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Java Programming

Judge Reinstates Java Injunction Against Microsoft 137

Posted by Roblimo from the battle-of-the-closed-source-titans dept.
Anonymous Coward writes " New York Times story (free registration required) - the lead paragraph: 'SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - In the latest chapter in the legal battle between two rival software titans, a federal judge on Tuesday reinstated an order forcing Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) to change software based on the Java programming language created by Sun Microsystems Inc.'" And as long as we're talking about Sun, check this Red Herring Story headlined "IBM wants to kick Sun butt." Whoa, baby! They play rough in the big leagues, don't they?
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Judge Reinstates Java Injunction Against Microsoft More

Judge Reinstates Java Injunction Against Microsoft

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  • Its been a little while since I've used VJ++, so that apparently slipped my mind. Point to you.
  • I am currently developing a project using JBuilder Foundation, EJBoss, and JRun. This is a mixture of server and client side java. This is a real word application for a major Multinational Manufacturing Corparation. Also, My company is in the alpha testing phase of a Java Swing Client Server application for association management. The application runs as fast as any competing product on the market with the debug and trace code ACTIVE! Java 2 has completely changed the viability of the platform. The reason that there are not many applications yet is that J2SE was released less than a year ago. If you do a check at http://www.javashareware.com you will see the begining of a trend. Java based products are being released and are worth the cost.
  • > or, have enough power on the [host_cpu+JVM].

    If I can always get 2x performance out of a given machine than you can, that's a competetive advantage that I'd be stupid not to exploit.

    The 'buy a faster machine' argument is basically meaningless unless you can get a machine that is
    'fast enough' for further improvements in speed to not be of value.

    In the world I live in, I can ALWAYS use the extra CPU cycles to do additional work. No machine is EVER fast enough for the problems I'm trying to solve in my code.

    (I do digitial audio and video editing software).



  • > if this is true, sun acted poorly during the contract negotiations

    Yep. Sun put their foot in it big time. This is why they sued M$ for COPYRIGHT violations rather than breach of contract. Because the contract gives them no leverage.


  • Um, the keywords are more like "@dll" etc, and you can turn them off....
  • We all know that 99% of Java coders are high-school fresh-outs. They'll import com.microsoft.com.* and then wonder why COM code
    doesn't work on Linux...

    For ever /. reader who claims that use of VJ++ blackens the soul, I've found a real life person who _likes_ to use VJ++ and can easily create bytecode that runs on other JVMs. (Personally, I prefer vi and JDK ;)

    Microsoft? Damn the facts! Full speed ahead.
  • as always, it does depend on your ultimate portability goals.

    if the goal is not to be portable (ie, you really don't care about portability, or your app is very hardware dependant so its inherently not portable) then java is not the smartest choice. no problem here.

    but when you go into the project knowing that you'll have to port to other platforms and that there is no special hardware layer to worry about, then java does make sense and the cost of development time may exceed the some of the fastest hardware out there. at a typical software engineer's salary, his time is usually worth more than the hardware you'll be running on.

    so I'm agreeing with you. I also do multitrack digital audio capture/edit and you'd be totally insane to do that kind of app in java. you just can't get enough performance out of the language/platform that way. but apps like this were never really meant to be done in java - you have to admit.

    --

  • Agreed. Java isn't meant for DAW or Video editing. But my thesis is bigger than that. After all, even assuming that Java speeds development. (I doubt that it does on larger projects). The whole notion that you are going to be able to IGNORE the platform that you are working on assumes that you will never want to take advantage of any of the features OR CONVENTIONS of a platform.

    For instance, a well designed MAC application, looks and feels very different from a well designed Windows app. Even when they are solving the same problem, they still have to follow different conventions. Where and how to get help, for instance.

    Something as simple as whether or not you put buttons on the left side of a dialog or along the bottom will play havoc with writing a GOOD application, that is also portable.

    Even ignoring the speed issue. Portable applications end up being either trivial, or a bad fit for one or more of the plaforms they are supposedly designed for.

    A classic example of this is the trend to use a web browser as the interface for some database or other.

    Regardless of the skill of the web page designer, All of these applets are awful UI when compared to an even marginally well done Windows or MAC application that talks to the same database.

    The problem is that you just have to give up too much usability to get portability.

    That tradeoff works when you have a small number of clients for a given application. Then developer time is the key limiting factor, and so you trade off wasting the users time and getting good use for the developers time.

    But for any application that is going to have a significant number of users, in the long run, the sum cost of wasting the users time so you can save developer time is a bad trade off.

    This is the difference between being an amateur and a pro. The amateur is happy to spend a little time and make an app that a few dozen people will be happy with.

    The pro will spend a lot MORE time, but make an application that is SO much better that he can grab a big part of the market for whatever it is you are doing.

    This is why there are NO large commercial applications writen in Java, and there probably never will be.
  • Yes, it's me again, the guy with two lawyers for parents. The system is very slow for them, too. Where I live, there was not a public defender's office until 2 years ago, and that is still just getting started. For poor defendants, the court would appoint a lawyer from the pool of local attorneys who volunteered, and yes, many DO volunteer. Volunteer is not quite the right word for it, since they do get paid. Usually the maximum is $100 per case. They may spend 20 hours on a case, not including time spent driving to the jail at night, or driving to courts hundreds of miles away, if the case is peculiar enough to require a specialist. Even on billed time alone they could be making less than minimum wage, and they still have to pay secretaries and paralegals, as well as the rent. My parents have their own firm, and until about 4 years ago, it was VERY difficult for them. Even today we drink out of plastic cups we got from university sporting events. (women's matches, they cost much less, but just as good) Sure, you may be pissed at the lawyers who are making the headlines, but look at the people like the EFF lawyers. They are abound as well, though not all of them get mention on /. I would appreciate it if you would stop maligning a profession you likely have very little understanding of. I don't blame you for posting anonymously, I would be a coward, too, if I was going to flame a widely respected profession at large.

    Moderate this as flamebait if you want, I'm setting the record straight, and I'm not afraid of the consequences.
  • I, for one, am glad to see IBM taking on sun. I'm tired of Scott McNealy and his damned gas. I read an interview with him where he did nothing but bash Bill Gates. He didn't talk about his products, or microsoft's products, he just bashed Gates. That actually made me nauseous. So jealous.

    As far as this Java thing. Microsoft could always just NOT SUPPORT Java, which I THOUGHT they were going to do. That's what they need to do. Forget about Sun and their crap.

    I know this won't be the popular viewpoint, but at least Gates & Co dont' WHINE.

    GO IBM!

  • Re:Slashdot boycott day (2nd call) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Aye.

    Moderators : Agree with the parent content? Want to moderate it up but scared of Meta-Moderation? Abuse the loophole in M2! Mod the comment up as "underrated" and don't be worried about the consequences of your actions!

