The most significant parts of the court ruling affect Microsoft's relationships with the OEMs (the hardware manufacturers), and specifically give those OEMs a substantially freer environment in which to work. Windows won, thus far, by convincing all OEMs to distribute it (and only it). That made it universally available, so it made sense if you were an application developer to develop apps for it, and it made sense if you were an average consumer or business customer to just take advantage of what you'd inevitably have to begin with.
But now, with this ruling, FOR THE FIRST TIME, OEMs have the freedom to distribute whatever they want without fearing any kind of retaliation from Microsoft. The point of the trial, as Kollar-Kotelly wrote, was to restore the opportunity for competition in the market. Now we just need to compete. So let's do it. We need to make it compelling to OEMs to distribute Linux, and we need to make sure that there are enough applications available that do enough of the kinds of things users need that home users and business users both find it reasonable to use Linux instead of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
But now, with this ruling, FOR THE FIRST TIME, OEMs have the freedom to distribute whatever they want without fearing any kind of retaliation from Microsoft. The point of the trial, as Kollar-Kotelly wrote, was to restore the opportunity for competition in the market. Now we just need to compete. So let's do it. We need to make it compelling to OEMs to distribute Linux, and we need to make sure that there are enough applications available that do enough of the kinds of things users need that home users and business users both find it reasonable to use Linux instead of Windows.