Microsoft Refund Day

On Monday, February 15, the Bay Area FreeBSD community can join with other PC users in returning unused, unwanted, bundled copies of Win9x and other Microsoft software to Microsoft in Foster City, for refund. With television coverage and reporters from all over the world.

This right is guaranteed by Microsoft's own license contract.

The event is being coordinated with similar events (the same day) in Orange County, New York City, New Zealand, France, Japan, and the Netherlands -- and has gotten huge amounts of publicity.

Main Windows Refund Day sites:

http://hugin.imat.com/refund/ <- Monitor this one for the Bay Area.

http://LinuxMall.com/refund/

http://zork.net/refund/

http://www.deirdre.org/rebellion.html

http://www.netmonger.net/~onr/refund.html

http://hugin.imat.com/refund/japan/

http://www.nl.linux.org/geldterug/

http://www.linux-center.org/detaxe/index.shtml

http://www.uniforum.org.nz/windowsrefund/

Here in the Bay Area, *BSD and Linux people are invited to assemble at any of four "posse" locations, before 10 AM, Monday, when we will all carpool/caravan to Foster City.

Open-source essayist Eric S. Raymond will be there. The band "Severe Tire Damage" ("the first band on the Internet") is supposed to be do a gig there, AND send it out over the MBONE.

Is Microsoft just a tad nervous? They might be, given that we troublemakers have already transformed two of their recent company PR events into open-source ones:

http://www.svlug.org/events/tea-party-199811.shtml

http://hugin.imat.com/svlug/

http://www.penguincomputing.com/svlug-rally.html

http://hugin.imat.com/launch98/

http://www.svlug.org/events/launch98.shtml

We are also getting a large amount of press coverage. At last count we had 62 articles including ones from India, Malaysia, France, Australia, New Zealand, England, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

A whole flock of people from SCO are even hoping to turn up, and maybe some from Sun Microsystems. And that's not to mention the party in San Francisco, afterwards.

Full directions can be found by folloing the links.

Mountain View: Meet Posse organizer Chris Di Bona outside VA Research, 1235 Pear Ave. #111. near N. Shoreline Blvd. Also, please notify Chris immediately that you will be coming, at mv@linuxmafia.com. (Directions.) (Map.)

Oakland: Meet Posse organizer Scott McNeil at the passenger pickup zone at the entrance to MacArthur BART, no later than 10 AM. Also, please notify Scott immediately that you will be coming, at ebay@linuxmafia.com. Please include if you can offer or are in need of a ride! Please note that the BART parking lot is for BART patrons. There is nearby on-street parking. (Directions.) (Map.)

San Francisco: Meet Posse organizer Rick Moen inside The CoffeeNet Internet cafe, 744 Harrison @ 3rd/4th Streets, no later than 10 AM. Also, please notify Rick immediately that you will be coming, at sf@linuxmafia.com. (Directions.) (Map.)

Santa Clara: Meet Posse organizer Ian Kluft outside the Hotel Marriott Santa Clara, 2700 Mission College Blvd @ Great America, at the "F7" parking post near the tennis courts. Also, please notify Ian immediately that you will be coming, at sc@linuxmafia.com. (Directions.) (Map.)

Stick around, because we're also going to have a party to remember afterwards, at The CoffeeNet in San Francisco.

Wear your BSD t-shirts! Bring pitchforks and images of Chuck the daemon! Heck, bring BSDI and the blessed ghost of CSRG; it's going to be a blast, in any event.

BAFUG Webmaster