    Everyone else : Find this loophole to be annoying? Join in the sid=moderation [slashdot.org]!

  • I don't like to encourage these kids, but I agree, Slashdot really has been a dog the last couple days. Even more than usual.

    So... the question must be asked: why aren't you moving to servlets, Rob? ;-)

  • Java should be a standard, not just something anybody can change to suit them.

    You're right. Tell Sun that we'd like Java to be a standard instead of their proprietary language.

  • I see Java as a way to let users pick their operating system and not have to be concerned with being locked into Winblows.

    So, tell us, what are the advantages of being locked into Sun's proprietary platform vs. being locked into Microsoft's proprietary platform? At least Microsoft isn't dishonest about their intentions.

  • Yes, but you can't simply have standards when you're dealing with the the Microsoft. They will simply "embrace and extend" any technology they can't buy in order to destroy it. Sun is trying hard to keep Java best cross platform and as usual, Microsoft is looking out for Microsoft. Sun NEEDS to maintain control of Java in order for it to stand a snowball's chance in hell in a world inhabited by the likes of Bill Gates and feinds.
  • On p. 109 of "Client/Server Survival Guide" (Orfali, Harkey and Edwards) there is a great quote by Steve Ballmer (now CEO of M$)

    "We are not 'write once, run anywhere' kind of guys."

    Pretty much sums it up.

  • Don't mind me if I'm in no mood to celebrate. Between eToys, DVD and the MPAA, I've developed a distaste for the legal system as it applies to intellectual property.


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!
  • Java should be a standard, not just something anybody can change to suit them.
    If everyone changed Java, there would be nopoint in having it.
    Hopefully this ruling will teach Microsoft about Standards.

    This is the same Microsoft who cried, when AOL wouldn't allow the MSN messenger to communicate with AOL Instant Messenger.

    Just use ICQ. (Although that's owned by AOL aswell)
    ;(

  • Here is a no-reg required link: (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It was posted here [slashdot.org] on Tuesday January 25, @05:21PM EST The no-reg wired.com story here [wired.com].
  • This used to be "the good fight", until Sun started sucking worse than ever... now that they've gone and went fascist with Java, and started screwing the Linux community 6 ways to Sunday, this looks like just another bitchfest between two evil empires... at least I don't have to waste brain-cycles figuring out who to root for...
  • Somehow I don't think His Honor intends to include Win2k under the prohibition. Which means that the injunction is Windows dressing. The MICROS~1 specific JVM will still be the de facto standard.
  • But Sun wants to be Microsoft. It really doesn't help if we replace one Great Satan with another.

    What we need are true open and portable languages (Perl or Lisp?) that are standard because the community agreed on them. Maybe I'll try hacking a perl interpreter into Mozilla...

  • Yeah, I know this is probably a troll, but anyway...

    How are they progressing? I haven't heard jack about Java as a few years ago when it was getting so much hype

    Then you obviously haven't been listening very hard. Even on /. there are heaps of stories you could read to catch up.

    How many real world apps are being developed in Java?

    A lot. You don't see, and you probably won't see any big commercial apps or games in Java. The language just isn't suited to that. But the majority of programming isn't for commercial apps or games, it's building customised applications for businesses. Java has carved itself a pretty huge niche there.

    For example, I need to write an app that runs on a Linux server, to act as a central clearing point for transactions to be routed to 'n' proprietary credit-card processing gateways, each running a different protocol, most of them on NT boxen. Gluing everything together with Java has saved me a hell of a lot of time and effort.

    Have they sped things up? Their UI framework was a dog from what saw.

    The UI framework improved immeasurably with the introduction of Swing, which is a lot more feature-rich than AWT. It's still slow compared to the equivalent C program, but not critically so.

    All I see Java doing for me is making my browser crash, and I am not joking. 1 out of every 5 webpages I access which use Java crashes the browser.

    Repeat after me: "Java is not just applets. If your browser's implementation of Java sucks, blame your browser vendor."

    Has Microsoft done anything more with Java as well?

    Aside from trying to kill it? Not much. IBM is a lot better role model for what to do with Java. Microsoft tried to take the name, and screw with the standard, while IBM are committed to the standard, but don't care if they get to use the name. (IBM press release [ibm.com])
    --

  • Interestingly enough, that could actually work. Slashdot is owned by Andover.net, and financed by advertisers. If Andover sees the traffic drop, they'll want to know why. Maybe it'd put some heat on Rob.

    That being said, I am personally not interested in Rob's Perl scripts. I think that the whole idea of releasing Slash's code sorta bad. You just know that within a week there'll be a few thousand Slashdot code-alikes on the Net.

    Oh well, maybe it'll thin out the crowd of trollers here a bit. I can see it now -- "SlashPortman". News for Trolls, Stuff about Natalie. ;-)

  • I like Java just fine, what I know of it, and I'm not overly fond of MS. But this doesn't really seem like that big a deal one way or the other, if what MS says about its being already in compliance with the order is true, does it? It looks like Sun had pretty much already won the fracas over Java... so maybe now they'll loosen up a little with regard to a standards process?

    Someone please enlightened this poor confused soul. :)

    Zontar The Mindless,

  • You Windows users are all alike!

  • But it works. And don't whine about it crashing Netscape on your Linux box. It works for everyone else.

    Please, tell me: exactly how is it bloated/overly verbose/dead? I'm not saying it's perfect, but can you be more specific? I should've guessed by your LOVE OF CAPS that you didn't know what you were talking about. Just because you couldn't learn it is no reason to whine. Or rather, YELL.

    Go read a few books on modern WWW architecture, maybe a few copies of Dr. Dobbs, take some classes, then come back here and argue. And don't post AC -- in your own words, it "blows, sucks ass, and is gay".

    Thanks so much!

  • Re:Java A Standard? (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @05:38PM (#1336756) Homepage Journal
    Java is still a standard. The only difference is what 'name' goes on the standardized product, Sun or 'National Java Directorate'. With Sun as the controlling body, there are resources and teeth behind each and every 'thou shalt not'.

    However, I don't think thats the real issue. I'd be willing to bet the Microsoft/Java litigation gives Scotty endless pleasure. MS screws with the Java bytecode implementation, Scott sics the lawyers back on them, Steve downs some Pepto. MS screws with the Java includes, the lawyers come back out and Steve switches to vodka. Boy! Oh boy! Microsoft is releasing a new O/S with a new JVM? There's an actual release date? Naw, the lawyers have heard about it. Scotty gets his laughs, the MS release date gets laughed at, and Ballmer becomes an alcoholic.

  • Almost forgot!

    . . . write it yerself you l00sers.

    The last paragraph asks people to mail me, if interested in working on an unofficial port. Yet another AC troll has reading problems? Tragic. Remember, 1-800-ABCDEFG... get help, please.

