[NetBehaviour] Pestering Multi-National Corporations about Linux

[james morris]

Hello,

The bank I do my online banking has started offering security software on
a trial basis. Being a Linux user I usually doubt very much that they
are going to cater for me, and of course I am right, they don't nor
won't, but this is not what this is about.

Today such an offer was offered and I looked past the download now, and
several pages later found to no surprise at all that this software would
not run on Linux, nor Mac (nor even 64bit Windows).

However, their wording of the matter, was somewhat mislead and they kept
claiming that the software would work on PC's only not Linux nor Mac.

So I took the trouble to enlighten them about the distinction between a
PC and the operating system that runs on it.

It will probably fall of deaf ears, but perhaps if enough people contact
these multi-national corporations about such matters, they will begin to
get the picture. Then perhaps we will not have to follow several links
to find this information out (even though we can guess with 100%
accuracy ;-).

Here's the message I sent:

Hi,

I took a look at the offer for free
security for one year. Of course, being a
Linux user, I never expected the offer to
be inclusive to Linux users. I also
appreciate why this is so, fair enough.

I would like to point out however there is
a distinction between a PC (Personal
Computer) and Microsoft Windows (an
Operating System). I suspect that whoever
wrote the FAQ for your corporation was strongly
influenced by Microsoft's recent "I'm a
PC" advertising campaign.

So just to be clear, a computer which DOES
NOT run Microsoft products bears no
relation what so ever to whether that
computer is a PC or not.

I use a PC, it runs Linux, IT IS A PC!
Hope that helps,

Best regards,
James Morris.