What's most newsworthy there is the legion of people who defend Microsoft. Look at the comments. I found one post with a pro-lawsuit stance, and an opinion that makes sense to me. Everyone else is saying that "Vista-capable" doesn't have to mean that Vista performs well. They're fine with that first generation of under-performing Vista machines sold to unwitting consumers.
I honestly don't think most people understand the issue (on both sides). The PCs and laptops in question were sold with XP on them, but had stickers saying that they were 'Vista capable'. This was part of a program that MS and retailers put in place in order to keep sales of pre-loaded XP machines constant right before Vista went on sale. Beyond that, it's all up in the air. I have no idea what level of machines they were selling (although apparently they all met the requirements for home basic), and exactly how much information was held on this sticker or any corresponding paperwork.
Basically what it comes down to is if meeting the minimum requirements is enough to state that a machine is capable of running something. I haven't actually heard anything mentioned about the actual performance of the machines under Vista in 4 or more articles over the last month or so. I'm imagining that this is because the lawsuit isn't related to performance, only graphical features. It's kind of a crap shoot when considering the business ethics of it.
Personally, I'd say as long as you can run the basic version of Vista in a stable environment with adequate speed I don't see it as being particularly unethical, but my opinion doesn't mean much at all seeing as I don't know anything about the actual campaign and I'm very fucking jaded from dealing with PC game requirements that pretty much outright lie far worse than Microsoft and the OEMs seemed to here.
Either way, this is certainly a good thing for pretty much everybody. Microsoft learns a valuable lesson in being clear and concise which I'm sure they'll put to use with Windows 7. Consumers can rest assure that even if the class action suit loses, it will have had an impact and this won't happen again. Some people will get around $5 they can buy some sour keys with. Finally, there'll be a couple of lawyers who can buy a new car, put a down-payment on a new mortgage, and bang some hookers.
I think the best we can hope for is that Microsoft loses, it sets precedent for not only MS but for every software development house in the business to stop downplaying requirements, the plaintiffs take their money and purchase "Doing Research on Buying Stuff For Dummies", and some lawyers get Herpes.
