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Microsoft not the java enemy at all, its actually SUN

Mon, 10/15/2001 - 15:30 — charlie.collins

Microsoft has a nice letter up on its site: "An Open Letter Regarding Windows XP and Java Support."

Now many of you may have already seen this. I just got around to reading it. I basically knew the issues beforehand but it was still interesting to read. And on this one I am going to agree with Microsoft (yes folks, you read that right!)

Basically Microsoft points out that all of the uproar by Sun and other customers about Java not being in XP (and other future Microsoft products) was created by Sun. They have a point. Sun went to court to get Microsoft to stop putting java in, now java is not in and Sun is crying foul.

Personally I think there is a lot of rhetoric and ad hominus in the letter that is undeservered, but the point is well put and valid. Sun has disappointed a few times with the "open" standard of Java and the whole java picture is a little licensing sketchy. In my personal endeavours java is really the only thing that I regularly use that is technically not open source (the license works, its free, its available, etc, but its still a little sticky.)

Microsoft also goes a little too far in the letter and proclaims that they DO submit to open standads. Thats taking it a bit far (even if they do submit and adhere to ECMA for .NET, its way too little, way too late to be claiming righteousness on that front.)

Anyway, check it for yourself via the link.   http://www.microsoft.com/java/issues/openletter.htm

Comments

Mon, 10/15/2001 - 16:30 — cooper (not verified)

Re: Microsoft not the java enemy at all, its actually SUN

Well, yes, that is technically correct, but the main reason Sun took Microsoft to court is because Microsoft was calling their JVM "Java" with the (tm), and it did not pass the compatibility tests that the JVMs from HP, Sun, IBM, Apple, and Netscape all passed, and that was a violation of Sun's license for the Java brand name.
Microsoft also did a last minute quick change with the way IE plugins work -- or rather dont -- that killed everyone with a product that competes with a microsoft web property for Windows XP, so XP will ship with no RealAudio, Flash/Director or Acrobat support out of the box, as well as Java.

Lets face it though, Java is teetering on dead for the client. Applets still suck, and the people that do have Java based apps, just let thier setup scripts check the JVM. The only thing this impacts is the Java Web Start installer system, which is cool, but it just means people will have to go download the Java ActiveX control from Sun before using it on XP. Sigh...

Mon, 10/15/2001 - 18:03 — atrox (not verified)

Re: Microsoft not the java enemy at all, its actually SUN

thanks for the clarification. that puts a little different perspective on it. i did not know that. still, technically sun should not be bellyaching so much after suing microsoft to remove java (tm and details or not.)

i dont think its really a big deal for average users though.

i am not a java expert by any means but for as long as i can remember downloading java client apps they have always come with their own JRE. thats just good practice by the developers really, ship it with a JRE that is the right version, etc. they are small enough its not really an issue.

as for the web side, i dont like doing ANYTHING that is critical on the client side, javascript, applet, http-equiv meta tags for headers, etc. the fact that microsoft disabled the plug in stuff is crappy, but hey thats microsoft.

sigh . . .

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