  • Auto-generated Code (Score:4)

    by jamesoutlaw ( 87295 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @05:46PM (#1336759) Homepage
    This is probably offtopic, but it is sort of related. Anyway, it is something that I felt like complaining about.

    MS is not the only company that is polluting Java or making it difficult to write code on one platform and deploy it on another... many of the IDE's that I've seen do the same thing. The auto-generated code makes use of classes that "wrap" the base Java stuff, resulting in source code that is only useable by the original IDE. Visual Cafe seems to be one of the worst offenders. A coworker of mine uses VC and she is constantly having problems with the autogenerated code and deployment on Solaris (she does her development on NT). She has had trouble getting applets to run under Solaris or HP-UX, even though they run on NT. The main cause seems to be some proprietary class that Visual Cafe includes. Some of the problems may be a result of her inexperience with Java, but I do not think that is the only reason.

    I use Metrowerks CodeWarrior for Java on NT at work and on MacOS at home... it seems to be one of the best development environments around. I have not had any trouble getting applets or aplications developed in CodeWarrior to run on any of our target platforms. Even when using the RAD tools that generate code for you... the generated code seems a lot cleaner than the code generated by other IDE's. I keep the use of the RAD tools to a minimum, though. I have had less experience with IDEs like NetBeans and Simplicity for Java, however, from what I have seen, they generate pretty clean code as well.

    I guess my main point is that I think its also important for the source code to be as portable as the resulting classes. Building a project in an IDE that ties you to that particular development environment is as bad as Microsoft's pollution of the basic language itself.

    Anyway, sorry for the rambling.
  • why should sun support java natively on a crappy platform with idiotic trolls running it ?

    1. They're Daemons, not Trolls.
    2. FreeBSD is better than Linux in many roles. For example, in many server applications FreeBSD is a better choice.
    3. FreeBSD is only a figurative stone's throw from NetBSD and OpenBSD. By supporting a native FreeBSD port we are greatly shortening the distance the other two will have to travel.
    4. We are brethren of the 'Opened Source'. What benefits FreeBSD inevitably will come back to benefit Linux someday.
  • to what you said about Microsoft's tools I would add, "and used their monopoly power to bundle their incompatible engine into their OSified browser in a way that would deny many many users access to a true Java implementaton."
  • You can compile java for better performace. I don't say that all applications are appropriate for Java. But Java is appropriate for email, look at PolarBar Mailer [polarbar.org].

    BTW. MS-Office is not very fast.

  • HAHAHA, You thought I was replying to you. I am the biggest Jackass on Slashdot. My posts are overrated! Look at me, I'm a big tough guy!!
  • One of the points of Java was interoperabilty. There were other often hyped features of Java, like improved memory management over C++.

    yeah, it has some improvements over C++ (like better/easier syntax, for one) but the main selling point was the virtual machine that was the same everywhere. ie, write it once and it runs the same way on every platform. beside this goal, all other features of java become lost in the noise. platform independance has been attempted so many times, its refreshing when it actually is accomplished (which java mostly does - and keeps getting better as it matures).

    Who the hell is this "Micros~1" you keep bringing up, anyway?

    you can figure it out. and while I can't claim to be the one who first coined this cute derogatory way of referring to The Evil One, I do think it gets the point across.

    (for those who can't see, it pokes fun at the 'interoperability' of the old DOS filename length limitation and how win* ever-so-gracefully deals with it)

    --

  • An appaling amount of ignorance here. (Score:3)

    by TummyX ( 84871 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:03PM (#1336769)
    I'm sick of hearing some of these ignorant remarks.

    "Ohhh, microsoft/m$/micros~1 wants to make their java the standard java".

    What a load of crap, Microsoft's _changes_ to java or more specifically, J++, to the programmer just ads some packages that you can choose or not choose to use. True their are some keywords (again additions) to make it easy to access libraries without having to write stub libraries for JNI.
    These things are all additions, any java programmer (unless they're 11 year old wannabes) knows what is java and what isn't. It's not as if Microsoft have changed all the keywords, or that they've restructured the language. They've added some features. If you write _JUST_ java and compile it, it will work on other JVMs. If you want to use the java languge to write windows apps (say, as an alternative to VB) you can, but it will only run on windows. If you're stupid enough to think that it will run on Linux too, then well...uh...you shouldn't be programming.
    And If you use microsoft's language extensions to make it easier to access, say, dlls/so, then it won't run on other JVMs...with some exceptions (like Transvirtual's clean room java "Kaffe").
    Using J++, it's perfectly easy to make 100% pure java apps, but it's also super easy to make windows apps. When you make windows apps, treat Java like a language.
  • D00D ARE U TALK1NG AB0UT THU LEGAL SYSTUM OR JAVA?!?!?!

    THEYRE B0TH SL0W BUT THEY W0RK... T1ME T0 C0MP1LE THU LEGAL SYSTUM!!!

    1 BET THU LEGAL SYSTUM 1S WAY T00 SL0W T0 RUN EVUN 0N MY VIC-20's!!! THATS WHY 1 USE BASIC. N0 0NE WULD PR0GRAM 1N LEGAL CRAP!!!
  • --------------------------------------------------
    micros~1 had no right to alter an industry standard. if they want to play in their own sandbox, great - more power to them. if they want to have win(n+1) speak to other boxes of same geneology in ultra-proprietary ways - fine.
    ------------------------------------------------ -

    I agree with your point about standards needing to be standard. But if you read the contract that M$ had with Sun, it EXPLICITLY gives them the right to add extensions to the language. So your statement above is simply not true.

    Also, extending Java is not quite the same as being incompatible. It is quite possible to write pure java apps using M$ tools. You just have to avoid using the extensions.

    The rest of your argument falls apart for this reason. It is possible (even easy) to write pure Java using M$ tools, so the fact that the extensions EXIST is only a threat to Sun if the Java developers USE them. I.E. they have to find them MORE useful than they find the benefit of running anywhere.

    About Java's promise of interoperability, It was never more than a promise; And an empty one at that.

    We will never have a write-once-run-anywhere (WORA) as long as we have a competitive processor/OS market. The reason is pretty obvious if you think about it.

    The easiest and most reliable way to get top performance out of a given piece of code is to tune the code to the target machine. Thus there will ALWAYS be a market for machine specific implementations of various tools until the processors get so fast that you can never find an application that doesn't take too long to run.

    Given than NP Complete problems exist, that means NEVER.

  • I've have used Visual Cafe for > 2 years, and Visual Cafe doesn't use wraper classes at all. It does have some of it's own classes, but they add functionality that is missing in java.awt and are not wrappers. And these classes are pure java. If you add them to your classpath, you can use then on any platform, with any IDE/JVM.

  • But if MS gives you the browser with your OS and your word processing applications etc. and the browser comes with MS's VM, and the All Powerful Microsoft tells them that it's Java compatible, "why should they download a new VM?" Do you think many Joe-Clueless-Users are going to know that MS's "Java" isn't really Java? No. How do you get MS to be compliant or not do the above? Take them to court.
  • I want to sincerely thank you for responding in that mature manner. I am very willing to accept Java's weaknesses, but I currently have a real problem with the trolling ACs that bash Java for no reason.

