Sun-Microsoft: Missed Opportunities

The way I always understood it, MS was distributing a *modified* version of Java with Windows and calling it Java.

They were distributing J++ (a Java development environment) under a Java license. J++ included a number of extensions for Windows-specific development, and it turned out that the license didn’t allow for that. The JVM that Microsoft shipped allowed for J++ code to run, but since J++ could also do normal (non-extended) Java development, normal Java code ran as well.

Sun saw what MS was doing and told them to cut it out: (me paraphrasing) “if you call it Java, it has to actually *be* Java”. MS then stopped distributing their modified Java and instead included some crusty old version of Java on Windows, rather than the current one that was readily available.

Sun forced MS to stop shipping any new JVM other than one developed by Sun or approved by Sun. MS could have either been subject to the whims of one of their competitors, or simply shipped what they were allowed to ship of their own code. They can do security fixes to their existing JVM, but under the settlement they can’t make a new JVM. They also have to stop shipping their own JVM at some point (5 years?) in the future.

I believe that Sun thought MS would just bow down and ship Sun’s JVM, but imo they should have known better. Essentially, if you want cross-platform support in Java now, you have to write to MS’ JVM, which is obviously not the most recent version of Java. Sun was complaining about people writing to MS’ JVM before, but now they’ve essentially forced people to do it. The alternative is to find a way to get end-users to download the JVM from Sun, which simply hasn’t happened so far with most Windows users (and frankly, most of the sites I need a JVM for don’t work properly with Sun’s JVM).

If standardization of C# (and more importantly the .Net CLI) opens it to more platforms quickly, I think we’ll see Java development slowly whither away. The only thing that could truly save it would be true standardization, and I don’t think Sun will go for that (especially since most standards bodies will allow the kind of extensions that Microsoft was doing with J++ anyway).

Huh? You mean they licensed Java from Sun, implemented a JVM, and then didn’t call it “Java”? Eww.. If I was Sun I’d have felt slighted. Maybe Sun shouldv’e had part of the licensing requirement be that you actually call your Java implementation “Java”. Hmm.. maybe they did. Dunno.

No, they made an IDE for Java that included extensions and still used the Java name and trademark/logo. The product was called Visual J++, but it had the Java logo on the box and included some sort of statement about Java application development. Sun’s big complaint was that J++ allowed people to develop applications that didn’t work with Sun’s JVM, but still had the name/logo for Java on the box.

Hmm… I’d take a guess here and figure that MS’s legal team knew exactly what the Java license allowed and what it didn’t allow. I’d bet they knew what it would get them in the long run (court ordering them to pay Sun) and what it would get them, and went for it.

Perhaps, but then MS didn’t have much of a legal team until the antitrust stuff came up, and Visual J++ came out back in ’95 or ’96.

Sun forced MS to stop shipping any new JVM other than one developed by Sun or approved by Sun.

They already broke the license once, so Sun revoked the license.

“Fastest JVM

Delegate model for better event handling”

Not to be overlooked, the Visual Studio J++ IDE was widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, Java development environment on the market (compared to Symantec’s Cafe and everything else that was around at the time).

Microsoft was THE biggest Java fan in the software world. Indeed.

If Sun had left Microsoft alone and allowed them to continue on the path they had set out on with Visual Studio J++, many VB programmers, or C++ programmers who sometimes needed to work in VB, would have switched to J++ because it basically had ALL of the ‘advantages’ of Visual Basic with virtually NONE of the well-known drawbacks. It was the true object-based environment that VB should have been in the first place. J++ was a very strong and complete first-class citizen of the Visual Studio language suite.

J++ had huge potential to displace VB in many hearts and minds but Sun put an end to that story, most regrettably.

I think Sun’s biggest blunder with Java was when in the lawsuit settlement with Microsoft, it allowed Miccrosoft to break free from the previous contract regarding bundling Java into Windows. In other words, Microsoft could get rid of Java from Windows, without Sun being able to do anything about it, except for crying out load in the antitrust courts.

