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According to Sun, Java and JVM are registered trademarks. Since Sun owns the trademarks, can't they fight the unwanted forks by exercising the trademark laws?

The forks that are compliant and please Sun Micro can use Java(tm) and can distribute JVM(tm). The forks that Sun doesn't really care about and the ones that pollute the Java world would just have to be something different, call them Jaba, Jamboree or something else, but no one is allowed to use the trademarked terms without Sun's permissions.

the binary license is strict; if you distribute the SUN java in your OS distro... then you are not allowed to distribute ANY other replacement

Not sure, what you mean

from the specification license:

Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun") hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under the Sun's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation, which shall be understood to include developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification.

and the sdk license:

B (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software

then FreeBSD are in violation of the license. (incidently i find it funny that they refer to themselves as "the Sun" at one stage)

And GNU is quite prone to introducing its own "embrace-and-extensions", viz. gcc, gawk, etc.

hmm, yeah... i agree i wish to god they had required you pass a flag such as --enable-gnu-extensions to each of those programs... and required a preprocessor flag to be enabled before any gnulibc extensions could be enabled. the other day i used iswhitespace() and was shocked when it did not compile on a SUN machine. i had to write my own implementation of the function (custom made of course), but it was lucky i had a POSIX machine to test it out on!

we can hardly blame them though... GNU never claimed to maintain backwards compatibility... since day one they only ever wanted upwards compatibility (so, old code should still compile). it sucks though that they haven't made it more obvious when using their non-portable extensions.

making it "free" (as in freedom) and GPL compatible would be a tremendous step

It would be -- from the political point of view. Technically -- I don't care.

you should... if it were free, then all major distros (of gnu/linux and more...) would be able to ship their own versions and keep it up to date with regular bug fixes. what do you do now if you find a bug in your sdk? nothing... noone to report it to, and noone to listen if even you do find somewhere. and even then... you'd have to wait a year maybe more for a new release and hope they fixed it. (if you found a bug in the jre... since everyong would be in the same buggy version, you'd probably be best off working around the bug, but still reporting it)

the binary license is strict; if you distribute the SUN java in your OS distro... then you are not allowed to distribute ANY other replacement

Not sure, what you mean

from the specification license:

Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun") hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under the Sun's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation, which shall be understood to include developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification.

and the sdk license:

B (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software

then FreeBSD are in violation of the license. (incidently i find it funny that they refer to themselves as "the Sun" at one stage)

And GNU is quite prone to introducing its own "embrace-and-extensions", viz. gcc, gawk, etc.

hmm, yeah... i agree i wish to god they had required you pass a flag such as --enable-gnu-extensions to each of those programs... and required a preprocessor flag to be enabled before any gnulibc extensions could be enabled. the other day i used iswhitespace() and was shocked when it did not compile on a SUN machine. i had to write my own implementation of the function (custom made of course), but it was lucky i had a POSIX machine to test it out on!

we can hardly blame them though... GNU never claimed to maintain backwards compatibility... since day one they only ever wanted upwards compatibility (so, old code should still compile). it sucks though that they haven't made it more obvious when using their non-portable extensions.

making it "free" (as in freedom) and GPL compatible would be a tremendous step

It would be -- from the political point of view. Technically -- I don't care.

you should... if it were free, then all major distros (of gnu/linux and more...) would be able to ship their own versions and keep it up to date with regular bug fixes. what do you do now if you find a bug in your sdk? nothing... noone to report it to, and noone to listen if even you do find somewhere. and even then... you'd have to wait a year maybe more for a new release and hope they fixed it. (if you found a bug in the jre... since everyong would be in the same buggy version, you'd probably be best off working around the bug, but still reporting it)

Well, i'm not sure how sun is making a ton of money off of java now.

They give the virtual machine as well as the web client away as it is.

Well, i'm not sure how sun is making a ton of money off of java now.

They give the virtual machine as well as the web client away as it is.

Is it really that important to be able to distribute the built binaries for people? Without paying Sun for it, that is?