    I can see by this post that you do indeed know what you are talking about. I only with that you had said all of this in your original post. I would have even moderated you up, becase even though I disagree, you put some good reasoning behind your arguments.

    And about your responses to my insults... I'm not insulting the intelligence of |deity|, the person who wrote that very intelligent post just now. I *will* however insult the intelligence of the AC who screams in CAPS that Java "sucks" and "blows". You say "I'm sorry if I offended you with my opinion". I was not at all offended by your opinion, I was merely offended by your method of delivering it.

    Perhaps I was a bit to quick to flame. But please, in the future, avoid that AC style that you can see the moderators were quick to shove down to (Score: -1, Troll). If you had posted in your later manner in the first place, you probably would have gotten a (Score: 3, Insightful), at least.

    Since you have, as requested, backed up your arguments, I hereby recant my previous flames and apologize for my quickness to respond that way. But I will stand by my criticism of the manner in which you first posted. That is what I look down upon.

    Now that we have that out of the way , I will respons to your arguments.

    I agree that Java is slow as hell compared to native languages and even many interpretive languages, I do not think that Java will ever have a place in standalone application programming. And for text processing, Perl is still the way to go. But Java has what I think to be the perfect mix of power, speed, and functionality for its current use in small WWW applets. Servlets still need a while to ripen.

    I myself code in C, and I too first thought that Java was *extremely* verbose when I first saw the code. I've gotten used to it, but I get the feeling that its designers weren't planning on it being used as much as it is for applets. Too much code is required to do simple things for most WWW applets, IMHO.

    I must disagree that Java is "dead". You say yourself later in the post that it is in widespread use. Java support is getting better all the time. Look at how much better the Java stuff for Linux has gotten. Java is anything but dead.

    Servlets may very well change the way that WWW server-side code is thought of, if they haven't already. However this will require broad Java support for the underlying OS. Solaris, to no surprise, handles this best right now. Linux is getting there. *BSD is a long way off. NT... well, NT is crap anyway.

    Java is still a very new technology. I'd give it a few more years before you write it off completely. Especially when you see how it can work so nicely with the next Technology of the Week, XML.

    You mention that you're reading some books about Java currently. I'd recommend O'Reilly's servlet book, and most of the Wrox stuff.

    You say that you saw my info and noticed that I'm a BSD person. That is very true. However I am even more of a Java person, and so I will probably be dumping BSD in the next month if I don't hear any good news about that Java 2 SDK. There was been far too little Java FreeBSD development for me to be optimistic. I'm going to go back to Linux (yes, I confess. I used Linux and loved it until FreeBSD rocked my world), at least until I see Solaris 8. The time has come to return to the Penguin. Linux is being supported by IBM now, IBM loves Java on Linux; and there's even an official Sun JDK for it. Linux supports my SMP workstation better, and has better support for more filesystems. I was a hardcore BSDer, but even I am being turned around. Linux is the way of the future. I look at the feature list for the next kernel, and I'm amazed. Sure, BSD has 25-year old code, but Linux's code is being developed NOW. Also, I can attest to the fact that many BSD people are those snooty University types. The Linux scene is more my style anyway. I've been on both sides of the fence. As much as I love the kernel, I can feel in my bones that Linux is growing and changing and becoming better everyday, while BSD is getting stale, and no-one supports it, and being a developer I can't stay there for much longer. I'm coming back, Tux, I'm coming back...

    Java cannot replace C or C++. But as it finds its niche as a *web* technology, it will become better optimized, faster, and more stable. Sun has hopefully realized that no-one really does a lot of stand-alone app dev in Java. They need to get Java running on servers, and improve how applets, databases, and servlets talk to each other.

    It was indeed a pleasure talking with you, |deity|. I really do hope that you post this way in the future. Please do, because it's a pity to be written off as a troll because of that fanatical AC posting style where you yell like a 12 year-old. It was a pleasure to be proven wrong, and I will give all troll ACs a second thought now. ;-)

    Cheers,
    The_Messenger

  • I'm sorry, but that's wrong.

    Aside from applets, which don't mean much to most people, MS distributing their "Java" does nothing. I think that anyone who really uses Java on Windows (ie, not just applets in web pages) gets it from Sun. MS's VM doesn't support Java 1.2, let alone 1.3 which is very, very nice (makes the GUI run faster among other things). I'd say that with 1.3, Java becomes very feasible for more than "just the server" as some people say Java's future lies. And also, I'd say that Java on said servers has even less influence from MS than Java on the client does.

    For some examples of real stuff done in Java, you might want to head over to The JavaLobby [javalobby.org] and look at the member successes page (a link on one of the pictures in the top left). Everything from games to accounting software to servers has been written in Java with little to no influence from MS, so I hardly think that Sun would "bow down" if MS ended their distribution of their "Java" as you suggest.

  • There is no way around it - Java is slow and already non-portable.

    Yes, Sun is touting it as a server side language for the enterprise, but that doesn't mean you have to believe their PR. Where are all these hidden Java "enterprise" programs???

    Poeple have been telling me for a year now that "Java rules enterprise computing - almost all enterprise code is Java now" - well, so far I've seen very little and I've looked very hard at a number of progressive companies.

    Its a myth folks! Do yourself a favor and quit perpetuating it!

  • Solaris rising (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As I mentioned in our previous discussion (and my comments are still relevant), the irony is that free Solaris 8 is going to kill FreeBSD. Anyone who wants to run real Sun Java can grab a free copy of Solaris 8 and do the real thing. FreeBSD doesn't have the apps to compete on the desktop, and it looks like its little server niche is about to be gobbled up by Sun. And when it comes to scaling and SMP, FreeBSD is left in the dust by Solaris. Sun offering Solaris free for commercial or private use (with source code under SCSL) is going to shake up the industry.

  • So? There's nothing preventing Windows users from downloading another JVM from Sun or IBM, or wherever else. And there is nothing stopping them from using Netscape or Opera (with the Java plugin) to get a good browser JVM.

    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • But if Sun turns Java over to a standards committee, it's the job of the committee to protect the standard. MS wouldn't be held accountable to Sun, they would be held accountable to the standards body, and I feel more confident in Sun's ability to protect Java than I do some standards body who doesn't care as much. It's in Sun's best interest to keep Java as cross platform as possible, so they'll fight for it. I don't know if you can say the same for the ECMA and friends.
  • Actually I have made a little observation using Mozilla: go to NYTimes and try to get to an article and once the login screen comes just hit reload... I have a hard time believing that it is so simple but it works here....