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johnG: MS then stopped distributing their modified Java and instead included some crusty old version of Java on Windows, rather than the current one that was readily available.

Windows XP currently loads the last version of the VM available. For me, it is a lot faster than Sun’s VM, no fault of MS. Less anoying too (no Java consoles poping out when a Java aplet loads).

johnG: How so?

Like when the whole world was using X Window System, they insist on NeWS, and disallowed other players from using it. BTW, Swing ISN’T a windowing system. Never was, never will. It was funny though.

johnG: Huh? Please see http://www.jcp.org/

It isn’t a standards body. Until recently, Sun controled every detail of Java. You have .NET to thank for its current policies.

PainkilleR: which simply hasn’t happened so far with most Windows users (and frankly, most of the sites I need a JVM for don’t work properly with Sun’s JVM).

I know what you mean. Amazingly, those sites works well with Sun’s and Blackdown’s VM on Linux, but not on Windows’ Sun JVM. Something tells me it isn’t complete.

johnG: Huh? You mean they licensed Java from Sun, implemented a JVM, and then didn’t call it “Java”? Eww..

The IDE isn’t called Java, but it have a Java sticker. Plus, the JVM also have the Java logo.

stahbird: Microsoft’s proprietary extensions invalidated one of the main reasons of using Java, i.e. write once/run everywhere

Using Win32 extensions was TOTALLY optional.

stahbird: Microsoft’s well-known history of embrace and extend

Some idiots they may have been, picking an IDE based on their base corporate ethics, rather than how good the software really is.

stahbird: Microsoft kept threatening to pull J++ from Visual Studio, and it did pull applets from MSN while bad-mouthing Java and hyping ActiveX

When did they do this? Now compare that date with the one where Sun file a case against Microsoft.

stahbird: rumors and leaks of what turned out to C#/.NET under development in Microsoft’s labs (the so-called Cool project)

Microsoft have thousands of stuff in their R&D lab. Heck, once they started a Word rewrite in their R&D labs, but never used it. Cool project, as the rumours said first, was an extension of Java. Which is why C# and Java was so identically similar.

The Prophet: The Microsoft extensions were there for WINDOWS. Java programmers are the stupidest people around. If you aren’t making a WINDOWS app, don’t use the WINDOWS EXTENSIONS.

Okay, at this point I’m wondering, who are you and what you have done to The Prophet?

The Prophet: At the core, that is what Java is. Cheap specware. It barely works.

Where’s Camel? He let done a flamebait like this? Huh?

Sun licensed the Java platform to Microsoft, MS didn’t implement a compliant JVM. Before any platform can be certified Java it must pass tests (the JCK). The MS JVM failed. Among the faults were invoking external non-Java code. They substituted their own COM wrapper API in place of RMI and JNI. No it would be fine to include this COM API in addition to the standard cross platform APIs; they didn’t. By forcing J++ users to use their own JVM specific code (no standard Java support for distributed objects), this spread FUD about how Java wasn’t cross platform. e.g. This COM wrapper stuff wouldn’t even run in Sun’s JVM on Windows.

RMI and JNI were part of the Java spec, MS didn’t implement them…

Read the replies for the article from users. There are really really good replies. Actually, the funny thing is the people who are replying know more than Caroll about the case, which is really striking.

I can’t believe how can Caroll be so shallow.

The whole concept of Java is to be able to write a program that will run on every OS through a JVM. If a company like Microsoft changes the JVM and developers tools so that the app will only run on their OS, then the concept of Java is broken and you no longer have cross platform applications. This is specifically what MS was purposely doing. They wanted to make sure that anyone creating programs with their development platform would only run on Windows. Anyway that doesn’t understand that is naive.

As for SUN not being a good play mate. Are you laughably trying to say that MS is a good playmate? You can’t be serious. If you are, I’d like to know what drugs you are on.