Sun is not losing money. Their net profit is down, but they are not in the red and continue to return profit to their stockholders. Sorry, next troll?

The net loss for fiscal year 2003 was $2.378 billion or a net loss of $.75 per share as compared with a net loss of $587 million or a net loss per share of $.18 for the 2002 fiscal year.

Fri, Apr. 16, 2004 Sun posts loss again AS WOES CONTINUE, PROJECTS TO BE KILLED, MANAGERS SHUFFLED By Dean Takahashi Mercury News Based on its turnaround plan, Sun Microsystems should be recovering by now. But that's not happening, as the company announced its 10th loss in 12 quarters Thursday. As a result, Sun has begun changing plans and its management team.

No this is not Jonathan.

Thanks for the research, I was afraid you were just a highly modded troll..

Yes there is no doubt that Sun is in trouble. Yet they have been very proactive in trying to divert thier own death. Much of thier cash loss is becuase they have been aquiring other companies. 8 of them by my count These things aren't cheap.

And yes there are many companies that start down this path and never pull out, but many do. Apple may be exception but I see many parallels between them, ongoing R&D for example. Expansion of product lines, Ipod and x86 servers for example. The list goes on and i think what works for one may well work for the other.

And here's some speculation ;) As soon as MS made any sign of taking over Sun, McNealy would opensource just about everything, effectivly keeping Java and Solaris around for a very long time and preventing MS from ever killing Java.

> Exactly. So many people think it is, yet it isn't. I dont think it is

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that we have a Microsoft and Sun deal and now Sun starts touting, "You should not be using Linux, ...

It wasn't a "deal". It was a settlement. As in, Microsoft acknowledged that they had done wrong and owed compensation to Sun to the tune of approximately $2 billion in cash and stock and other stuff.

And you can buy supported versions of Linux from Sun. I hardly see how that is them saying you "should not be using Linux". You can buy an AMD64 server running Linux, right now, today, right on their website.

You might also notice that they have certified their AMD64 servers to run Red Hat Enterprise or SuSe Enterprise (or Windows 2003 *cough*). Sun doesn't prevent you from installing and running competitor software on their hardware. Though of course, they won't support any software except their own.

You can also get Sun's Java Desktop which is NOT just a rebadged SuSe Linux. There is a fair bit of value-add on top of SuSe, including all the nifty enterprise management software. The EMS won't mean anything to you unless you have 1000+ seats to maintain. But if you are in that space then NONE of the other Linux distros come anywhere near JDS. Of course, dimwitted reviewers who expect JDS to be in the same space as Lindows and Mandrake are inevitably disappointed when it doesn't support their SATA hard drives. But that says volumes about dimwitted reviewers and very little about Sun's commitment to Linux.

I realise Sun-bashing is extremely popular right now but honestly it's entirely unjustified.

you'll find Solaris sucks very badly

As a desktop, maybe. But Solaris doesn't shine as a desktop O/S, it shines on a server where uptime, stability and scalability are the primary concerns.

now, apparently you get some ancient GNU software compiled on an extra CD these days - great leap forward guys

I personally install many of the GNU tools over their Solaris counterparts. However if Sun up and replaced the Solaris tools overnight then thousands of scripts would break because they depend on the behaviour and options of the Solaris tools.

No command-line editing anywhere in sight!

WTF? You can run any shell on Solaris that you can run on Linux. The Bourne shell is the default for root for historical compatability reasons.

The pkg format sucks ... Give me 'apt-get install ' any day

Solaris has other package formats (RPM), but moving away from pkg isn't something that can happen overnight. Installing the latest cool toy from some unstable repository isn't exactly the priority.

How do I keep Solaris up to date? By constantly manually checking for patches from some obscure place on Sun's site...

Boy, that was hard to find If you are running a Sun and you don't know about Sunsolve what planet are you living on?

It's sllloooowwwwww too. I had a Sun Ultra 5 running Solaris 9 for a while. When I replaced it with Debian...