  • from the 'related' Red Herring article on IBM v Sun...
    At the same time, Mr. DiBona was critical of Sun for refusing to acknowledge the major gains Linux has made. "They just don't get it," he said.
    I'm not sure how you make this comment on the 25th of January with Sun's release of Solaris 8 for free just around the corner. Either the author ignored the news or wasn't aware of it.

    Like the planned release or hate it, it gives Sun an awfully good reason to ignore Linux.

    StanSmith

  • I did not know that Microsoft was distributing Java with their Operating Systems at all (at least anymore). Am I mistaken? I know that they are no longer developing their VM for the Mac and have removed all traces of it from the MacOS version of Internet Exploiter, they make use of Apple's MRJ instead.
    The last few times I have upgraded/installed Java on my PC at work, I have downloaded the SDK & Runtime environments from Sun's web site.
  • The key thing about this ruling is not the filing for an injunction. This is was done by Sun back in 1997 when they accuse MS of poluting Java by introducing "innovations" that essentially violated the licencing agreement. When MS says that they are in compliance, they mean that they are *now* in compliance, not that they were in the past. Embrace and extend has been temporarily been hindered.

    If the injunction was not reinstated, MS could possibly then begin to make "innovations". IIRC, MS can still do this if they perform a clean room development of Java. IIRC, MS is trying to do this. Of course, they would have to change the name.

    If MS had lost the contractural portion of this battle, then Sun could have requested more reparations.

  • MS is not the only company that is polluting Java or making it difficult to write code on one platform and deploy it on another... many of the IDE's that I've seen do the same thing. The auto-generated code makes use of classes that "wrap" the base Java stuff, resulting in source code that is only useable by the original IDE. Visual Cafe seems to be one of the worst offenders. A coworker of mine uses VC and she is constantly having problems with the autogenerated code

    thank you! that's why i gave up on ides all together and went text editor + jikes. i thought borland's would be more sensible but they go a step further by forcing you to use their project files in order to compile. you can't just open a .java file and compile it. it's also annoying that jbuilder takes all of the files in the directory and tries to compile them regardless of whether they're in your project.

    and forget about netbeans, that one is so restrictive with your code (as is visual cafe to a lesser extent) as to make it unusable. well enough venting for me too.



    "The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

  • I've have used Visual Cafe for > 2 years, and Visual Cafe doesn't use wraper classes at all. It does have some of it's own classes, but they add functionality that is missing in java.awt and are not wrappers. And these classes are pure java. If you add them to your classpath, you can use then on any platform, with any IDE/JVM.

    yeah but you don't want to have to copy the whole symantec class set... i suppose you could make a custom jar with all the necessary pieces though.

    "The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."


  • I still don't understand how Microsoft's additions constitute 'pollution' of Java. Didn't they stop calling it Java in favor of J++ anyway?

    And ignoring MSFT's lip service about 'innovation', don't they have a right to improve their product in any manner in which they see fit?

    Sun refused to take Java down the standards route, and this is what they get. They brought it on themselves. This court case is a waste of everyone's time. Maybe Bjarne Stroustrup (sp) should sue them for 'polluting' C++ with Visual C++.

    [I'm not pro-Microsoft, I'm pro-rationality]
    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd

  • ...else its useless.

    micros~1 had no right to alter an industry standard. if they want to play in their own sandbox, great - more power to them. if they want to have win(n+1) speak to other boxes of same geneology in ultra-proprietary ways - fine.

    however, they don't have the right to alter java and make it un-interoperable. dammit - the whole point of java was interoperability. can't micros~1 understand that simple concept?

    they already have 'value add' browser crap (active-X and such) so that when their ilk access micros~1 sites, they can get infected with all the supported virii(tm) that are currently supported.

    java is supposed to be the same on every platform. that's the definition (or at least the justification) for yet another language. when you start creating vendor variants just to differentiate, you lose the whole value of such!

    --

  • I am tired of this - *Chris Rock* Tired! Tired! Tired!

    Isn't Sun basically shooting themselves in the foot with Java?

    How are they progressing? I haven't heard jack about Java as a few years ago when it was getting so much hype.

    How many real world apps are being developed in Java?

    Have they sped things up? Their UI framework was a dog from what saw.

    All I see Java doing for me is making my browser crash, and I am not joking. 1 out of every 5 webpages I access which use Java crashes the browser.

    Has Microsoft done anything more with Java as well?
  • I have two parents who are attorneys, and they will tell you that the system is terribly innefficient, but it does work. Keep in mind that we're dealing with humans, and it's very difficult for a judge to know everything about everything. Justice may be deliberate, but it comes through much more than we give it credit for.
  • Yes, Microsoft understood this. Well enough to realize that it was a threat to their lovely barrier to entry in the OS market, so they decided to fix that problem by "embracing and extending" Java.
    --
  • IBM should make nice with Sun and kick Microsoft's butt.

    I see Java as a way to let users pick their operating system and not have to be concerned with being locked into Winblows.

  • Sorry to all you readers about the my other post. I wanted to respond to this under my nick. My earlier post was somewhat childish but it was truly the way I felt. Here is my response not posted AC. I just sent this to the person whom I am replying to and thought that maybe someone here would like to see what I had to say. BTW I used the caps for what they are supposed to be used for emphasis. This isn't a flame, I just thought that you would like a response to your post on slashdot. BTW my nick on /. is |deity| in case you were wondering. The only reason that the post was anonymous was that I didn't want to start a flame war. I've noticed that if you voice a strong opinion on slashdot under your nick moderators tend to moderate you down for little or no reason. Also people like yourself that have strong opinions about a subject tend, to judge you without cause based on one opinion. I'm quite sure that you are intelligent enough not to do this, though I know people who do. I would like to respond to some of the points you made in your comment. I would do this on slashdot but my comment was just moderated down to -1. The comment on it is troll(lol) I would have moderated it as flamebait, if I moderated it at all. One of the first things that you stated was that I was whining about Java crashing netscape on my linux box. I think you made a mistake one of the other comments above mine stated that. I have never had trouble with Java on netscape. I only use netscape when I'm running linux though. Under windows I run Internet explorer, sorry to say but in my experience on my computer I have had more trouble with Netscape then explorer. I noticed on your user info that you are a BSD person. I've followed BSD's progress for the last couple of years and it seems like a decent OS, I just wish it had more hardware/software support since I'm quite sure it's one of the most secure OS's around. Not to get off the subject. You questioned my knowledge of Java. Specifically why do I consider it overly verbose, bloated, and dead. First I'll answer why I believe it to be verbose, bloated, and dead, then I'll give you my credentials. verbose Pronunciation: (vur-bOs'), [key] --adj. characterized by the use of many or too many words; wordy: a verbose report Java borrowed many of the best concepts it uses from other languages. C++ and Pascal mainly. Any language that makes me type System.out.print ("whatever"); just to print out a single statement to the console, is in my opinion overly Verbose. Your response to my statement might be that "That's to be consistent with the rest of the language and using the dot operator to call specific packages." Or you might say that that statement makes the program more readable and organized. That would be true However their is no reason not to include a short syntax which it does for string declaration. Using basic's print or C printf would be much easier and not very hard to implement or confusing. Secondly you were wondering why I consider java to be bloated. However well written java is it was never intended to do what people are using it for today. Java was developed in 1991 as a part of the green project. The green project was trying to develop software to control consumer electronics. As a bit of trivia java was originally called Oak. I'm an emulator buff and I can with little trouble run emulations of games written for Nintendo 64 or sony playstation using an emulator written in C or C++. Java bytecode should be at least as efficient. Many interpreted languages run faster then java does. Java's garbage collecting ability is handy but it doesn't do that great of a job. A true platform independent language should have a separate compiler for each platform to make real applications run at decent speeds. I know that JIT compilers do exist but they were not implemented by the creators of the language. Java bytecode used for web applets is a great idea, although most nontrivial uses for it tend to be large and run slowly even on a relatively fast machine. You asked why I thought Java was dead. Mostly that is my wishful thinking. However Sun is losing the support of many people in the open source community because of recent bungles. Microsoft is also helping them along by making noncompliant/compatible java compilers. You suggested that I read a few books and maybe attend a few classes. I assume you mean a few books about java, because I have read everything from Plato's Republic to the Riftwar saga by Raymond E. Feist(A great set of books if you like fantasy ). I have read and am reading several books about the java programming language, because even though I don't like java it is used extensively and I like to be informed. As for attending classes I'm a Junior in college getting my computer science degree, I have finished all the classes required for a math minor and am considering going for a double major. Math and Computer Science with a minor in physics. I'm sorry if I offended you with my opinion. As Denis Miller would say "That's just my opinion I could be wrong." I will be sure to post this to slashdot under my nick. I STILL HATE JAVA.
  • oops I meant to preview that and hit submit instead. I wanted to post it as text not html.

