>*I'll note that I don't see the same pre-installed OS options when I click on >the "HP Zbook Fury 17.8 G8" in the article. I only see "Windows 11 Pro," >"Windows 10 Pro," "Windows 11 Home," and "Ubuntu Linux 20.04." So either HP >has changed it, or the "FreeDOS" option is not available in the US (the >article's screenshots show purchase prices in Euro).
I've heard of modern systems shipping with FreeDOS before: around 2012, apparently half of all laptops in Russia shipped with FreeDOS; the acquaintance that told me this said that it was basically a way of selling a PC without an operating system while still selling something that would boot (so that the technophobes don't come back complaining that you've sold them a brick), though I'd think Ubuntu would do that job just as well, in terms of licensing cost. Desktops in Russia, apparently, are almost exclusively built from parts by the owner or by a hired entrepreneur. I imagine shopping in the US vs. abroad has something to do with it: Russia is outright hostile to the US (and thus US companies), and the EU tends to do better than the US at restraining the kind of anticompetitive deals with manufacturers that MS gained infamy for cutting back in the 90's. So I'd imagine that companies like HP might well find themselves constrained by local law to offer a "no OS" (i.e. FreeDOS) option in those markets. So if MS is still cutting such deals, this is about what I'd expect to see: manufacturers offering FreeDOS abroad and not in the US. OTOH, my understanding is that most of MS's income these days is from enterprise volume licensing and support, and relatively little from per-machine licensing or the consumer market in general, so they don't have to have reformed any, morally speaking, for the reptuational risks of such deals to outweigh the rewards. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
