It's mouse-right click but on the keyboard (context menu). I believe it's an accessibility thing now that I think about it, which might be why MS is saying "maybe" and considering other keys to replace instead - though that's speculation on my part.
Also, unless I misunderstood this, this is only being mandated for hardware that ships with Windows on it (Eg, surface or desktops that come with windows installed), so this is only being mandated for peripherals that their software is going to run on (or on devices those peripherals come with and connect to).
Will Dell be lazy and ship the copilot key on their ubuntu laptops? I'd be damned shocked if they didn't, but that's just them cutting corners/oversight if I understand this correctly? For example, System76 can completely disregard this if they so choose. I'm sure Apple will.
Nearly all retail PCs are sold with Windows, even if Windows is blown away immediately and replaced with Linux or something. And while it may not be mandated for 3rd-party keyboards (e.g. logitech), it'll turn up on all of those too.
There's a very important difference, and logitech et al following suite is a choice, just like there will plenty of enthusiast/premium/higher end offerings that will let you customize it in all number of ways - like they already do.
And just because those keyboards have the windows logo on the super key doesn't mean Linux is going to kernel panic when you press. I mean, there's always a chance I suppose, but then something far more interesting is going on.
If they're giving some sort of kickback or financial incentive to embrace, extend, extinguish something with this initiative, I wouldn't be surprised, but I see no indication of that yet.
Interesting, may I ask why/how/in what scenarios? Is it a trackpad thing? I was assuming it was an accessibility thing. That key's always been strange to me, never could figure out who used it and for what.
Sometimes when I want to "right click" something, it's more comfortable to use the Menu key than to reach for the mouse. For example, when going through a list of items with the arrow keys.
It opens the context menu of the currently focused item. It's very useful for keyboard-centric Windows users (and probably works in KDE etc, though I haven't verified that).
I've never used the menu key. I don't really know what it does (what menu it's supposed to pull up).
I object to software vendors dictating unnecessary features in peripherals their software isn't even going to run on.