    Sorry I must be getting tired.
  • I like the little news at the end of the article about the stock price change. Somebody should make a timeline of microsoft's share price along with the time of important law case issues and see if the people are really concerned about the moral and law issues Microsoft is facing or does everytime the stock goes down due to a case people just buy the shares back up because they are cheaper?
  • jFfPNxv2
  • I'm joining! Not that I really care about the code itself but it's availability is important to me. Go figure.
  • HAHAHA, You thought I was replying to you. I am the biggest Jackass on Slashdot. My posts are overrated!!! Look at me, I'm a big tough guy!!
  • HAHAHA, You thought I was replying to you. I am the biggest Jackass on Slashdot. My posts are overrated!!! Look at me I'm a big tough guy!!
  • IBM and Sun both produce products in the same catagories and would be a good (albeit expensive) choice for a new or old company in terms of computing power. They also share the same problem, bad PR. To find success stories using one of the companies' solutions you need to look several layers down, it would be alot more impressive to people (especially PHBs) if they would really show off their technology and tout its good performance. Both offer a network computing solution which if you used it in your office would solve a host of problems associated with managing a hundred or more PCs but do you see commercials or banners about them? Nope. IBM is sort of sitting on its thumbs lately, partially (in my opinion) due to their reduction in funding for them dropping "pure science" research for "profitable science" research. They are refining established technologies and not looking for new ones. Both companies need to simplify their product line-up and show their potential customers what they can do. Apple (go flame your bottoms and not me) is a very good example of how to work the machine we call consumerism. Make your product line visible and clean, show people what exactly your products can do, and unify your OS strategy. Your big servers need to communicate well with your small clients and your thin clients better communicate damn well with both your servers and other clients thin or otherwise not to mention everyone else's clients and networks.
  • HAHAHA, You thought I was replying to you. I am the biggest Jackass on Slashdot. My posts are overrated!! Look at me, I'm a big tough guy!!

  • Re:Honestly! (Score:3)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @11:36PM (#1336819)
    In order to call something a Java(tm) compiler, and to claim it produces Java(tm) code, it must produce code that executes properly on the reference JVM from sun.
    MS extended the java classes to include a bunch of MS-proprietary gui & system stuff.

    MS tried to exploit what they thought was a 'loophole' in the java contract.
    They made it so if you ran the code produced by j++ on the reference JVM, rather than crash (as should happen), they first had code to decide what JVM it was on, and pop up messages indicating what features would not work unless it was run on the appropriate VM from Microsoft.
    Microsoft says 'well, it still RUNS, it just doesn't do the same thing'. Totally violated the spirit of the agreement.
    The judge decided that they had to change it.

    The whole point is, you can do whatever you want with your java compiler/JVM, but what is produced from the compiler *must* run *as the programmer intended* on the reference JVM, and your Java(tm) virtual machine must run all code produced by the Java(tm) reference compiler ;)
  • HAHAHA, You thought I was replying to you. I am the biggest Jackass on Slashdot. My posts are overrated!!! Look at me, I'm a big tough guy!!
  • MS cannot do this even if they have a clean-room java codebase.

    If they want to call it a Java compiler, it *must* compile java code, according to the specification and rules set out by Sun. If it doesn't, they cannot call it Java, period.
  • This is true, from what I've seen.
    But you can also move the appropriate extra classes to whatever platform you are implementing on and they will work, as they are just extensions of the existing classes.

    The problem with MS, is that it used native Windows methods that are *not* cross platform, and code written for it can not work anywhere but in windows.
  • The articles don't say it.
    The issue is not the VM, but the compiler (Visual J++).
    Sun's compiler was producing code that *only* works as the programmer intended onthe MS VM.

    To get around their contract with sun (which required that software 'work' on sun's reference VM), MS ensured that if the code produced by J++ was run on a proper Java VM, it would run, but bring up messages explaining that functions were disabled and it would not run correctly.

    So, as MS puts it, technically, the code *runs*, and technically, Sun didn't say it had to run the same way as the programmer intended.. (which is sooo damn obvious in the first place.. )

  • The short answer to why this is pollution of Java rather than MS improving their own product is that J++ is not a clean-room implementation, it is based on source code licensed from Sun, and that license requires that products derrived from that source conform to Sun's view of what a full standard Java distribution should. In this case MS refused to ship the RMI (Remote Method Invocation) classes and built in their own COM/DCOM stuff instead.

    A lot of the current crop of IT managers feel emotionally attached to MS, because of successes they had with projects based on Windows 3.11. These people are highly resistant to any move away from MS, and a tool like J++ is a perfect way for them to appear to be moving forward in the eyes of their superiors, whilst actually keeping their organisation dependant on the Win32 platform.

  • What is the deal with so many of the stories on Slashdot being linked to New York Times when there are other sites out there that don't require registration? I know I'm not the only one who just skips it if it is from them...
  • The manuals for J++ don't make it clear that J++ is not Java. (They are cleverly worded). As a result, people will test java programs with J++, expecting them to work on any Java JVM, and inadvertantly they get their codebase locked into using J++.