Ah yes, 8 yeard old hardware that is pretty much a PC with a SPARC CPU. How did Debian install and perform on a 128-way system?

The default desktop system is Motif + CDE

Not any more

Solaris doesn't stack up very well against Linux on the desktop, no argument from me. But running a desktop with the latest bleeding-edge toys installed on it is hardly the only measure of an O/S.

you'll find Solaris sucks very badly

As a desktop, maybe. But Solaris doesn't shine as a desktop O/S, it shines on a server where uptime, stability and scalability are the primary concerns.

now, apparently you get some ancient GNU software compiled on an extra CD these days - great leap forward guys

I personally install many of the GNU tools over their Solaris counterparts. However if Sun up and replaced the Solaris tools overnight then thousands of scripts would break because they depend on the behaviour and options of the Solaris tools.

No command-line editing anywhere in sight!

WTF? You can run any shell on Solaris that you can run on Linux. The Bourne shell is the default for root for historical compatability reasons.

The pkg format sucks ... Give me 'apt-get install ' any day

Solaris has other package formats (RPM), but moving away from pkg isn't something that can happen overnight. Installing the latest cool toy from some unstable repository isn't exactly the priority.

How do I keep Solaris up to date? By constantly manually checking for patches from some obscure place on Sun's site...

Boy, that was hard to find If you are running a Sun and you don't know about Sunsolve what planet are you living on?

It's sllloooowwwwww too. I had a Sun Ultra 5 running Solaris 9 for a while. When I replaced it with Debian...

Ah yes, 8 yeard old hardware that is pretty much a PC with a SPARC CPU. How did Debian install and perform on a 128-way system?

The default desktop system is Motif + CDE

Not any more

Solaris doesn't stack up very well against Linux on the desktop, no argument from me. But running a desktop with the latest bleeding-edge toys installed on it is hardly the only measure of an O/S.

I suggest you check out Blastwave. They've created a Debian-esque wrapper around Sun's package format and have a network-aware installer. So, to install, say, PostgreSQL, you just do `sudo pkg-get install postgresql` and it will connect to a repository, fetch pgsql and its dependecies. You can also upgrade all of your Blastwave packages by doing a `sudo pkg-get upgrade'. It's pretty nice. They've got a decent amount of packages available.

Sun has announced that GNOME will be their new default desktop. In fact, I believe they are porting Java Desktop (which is GNOME with a Sun theme) to Solaris.

Regarding speed, have you checked out Solaris 10? It's a lot faster than 8 and 9. Sun is making the betas of 10 available for free - check out Solaris Express.

Also, an Ultra 5 is hardly an ideal system to use. It's about 7 years old, and even then was extremely low-end. I used to use one as a Kerberos server. It worked fine as a lightweight server, but I'd never use it for interactive work. Linux is probably faster than Solaris on it, but Solaris is hardly optimized for that level of system.

Witness intel's recent change of direction regarding the future of Pentium. They've all but EOL's the Pentium 4 Netburst architecture and are now going multi-core. It took an anouncement from their competitors though, and lengthy explanations and analysis in the industry press, before they did, once it was absolutely clear that the clock frequency wars were over. Intel is well behind, but they have an absolutely astronomical R&D budget.

Given Sun's complete misunderstanding of the concept of "Open Source Software", as evidenced by their opinion that the Sun Community Source License is "open enough" in spite of it's many obvious problems, I urge caution. Wait until we get to see the license under which the Solaris source code is made available. If it has *any* of the problems evidenced by the SCSL, then it won't be an Open Source Software license, but some marketing gimmick and it should be avoided.

(I hate to reply to my own comment, but Google brings linkage to back up my memory.)

Jonathan Schwartz is Sun's COO (Chief Operating Officer) and President.

Scott McNealy is the CEO (and Chairman).

(I hate to reply to my own comment, but Google brings linkage to back up my memory.)

Jonathan Schwartz is Sun's COO (Chief Operating Officer) and President.

