Abe
Expert Member
That makes sense and I understand that, but I suppose I misundestood his post. I understood from what he posted that there would be implications involved if the Ribbon is included into the OS shell. If that is what he meant, then my answer would be no as you are free to use it and you don't have access to use it in any development as it is not available. When included into the shell it is only available to use in existing applications like Office and with Windows 7 wordpad etc.
But if the OS includes a visual component that sort of implies that that component becomes a standard. For example, tree views, list views and the standard menus. If MS includes a visual look and feel with the OS for all document editing software but precludes a competitor from doing the same, that could quite easily start falling into the monopoly abuse area. At the moment the restriction is only on Office apps. Lets say that add the Antivirus to office or extend the restrictions to include Antivirus software. You could get a whole OS that looks one way but your Antivirus package stands out like a sore thumb.