shouldnt halfords sue car makers for supplying wheels, steering wheels etc for lose of earnings as they supply those with a new car when halfords supply them as well... muppets!!

What absolute bollocks. How can they possibly say they have lost that amount of money? Where would that money have come from? Do they think people would have paid for their software? If they think advertising revenues, they probably wouldn't have been that much as most people will go with something they have heard of. How many people have ever heard of Digito? That figure is purely speculative as they have no basis for comparison. Why not target OSX that also comes pre-loaded with an instant messenger and a media player? Most distros of Linux also come with messenger clients and media players. Why not sue them as their product was missing from the distro but lots of other peoples were so it is therefore unfair? There is nothing at all stopping people from installing a 3rd party app if they don't like the bundled ones and given the amount of publicity and advertising done now they cannot claim that people are unaware there is an alternative. Companies like this are almost as bad as patent trolls

I'm going to sue Microsoft because their operating systems include a GUI, and my shareware GUI never took off because of it, so losing me potentially millions.

installing a 3rd party app if they don't like the bundled ones,

As firefox pretty much proves.

The previous comments may be right, they may be wrong.

The company is resorting to legal challenge, if it's rubbish, it will get thrown out.

Unless I'm missing a wider point about the Korean legal system?

No doubt there was nothing to prevent double-stacker (or whatever it was called) being installed alongside the Microsoft equivalent...

Perhaps no-one remembers that Firefox was born out of Netscape - and everyone was free to install Netscape alongside IE, weren't they?

Because it creates an "out-of-the-box" usable system.

The crime is in the integration factor.

Take Linux - there's very few tools or pieces you can't chuck out and replace with something else of your own choice (perhaps not very easily or without a glossy point-and-drool interface, but, still) but in Windows a lot of these tools are *integrated* into the operating system, or can't be uninstalled or properly replaced with 3rd party tools. This is the meat of the matter.

Notice you still *CANNOT* uninstall Internet Explorer, Media Player and Messenger - yes, you *CAN* install further 3rd party tools to replace the functions, but you cannot effectively get fully rid of them - only shove them into the background, from whence they WILL come kicking and screaming at the least opportune moments ....

I don't think there's *ANY* need to remind anyone of the (lack of) quality and resilience of Microsoft tools when faced with exploits ...

If M1cr05h4ft can't even organise a UK English install of it's operating system to realise that there is likely to be an English (UK) keyboard, English (UK) money, English (UK) dictionary... and even then to automatically make a wrong guess as to what bloody time zone I am living in... I find it laughable to think that they could arrange for any other part of the operating system to install "as the user wanted". But let us not forget that without all that hideous bloatware that comes prebundled with your average m1cr05h4ft operating system, windoze would still fit on a couple of floppy disks.

Ooooo now - what was that little thing about "fit for use"??? Ah yes, as a supplier of a good or service that is not fit for the purpose that it was originally designed, M1cr05h4ft are, by definition, not entitled to charge for its provision.

... yeah okay the figure their quoting as losses is proberably wayyy over the top.

However... what they are suing about is true... its the same as the old Internet Explorer been bundled in to Windows argument... its fundamentally wrong.. its an operating system not a bundle of applications!

As for the muppets above spouting things like "shouldnt halfords sue car makers for supplying wheels, steering wheels etc for lose of earnings as they supply those with a new car when halfords supply them as well... muppets!!"... well no.. the steering wheel, wheels, seats, exhausts or what ever are integral to how a car works and runs... now the "optional accessories" that would be different.... how many times have you looked at a car and haggled on the price cause you wanted the bigger alloys and not the better quality floormats? thats the whole point... choice!!

I think the point is more that you can't remove the ones supplied.

So yes Halfords might well complain if the Ford wheels won't come off.

Windows should have been stripped of all application software a long time ago! Anything that is not related to system operation should have been moved into a different software collection (who remembers the '95 plus pak)

That would have prevented so many law suits for them over the years. And of course, vendors are not going to sell an empty pc. So, everything would still come from the OEM with applications, but if the users didn't want them they could format to a blank desktop and run netscape, wordperfect, ICQ, or whatever other application suite had evolved.

'The problem is that most users don't even look for alternatives unless something goes seriously wrong with the bundled app'

By the same logic the courts should force Apple to ship OSX without all the extra apps that come along with it:

Ichat - not fair on alternative messenger clients

Garageband - not fair on other music creation software

Imovie - not fair on other video editing packages

IDVD - not fair on the DVD authoring apps

Iphoto - What about alternative photo organising and editing tools

Iweb - A different web design package anyone? Not until the bundled app stops working.

And that is all without mentioning mail or safari!

If you look on Apples website, most of the above are listed as applications, but since imacs come with it all pre-installed, it's good enough to argue it ships as part of the OS. Most consumers wouldn't know the difference.

Oh, one more thing - are any of these open source to allow better interoperability as this seems to be the topic of the moment. NO. Apple can keep as much of their code proprietory as they like, while whinging all the time that MS won't allow them access to the MS source code.

... because even though you may get a better experience, the medriocre Microsoft tools ARE STILL THERE and you STILL have to maintain, update and secure them lest they become avenues of approach for ne'er-do-wells intent on damage.

Worse, some developers use portions of them in their own code to handle stuff (AIM for example uses MSIE to serve you those annoying ads) so they don't have to code them - but their shortcut can become *your* problem really quickly.

Again, it's not the bundling that's the issue, it's the fact the default MS tools are integrated pieces that CANNOT be uninstalled or entirely removed that's the issue here.

Just about -EVERY- OS to date has had its default toolset for the users, the only difference being that "genuine" replacement used to be heck of a lot easier ...

Yes ?

all very valid points about OS X...

...however....

... you can uninstall all of the above mentioned if you dont want them!

See the difference??? I hope you do!!

"By the same logic the courts should force Apple to ship OSX without all the extra apps that come along with it"

No, because the rules change once you become a monopoly.

You can remove Media Player and Messenger from the list of programs accessible to the user. You can *NOT* actually uninstall them. The "Add or Remove Programs" will tell you that you have done so, but it's telling you a porky. The applications are still on the hard drive, still accessible to malware, and still integrated into the (poor excuse for an) OS.

And in Vista it's even worse.

Paper size, and it's all back to WW-II. I am glad that history is taught so well in the US. I guess that the larger the nation, the better the propaganda machine.

And while you're looking back 60 years, try a little further ... if it wasn't for the Brits, you'd be speaking Dutch. And if it wasn't for the French, you'd be speaking ... umm ... English ;)

We're talking about the US's inability to admit the existence of any other form of measurement than its own - Fahrenheit (nobody else uses it - give it up already!) ... silly pints with only 16 fl oz in them ... Letter and other paper sizes ...

The rest of the world is either already metric, or understands it - except the US (Seen their attempts to use the metric system? Mars Climate Orbiter anyone?)

When you can elect a president who is not a baboon (twice!) ... get back to us.

Honestly, listen to some of you.

My car is primarily a device for getting me from A to B. But it comes pre-loaded with Sat Nav and a CD player. But I don't see TomTom and Sony sueing Peugeot because I haven't gone out to buy their kit!

And I want a computer, out-of-the-box, to do IM, e-mail and Internet access. I don't give a toss if I can't fully un-install IE, as long as I'm free to install Firefox should I want to.

Remember that many people are perfectly happy with IE and Windows Messenger, and many people are also UNABLE to figure out how to download and install alternatives.

So if you own a company that makes IM apps or browsers, here's a tip: WRITE A BETTER F*CKING ONE THAN MICROSOFT, *THEN* you'll make some money!