Scott McNealy is the CEO (and Chairman).

Some time in the last few months, Sun Microsystems has lost their collective mind.

You can't lose what you never had. I can sum up this issue in one statement: Scott McNeally is trying to save his a$$. He wasted too much time and money on the M$ lawsuit with not enough to show for it and now he's trying to play catch-up before the investors lose patience.

Prediction: Open-courcing Solaris will lead to cuts in the Solaris funding. If the new Solaris "community" doesn't pick up enough of the slack, they SUN still has a new business partner that would be more than willing to provide them with an "alternative" OS solution.

My opinion. Take it as it is.

-B

Say maybe like Solaris Zones due for release on Solaris 10 later this year?

From the article:

The Solaris Zones feature is based on the same basic concepts as FreeBSD Jails. In both FreeBSD Jails and Solaris Zones, each virtual view of the runtime environment is completely segregated, and processes from one environment cannot send signals to or even see processes in another. Both Jails and Zones share only one instance of the operating system, though, so multiple runtime environments can coexist on a machine with only one CPU.

I have been playing around with Zones on Solaris Express (Solaris 10 pre-release) and they deliver on their performance promise while easliy isolating applications.

So it does. There's more to life than apache though.

I dare you to look at this. Then, think for a minute about what sort of things you'd use it for.

• Apple's OpenFirmware home page
• An overview of OF
• The Official homepage
• Firmworks, the OF folks (Linux info)
• TinyBoot
• The Open Directory Project category for OpenFirmware

• Apple's OpenFirmware home page
• An overview of OF
• The Official homepage
• Firmworks, the OF folks (Linux info)
• TinyBoot
• The Open Directory Project category for OpenFirmware

Java has 3 million developers (that's from 2003)

Of course, the company who sells this "free" large Sun Fire E25K Server, for only $3,196,985.00...

Some scenario...

Salesman:Now we have a great deal, we give out for free our new Sun Fire E25K Server...

Voices: Nice! I want it, I want it...

Salesman:...as long as you subscribe to our friendly contract for the next 4 years for our superbe Sun server application system at a low introductionary cost of 1M$ per year!!!

Voices: --silence-- :(

Salesman: Including our new J2EE server for free!
Salesman: This offer is only available for a limited time period.
Salesman: Isn't that a great deal?

Voices: *hang up*

Salesman: Hello!?

Seems to me like a bad case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

Start here if you want to do it ;-)

Now someone try finding me the same place on Apple's website to download, say, Cocoa, Quartz, etc. It's not there. You can download Darwin, but given it's based on primarily already F/OSS software, you damn well ought to be allowed.

I've never really understood the FOSS movement's hostility against Sun and love-in with Apple. I like Apple's software, it works very nicely, and they do make a good Unix desktop, but they have contributed very little to FOSS and Sun has donated a ton of "good stuff".

Sun Blade 2500??

It would look good next to a free Sun Fire E25K server.

Sun Blade 2500??

It would look good next to a free Sun Fire E25K server.

"If you pay us $1499 every year for 3 years, we'll sell you a license for things you don't use AND an overpriced server that we'd normally charge $7,000 for."

At least, that's the "deal" I got by email 6 weeks ago. Probably not a bad deal if you are managing a SUN-only shop, but if you are happy with Eclipse and Linux running on cheap hardware...

Exactly. I would now like to set up my reservation for this please.

Let me kill two birds with one stone here...Can you imagine a Beowolf Cluster of these :-)

Now...I bet I can run Linux on this with No Problem...

Exactly. I would now like to set up my reservation for this please.

Let me kill two birds with one stone here...Can you imagine a Beowolf Cluster of these :-)

Now...I bet I can run Linux on this with No Problem...

Actually the underlying distro is SuSE Linux Desktop 1.0, as noted in Sun's Java Desktop System FAQ.

