powerdvd et al
Does the PowerDVD EULA specifically state that you are entitled to a refund of PowerDVD should you not agree to the terms outlined in the EULA?
apparently it does
"...IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE, PROMPTLY REMOVE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER AND RETURN IT TO YOUR LOCAL RETAILER FOR REFUND OR REPLACEMENT.."
"As I understand it, the EULA for Windows refers to being entitled to a refund of Windows - not the entire product, i.e. hardware and software - if you disagree with their terms and conditions."
The legal guy I talked to suggest that you do indeed misunderstand it, the text in question says
"IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE"
1. Dell say that it is not applicable as they associate no cost to it, however they may return it to Microsoft for the cost they pay for it (which we do not know of course).
2. Dell is perfectly within its rights to treat its sales and returns as an all or nothing thing.
I don't know the business costs for doing it another way but in the end it is up to Dell, if enough of their customers wanted Linux or naked systems they would sell them that way and charge whatever they could get away with for them, if there were cost savings which generated them more sales by passing them on they would. End of story!
As an aside my legal contact says that a judge in Italy made acer (I think) refund someone for the bundled software which was publicised a year or two ago, however this decision was actually later reversed by a court of appeal and the wording for the EULA in Vista and beyond was presumably subtly changed for OEM's, though ACER did in this case refund the user in the end out of 'good will'!
I don't believe this has actually been tested in court in the UK so there is an opportunity for one of you to challenge the wording if you feel that strongly about it...
"Similarly, I've not read the Apple EULA but I wouldn't have bought the hardware if I didn't want to run the software."
But you would with Dell clearly!
"I'm sure my Xubuntu has an EULA but again I've not read it... anyone know if it's worth reading seeing as though I paid nothing for the OS in the first place?"
Finally Ubuntu doesn't have an EULA.
Firefox and some other things (Sun Java, Adobe etc) do when you install their packages.