A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn't want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don't want, French campaign group No More Racketware said.

Advice to those wishing to free Linux and remove all Microsoft tax from it (hint: avoid vendors that pay Microsoft for Linux)

Alan Lord, a FOSS computer consultant based in the UK, has announced that Amazon UK honored his request for a refund of the Microsoft license fee portion of the cost of a new Asus netbook PC that came with Microsoft Windows XP. Lord details the steps that he took to obtain a refund of 40.00 GBP for the cost of the EULA, complete with links to click to request a refund.

How can you compete with free ? That’s the question every business publication has been asking to Microsoft lately. Of course priceless software is actractive per-se, so many online journalist and bloggers already foresaw Microsoft’s decline in the OS war.

Ever wonder why Brazil and other BRIC countries are so hot on open source, including Linux? Gustavo Duarte gives several reasons, not the least of which is the punitive pricing that Microsoft inflicts on these developing markets.