, but
that was never forced. Was it?

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