In fact, arguably the license is specifically intended to ensure INconsistency between Microsoft Office and anyone setting out to create an alternative, since in this case the license to the look and feel is not free. Or at least, if you pay whatever the fee is to enable you to compete directly in look and feel as well as functionality, Microsoft then get a slice of your pie.

If it came to fighting a “look and feel” case in the courts against a potentially significant competitor, the history of such cases would not bode well for a Microsoft victory. By attempting to establish a priori that a basis for such a case exists, as enshrined in a license for said look-and-feel, Microsoft might believe that they can – or indeed have – reduced any such case to a much more actionable basis, and one more likely to succeed.

Bottom line – I don’t believe they care whether your non-Office suite application has a UI that is 100% consistent – with all i’s dotted and all t’s crossed – with Office or not.

And neither should they. And neither, frankly, should we.

I was a little surprised to hear David I’s comments on this score, as my understanding of the ribbon was that it only existed as a design/specification, not a common control for example, so I didn’t think there was any Microsoft code that existed to be wrapped, although there was always the possibility that that had changed.

As I said, I don’t think it’s too important either way, but thanks for the clarification – I’ve updated the post.

If someone said that the Ribbon controls weren’t pure VCL, then they were wrong. There is no “wrapping of MS code” going on.

Nick Hodges