Ars Technica has an interesting article on a recent action done by JCXP, who wants to boycott Opera due to the EU lawsuit against Microsoft. They claim that Opera Software is solely responsible for pushing the EU to pursue the case even further, beyond the already announced Windows 7 'E' edition without Internet Explorer.

What the EU currently proposes as a solution is a dialog that appears where the user can select his or her web browser. One of the major problems is that a lot of people are still unaware of the full range of choices to browse the web. However such a solution does invite some questions: Which browsers should be included (what if browser X also wants to be there)? Should they be downloaded or really bundled within Windows? How do you make sure that people understand they won't ask Microsoft for support?

Especially the later one is a real problem. As we all know IE has dominated the browser market for a considerable amount of time. Ever since the fall of Netscape (Communicator 4) IE has been dictating the "evolution" of the web, rather than the W3C. And as such, even today, a considerable amount of web sites are still geared to IE primarily, using either sloppy code, or non-standard methods (including JavaScript). But what if a new user selects, well, for instance Opera, because it has many interesting features and mail and stumbles upon web sites that don't work? What if it's your bank site? Hmmm, yes, now to make sure that a user asks support from Opera Software, as most likely your PC manufacturer won't be able to answer it, nor Microsoft support. In the end, in a worse case scenario, that user will end up installing IE one way or another to get that site working. More or less it's a chicken-and-egg problem. You need more people to use different browsers (with proper standards support) to have more web sites become compatible, and you need more sites compatible to get more people. Mozilla's Firefox is one (and only?) case that shows with significant velocity by the community it has gained a considerable market share, possible caused by insecurity of IE (at that time) and attractive features.

Of course we've not addressed the part where the EU is forcing Microsoft to bundle multiple other browsers in their own product. Windows is made by Microsoft, as well as IE, similar to Mac OS X and Safari by Apple. Why a case at all? Why not both? In has to do with understanding monopolies. Apple is not a monopoly in the market of computers or smart phones. Therefore they do not abuse their position to dominate another market, even if they bundle their own software. Microsoft on the other hand has nearly the entire OS market for consumers, and has actively pushed other players out of the browser market in the old days of Netscape.

So why is the EU not happy with Microsoft's approach of removing IE from Windows and letting PC manufacturers chose? Well, first of all the EU cannot monitor if Microsoft may be pushing manufacturers to install IE anyway, and second of all a previous effort where Windows Media Player was removed from Windows (the 'N' edition) utterly failed. None of the manufacturers were willing to use a media player less Windows, nor willing to fussle around educating people of alternative choices.

So is Opera Software at fault? No, Opera Software did ask the EU to investigate the case, but Opera Software is not responsible for either Microsoft's or EU's behavior in this whole case. Also take note that both Google and Mozilla are interested third parties in this case to offer advise, as the solution everyone is looking for is a generic one, not in favor of just Opera.