    This doesn't seem to have been the relevant point in the court ruling, but it's the reason *I* think J++ "pollutes" Java.
  • Although, I'm all for Open source. Some people should have a right to keep there own IP.
    Sun's licensing argeement was clear enough, and I really dont think Microsoft had any right to use the technology when the intent was to break platform independance.
  • Here's an interesting though: Why would you even file for an injunction if the person/entity is already in compliance?

    I'm not a legal expert, but it seems pointless to waste time on doing this unless MS is either in the wrong (in Sun's opinion) already or MS is planning to bring something to market that does violate an injunction. My interest would be more in the latter...

    Unfortunately the article didn't provide much inof about what specifically is being injunctioned or the grounds of the injunction. Taking it at face value it would seem the injunction should at least effect MS's Java development tools, such as Visual J++. What would be really interesting is if Sun persues MS on the grounds of anything they make using Java uses the Java licence. This could include Internet Explorer or even NT Server's IIS Web Server.

    Just my thoughts, feel free to correct me as nessesairy :)
  • It is important for a programming language such as Java to have a 'standard' because the whole point of Java, the area in which it has an advantage over other programming languages, is portability. That is, as long as you have your virtual machines running, you can port any program easily to any platform you like. Sure, C and C++ can be portable as well, but then you need different compilers for different platforms, whereas for Java you only need different virtual machines for different platforms. Java is then interpreted in the same way by the different virtual machines. If something like J++ comes along, it defeats the whole purpose of Java having a 'standard'-- the very thing that gives Java so much portability.
  • I still don't understand how Microsoft's additions constitute 'pollution' of Java

    Java was designed to be cross-platform - write once, run everywhere.

    Microsoft added some stuff that is definitely not cross-platform, and works on Microsoft operating systems only.
    They did not clearly mark their incompatible modifications as such, and they even autogenerate non-portable code by default in J++.

    Therefore, Microsoft basically killed one of the primary good points of Java with their products (So where's the advantage in using Microsoft Java over using C to write a tool, if it still will work on Windows only?) - it's what I'd call pollution.

  • It's not the additions so much as the removals (Score:4)

    by The Wookie ( 31006 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @03:44PM (#1336834)

    It's really easy to not use any of Microsoft's extensions. I use Visual J++ as my IDE and generate code that runs beautifully on Solaris because I stay away from Microsoft's extensions.

    Unfortunately, they decided to use a different native method interface, which causes some packages to fail. Also, in their standard distribution, they omitted RMI (like we're all gonna choose DCOM if RMI isn't there). That makes it tougher to write applets and applications that use RMI and run under Microsoft's VM.

    It has gotten worse now because Sun no longer sends MS any Java updates, so the MS Java is pretty much stuck at around JDK 1.1.3. JDK 1.2 runs so much faster, I won't use jview at all to run programs, and I'm about to give up on VJ++.

  • Re:I sick of hearing this... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How are they progressing? I haven't heard jack about Java as a few years ago when it was getting so much hype. Where have you been? Java's been doing fantastically (Sun's a different story ;)--1.2 was a terrifically-endowed revision. One of the very biggest things that has been happening with Java is a simple growth of available libraries of objects. Objective-C had/has in excess of a decade of component development, but is going down the tubes (bad decision, Apple!). Java has nowhere near the same richness of libraries--but things are growing, particularly since Apple officially endorsed Java over Obj-C for Rhapsody (OSXS; WO, EO, yellow box) development. How many real world apps are being developed in Java? Simply: a lot. C++'s "object model" is an incredibly flaky, foul, misbegotten notion of OOP in the first place. C++ is the programming world's analog of Windows in the OS world: everyone's involved with it, but it leaves this big dirty stink all over the place and you shudder to think that people use it despite the vastly superior alternatives. Have they sped things up? Their UI framework was a dog from what saw. All I see Java doing for me is making my browser crash, and I am not joking. 1 out of every 5 webpages I access which use Java crashes the browser. Yes, things are getting faster all the time. There are a lot of research projects going on (a great one here at UMichigan, in fact) that are dabbling with a faster way to do security checks (linguistically instead of using byte code, for those interested). And the UI stuff is great--again, you just need to know where to look. Oh, and your browser is crashing because it sucks: I write applets all the time and never crash IE 4.5 on my dev box (Mac G3/450 running OS9 and OSXS). Never ever. (oh, and I have to use IE in order to get some Swing components to work correctly--I don't do it by choice!). da5id@umich.edu
  • MS C++ portable? Standard? Not in any practical way. Any non-trivial Windows app, in any language, be it the very Windows-specific VB or in C++, will use so many Windows-specific components, APIs, macros, and class libraries that it ain't going anywhere but Windows.

    Microsoft clearly thought they had the right to make a Windows-specific variant of Java. Sun's internal documents lament that its contract with Microsoft enable Microsoft to change Java. Now that the copyright issue is off the table, it appears that the contract might not be a sufficient leg for Sun to stand on.

    Hopefully the result will be a situation where Java programmers have the same choice as other programmers: do I steer clear of Windows-specific contructs because I'm building a portable program of module, or an I coding to a specific platform? Java programmera are adults, too.

  • I still don't understand how Microsoft's additions constitute 'pollution' of Java. Didn't they stop calling it Java in favor of J++ anyway?

    They added features to Visual J++ in a way that wasn't obvious that would cause compatibility problems; then put pressure to resellers to ship their VM. If they were being responsible they would have an option - warn about non-standard constructs.

    And ignoring MSFT's lip service about 'innovation', don't they have a right to improve their product in any manner in which they see fit?

    Of course, except it's not their product. It's primarily Sun's product, licenced to Microsoft under contract. If MS didn't like the terms, they shouldn't have agreed to them.

    As for standards bodies: they could bog things down for years. I'm still eagerly awaiting a standard for socket programming in "C".

  • I know I'm not the only one who just skips it if it is from them...

    I skip reading the actual NYT stories too and just get what I can out of the comments. I guess I'm just too lazy. I mean, I think I have a userid, I just don't want to take the effort to remember it.

    -Brent
  • But if you read the contract that M$ had with Sun, it EXPLICITLY gives them the right to add extensions to the language

    if this is true, sun acted poorly during the contract negotiations. I'm not sure why sun would have done this (allowed nonstandard extensions). their new 'community source' solaris license allows folks to modify things - but only if the changes are sent back to sun to be integrated in a future build (if sun chooses). perhaps they learned this tactic by being burned by micros~1 (?)