(Note: I think there was a project to essentially create a sort of Java-enabled OS rather than a virtual one, which could natively run compiled Java code without a VM. I haven't heard anything about it since)

One of the ideas behind Java was that a object-orientated CPU (manipulating objects rather than ordinary registers) would actually be faster than the equivalent CISC or RISC instructions. This was going to be the PicoJava I core. But a Google search picks up nothing in the last four years.

You'll need to purchase it if you want to try it - see here - currently $50 for US users, but most people who'll be interested in it will have existing Sun suppliers who may have better deals, or evaluation arrangements.

It's nothing special as a distribution, IMHO - not bad, nothing standout - but it's main strength may lie in its integration with the Sun Control Station and centralised distribution and control, which I haven't had a chance to play with.

15. Q. How much does Java Desktop System sell for?

A. There are two available pricing options for Java Desktop System:

* $100 / desktop / year
* $50 / employee / year for customers who wish to purchase Java Desktop System for all employees of their company.
* A special promotion is also planned that reduces by 50% the first year price of either of the above two options. This promotion is in effect until June 2, 2004.

One of the advantages of a strongly typed language (like C++) is that it allows extensive compile-time checking so bugs can be found early. Unfortunately, C++ inherits a number of loopholes in compile-time checking from C, which is relatively lax (particularly method/procedure declarations). In Java, we require declarations and do not support C-style implicit declarations.

Actually, you should use the File.separator and File.pathSeparator fields for that.

This seems more of a novelty function than something useful. I can see this technology having a few cool uses, but downloading media by tapping CDs and posters isn't it. Remember 5 years ago when "In the future, you'll be able to buy drinks by pointing your cell phone at a soda machine, or using your Java Ring!"

If I want to buy music digitally, why the crap would I want to put pants on and go to the mall? So I can tap my player against a CD and buy music the super-cool new way? I don't know about the rest of you, but for me a primary advantage of buying digital media is the fact that I don't have to go anywhere.

This could make for some hilarious ways to buy porn...

• Amount of performance you'll gain/lose when switching to 64 bit mode depends on the application you intend to run (for instance big gains on SSH/SSL )
• sizes of executables (programs, libs) are significantly larger in 64 bit mode

"What I'd like to see is the concept of a "remote object". Imagine standard OOP, except that a particular object doesn't have to exist in the same memory/process space as the parent.

You should check out CORBA, or RMI. There are also these things called Enterprise Java Beans that everyone loves to hate.

• Data Center Design Philosophy
• Data Center Practices
• Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology

• Data Center Design Philosophy
• Data Center Practices
• Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology

That's what Java is all about: you can be an assembly zealot and still be platform independant with the JVM opcodes ;)

Dynamic Proxy has been in Java since 1.3
See the docs for 1.3:
dynamic proxy docs

Anyway, the entities you manipulate in Java are quite assuredly not pointers.

If people defined their terms, there would be alot fewer arguments in the world.
According to the Java specification, Java references are pointers. What you are saying is that Java does not have C style pointers. There are definitions of "pointer" at different levels of granulairty. Java has pointers if using a more generic definition of "pointer".

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES 2.1
• J2SE Version 1.4.1_03 or higher.
• Tomcat 4.0.3 or higher
• Desktops running Sun Java Desktop System, Release 2

• 600 Mhz Intel Compatible processor or better
• 512 MB of RAM
• 160 GB hard drive, at least 400 MB of free disk space in the directory /var
• 10/100 Base-T Ethernet network interface

Man, just when I though Hot Java was dead. http://java.sun.com/products/hotjava/3.0/

Last I checked, Sun doesn't allow deployment of the reference implementation.

That's what I thought about previous versions. But as far as I can tell, now it's free.

What's wrong with just using this?

> You have no knowledge that this particular instance was instigated by Microsoft.

No, I don't. But then, I didn't say it was.

I said, "false claims, planted by partners _like_ Toqueville."

Of course, we do have evidence from the past of Microsoft trying to defraud the public:

> At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.

There is more evidence in the DR-DOS case, and the Bristol case.

