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Italians say arrivederci to Microsoft Tax

by on15 September 2014

Bundling bungling monopoly

Italy's High Court has ordered an end to the forcing of non-free software on buyers of PCs and laptops.

The court ruled that a laptop buyer was entitled to receive a refund for the price of the Microsoft Windows license on his computer. What is amusing they also sharply criticised the practice of selling PCs only together with a non-free operating system as "a commercial policy of forced distribution" and said it was "monopolistic in tendency".

Another thing the Italian judges did not like was the practice of bundling means that end users are forced into using additional non-free applications due to compatibility and interoperability issues, whether they wanted these programs or not. Free Software Foundation Europe has been long fought the "Windows tax", as the involuntary payment to Microsoft is often called and is over the moon at the ruling.

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