    Also, extending Java is not quite the same as being incompatible. It is quite possible to write pure java apps using M$ tools. You just have to avoid using the extensions.

    this is a very bad idea. once a variant creeps in, there's no way to keep (force) things to stay portable. I don't like the idea of a common base and vendor subsets. the strength of a standard lies in knowing that the code you wrote (and others write) will work on all platforms - period.

    the fact that the extensions EXIST is only a threat to Sun if the Java developers USE them.

    you just repeated yourself. so I'll repeat - in the standards game, you're either 100% compliant (safe for portability) or you're not. I can accomplish programming tasks in many ways - but to take the performance hit of java is (to me) only justified if I can know that I write it once and it will run exactly the same everywhere. lose that benefit and the whole justification for java (again, IMHO) is lost.

    We will never have a write-once-run-anywhere (WORA) as long as we have a competitive processor/OS market. The reason is pretty obvious if you think about it.

    but isn't the virtual machine concept supposed to hide the fact that there's processor X in one box and Y in another? again, I don't mind (as much) losing some performance if I gain 100.0% compatibility. without the compatibility, java buys me almost nothing - there are hundreds of other languanges that are faster and better - if guaranteed inter-platform portability isn't the first constraint.

    The easiest and most reliable way to get top performance out of a given piece of code is to tune the code to the target machine.

    or, have enough power on the [host_cpu+JVM]. if you have enough traffic lanes on a highway, you don't need commuter ('diamond') lanes. same here - if you have a fast enough cpu subsystem, optimization becomes less and less important.

    --

  • Actually, you are not totally correct here. With regards to the additional libraries, you do have the option not to use them, but they keywords are more difficult to get around. If you have an existing project which uses those keywords as variable names, then in order to compile that project in J++, you would need to rename them all. A significant example of this is the Swing classes. They use the variable delegate extensively in their code, and delegate is a keyword in J++. Consequently, if you need to extend/modify some of the swing libaries, you are SOL.
  • That's correct, MS cannot call a clean room version of java, java. Then again I said this.

    Of course, they would have to change the name.

  • A significant example of this is the Swing classes. They use the variable delegate extensively in their code, and delegate is a keyword in J++. Consequently, if you need to extend/modify some of the swing libaries, you are SOL.

    And you might be correct, too, if you couldn't switch off the MS extensions with a single checkbox on your project settings.

    Sheesh. Some people. What is this? Cargo cult programming?

    Simon
  • It's a shame really that in the crossfire a good product is getting hammered. VJ++ is a much better development environment than the ridiculous JDK Sun puts out. Ever try to use the debugger in Sun's JDK? It's completely useless.
  • I hesitate to call VB a standard. (Okay, it is a standard pain in my ass) It is produced and marketed by only one company. Java has implementations done by IBM, Blackdown, Sun, Microsoft, Novell, etc. There are a lot more balls of wax dependant on Java.

    Yes, if Microsoft licensed the Win32 API to Sun, and Sun screwed around with in such a way that the near monopoly market share of Sun's Windows2008-enabled applications were hurting Microsoft, sure! Sun didn't follow the terms of the licensing agreement, and Microsoft was financially damaged.

  • Java 2 SDK on FreeBSD (slightly OT) (Score:3)

    by The_Messenger ( 110966 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @03:51PM (#1336846) Homepage Journal

    This is a repost from today's other Java discussion. Please read and go vote!

    While there has been an official Linux port, there is no native Java 2 SDK for FreeBSD. Please, all members of JDC, go here and cast your votes [sun.com] to have Sun release this software. We are up to 2703 votes so far. It took 4551 votes before Sun released the Linux version, so we're almost there, right? ;-)

    (However, I am well aware that the release of the Linux port was due in large part to the excellent folks from Blackdown [blackdown.org].)

    Here are a few of the tons of comments on the "bug report" page where you can vote for this RFE (request for enhancement).

    • "FreeBSD is one of the favorite OS to run servers, and Java is becoming the favorite language to write server applications."
    • "Daemon News supports this project. DN will also issue a certification if it runs well on BSD."
    • "Due to the stability we use either Solaris or FreeBSD. It is very tiresome not being able to develop on FreeBSD for deployment on Solaris. Using solely Linux is not an option for me."
    • "It's a pity that we can't develop on a OS that is very popular among small ISPs."
    • "As has been said, not having Java ports for these platforms helps only Microsoft, and hurts the people Sun really seems interested in helping: the Open Source community."
    • "With official support of Java2 on FreeBSD from SUN, I would be able to finally abandon NT platform and use my prefferd FreeBSD OS for most of my projects."

    You must be registered in the JDC (Java Developer Connection) to vote. Registration is free and quick, so if you're a Java developer or just have a general interest on FreeBSD or Java, please go sign up and vote!

    Anyone interested in doing an unofficial port please mail me at javadrew@spammerslovehotmail.com [mailto] (obviously remove the "spammerslove" :-).

  • While Microsoft would argue that Visual J++ is their product and they have the right to extend it, I have to differ there. I usually side with Microsoft in most debates, but they're wrong on this one. You see, they extended C++ by adding MFC. That's fine, they did it within the confines of the language and they didn't destroy the languages marketability.

    By altering the language itself, they directly affect the marketability of the language. Their product is not their implementation of Java, it is their IDE and if they choose to do something MFC-ish, then that would be their product too. The weird thing is, if they changed the C++ language no one could have sued them (but it still would have been wrong).

    Esperandi
  • i agree with that statement completely. god does have faith in the goat loving ppl of america. i hope this clears your problems up as well
  • i dont get it, why microsoft has to ruin every beautiful thing they see? if Java would be changed by MS, and would become the new standard, it will be so insecure that people will try to develop a new cross platform language. and if it wont become a standard, then, it wont be really cross platform again in any ways. therefore, we should give MS the power to do it as an ugly monopoly. same thing as they did with MSN messanger, Explorer, and Novell, and now with Java too. i think Microsoft is definetly a big harm to the computers world. Bill quited so now Brian can go and stand in court and pretend he doesnt know the law? bottom line : i hate Microsoft, they always have to ruin all the nice things they see.
  • Serverside java man. It works really good, it rules. Yeah, client side sucks, sorta. You *can* build a client side app (not a fucking applet) that runs fairly good once it gets started. I've heard stories of performance increases on the client side now with JDK 1.3. Applets, however, do suck if you don't do them right, but if you do them right, they won't "make your browser crash".
  • I see Java as a way to let users pick their operating system and not have to be concerned with being locked into Winblows.

    IMHO, users are not concerned with being locked into [some_OS]. In fact, most of them don't care about OS. They just need some basic useful applications to run on their computer - browser, mail/newsreader, photoediting/printing software, office suite, games, etc.

    Do you really think Java is appropriate tool to build such applications? I don't.

  • Java should be a standard, not just something anybody can change to suit them . . . Hopefully this ruling will teach Microsoft about Standards.

    This is exactly why we're all so pissed that Sun yanked Java from the standards process. If Sun wants to help show the judges that the Java "standard" should be enforced, they should resubmit Java and actually create a standard.

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