> Microsoft has not, to the best of my knowledge, conducted a "secret hardware" campaign or anything of the sort.

On the contrary, Microsoft was caught planning this in The Halloween Document:

> "OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."

Did you think that only meant Internet protocols? Of course not. Microsoft meant every protocol they could get their hands on, including hardware, networks, multimedia, authentication protocols, business transactions -- you name it.

> Absurd. This [locking in Linux] isn't even remotely plausible.

Of course it's plausible.

It's true that Microsoft can't lock us in as long as we are using Open Source (esp. GPL'd) software.

And that's why Microsoft, working through secret partners, is trying to trick us into making our Linux systems dependent on proprietary software.

Shortly after Microsoft made a deal with NVidia for the Xbox, NVidia hired the developers of the Open Source NVidia drivers, stopped their work on those drivers, and had them build closed source, proprietary drivers instead. Then, after Microsoft made a deal with ATI for the Xbox, ATI also cut back on their support of the Open Source driver developers, and ATI released closed source drivers.

Given the circumstances, it is reasonable to believe that Microsoft is up to their old tricks.

And let's not forget that the PC was once an open platform, just like Linux. Microsoft couldn't change that either, so, instead, Microsoft made every PC user dependent on proprietary middleware, namely, Windows.

It is obvious that Microsoft would try the same tactic with Linux, by getting us to commit ourselves to proprietary middleware, such as non-GPL'd drivers and libraries.

> You have no evidence to back this up, numerous statements to the contrary from reputable people

It's true that I can't prove the Microsoft connection. It is an assumption based on Microsoft's past behavior. The connection between Microsoft and SCO is evidence (though not proof). There is other circumstantial evidence.

But then, I didn't claim those things were proven -- I repeatedly used the word "possible."

But what is undeniable is that using proprietary middleware locks you in. and NVidia's drivers, and the proprietary version of Qt, are proprietary middleware. It would be insane to assume that Microsoft would ignore those possible lynch pins.

In fact, some people say that Linux is already locked in to the proprietary version of Qt, due to the number of proprietary Qt-based applications on Linux. In their paper Conquering the Enterprise Desktop, a group of developers argued that Bruce Perens' UserLinux would have trouble succeeding, unless it included the Qt Library in its basic install, in order to support proprietary Qt applications:

> In practice, Qt has been overwhelmingly adopted for proprietary development given factors such as quality, features and available support

> Just one bit of [proof] would be enough for me to not think you are some insane zealot.

If you insist...

Evidence of sabotage and fraud in The Sun vs Microsoft case:

Memo to Bill Gates from the manager responsible for Microsoft's Java strategy:

> When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns....

> 1. What is our business model for Java?

> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?

> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?

> 4. What are we doing to leverage/expose Windows to Java developers?

Microsoft's pricing strategy paper for its VJ++ development suite:

> The "strategic objective" of its new toolkit is to "Eliminate/contain cross-platform Java by growing the polluted Java market," "migrate and lock Java developers to Win32 Java," and ultimately to "kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."

Statement by a Microsoft vice president:

> I would explicitly be different -- just to be different.... [W]ithout something to pollute Java more to Windows (show new cool features that are only in Windows) we expose ourselves to more portable code on other platforms.

Another Microsoft memo:

> At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.

Evidence of contract interference and extortion in The DOJ versus Microsoft case:

> "Content drives browser adoption, and we need to go to the top five sites and ask them, "What can we do to get you to adopt IE?" We should be prepared to write a check, buy sites, or add features -- basically do whatever it takes to drive adoption."

> Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office...."

> In Waldman's words: Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club.

Evidence of intentional destruction of standard protocols in the Microsoft Halloween Document:

> "OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."

And so on.

There is so much evidence that this (sabotage, fraud, and extortion) is Microsoft's normal way of operating, that the "zealot" position is anyone who attempts to claim that Microsoft is honest.

As to what Microsoft is currently trying to do to defeat Linux, there was obviously some speculation there, which I indicated by repeated use of the word "possibly."