Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the do-we-use-the-Sun-icon-or-the-MS-icon dept.
djradon writes: "According to this link, Microsoft and Sun have settled the Java lawsuit. Looks like Microsoft won't be supporting Java in any way, anytime soon, which is too bad because I think the ability to write COM components in Java was the best development option for IIS."
The frightening thing about Windows development is how much languages need to have the support of MS, to some degree at least. There are a lot of companies that do not see a product, business practice, language or whatever as being valid unles it has MS support and can fit in easily to their existing support package and MS dominated infrastructure. There is no doubt that Java will continue as the main language on the Internet, with Perl, for some time, but this is, nonetheless, not good news for Java.
You know exactly what to do- Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
--
You know exactly what to do- Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh- I think of little else but you.
``The Microsoft.NET platform is the best way to build, deliver and aggregate Web Services, and Microsoft is committed to helping software developers build Web Services with whatever programming language is most appropriate for their particular needs.''
Well, this seems to be the party line for the forseeable future.
While the Technology looks promising, the big problem is their track record. Ultimately, the old saw of never buying version 1.0 of anything is very true of MS products.
This is just my opinion, based on my experience. Even if I want to trust that vision, I find that I cannot. I have been burned too often. In each case, it as a matter of a litte less value, for a little more money. Maybe I exagerate, but that is what it seems like.
and so I make a comment only slightly tongue in cheek when I saw that I am slightly concerned about the World Wide Web becoming Microsoft's fishing.NET
It makes me nervous.
-- "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Microsoft lose all rights to 'Java Compatible'
by
tjwhaynes
·
· Score: 4
To me, this looks like a major hiccup for Microsoft. Under the terms of this agreement, MS has permanently lost the rights to the Java Compatible trademark. From the Sun press release:
With the contract terminated, Sun and Microsoft have agreed to end the current litigation, initiated in October, 1997 before Judge Ronald M. Whyte in U.S. District Court in San Jose, under the following general terms:
The Court will enter a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark. Previously, the Court found that Microsoft had distributed incompatible implementations of the Java technology, and the court entered a preliminary injunction barring Microsoft from using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark on these incompatible products.
To protect developers and consumers who have already invested in Microsofts implementations of the Java technology, Sun has agreed to grant Microsoft a limited license to continue shipping essentially as is its currently shipping implementations of the outdated 1.1.4 version of the Java technology. Those products have already been modified to comply with injunctions secured by Sun in the litigation. The license covers only the products that already contain the Java technology, and lasts only for seven years.
Beyond that, Microsoft has no rights to distribute the Java technology, or to otherwise use any of Suns intellectual property.
To those who believe this sounds the death knell for Java, think again. Microsoft is now in the unenviable position of not being able to use the most widely recognised java trademark, while its competitors (Sun, Netscape and others) will be able to capitalize on it. This agreement is even wider than Java, stopping MS from licensing, distributing or making use of any of Suns Intellectual Property either. That may make C#'s passage into the world a little tricky if Sun has much of the Java technology patented...
C# doesn't cut it. It's not here now and Java is and has been for six years.C# is still months off release and even at the first release it won't get wide use until the development tools and toolkits catch up. That will hurt.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
-- Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
MSFT Bashing in this case bogas...
by
djMaxM
·
· Score: 5
MSFT wrote the best and fastest compiler for Java hands down when Sun started this stupidity. RMI was a freakin' mess, Netscape caused half of it, and then Sun comes after MSFT. There are cases where MSFT does some annoying stuff, like forcing MSN bookmarks in IE, but this one I can't fault them for.
I give a big middle finger to Sun for blowing what Java could have been.
You can read the settlement agreement here. The short version is that Microsoft can't use the "Java Compatible" trademark, but can continue to distribute it's version 1.1.4 of Java, for another seven years. Apparently the 1.1.4 version has been modified to pass Sun's compliance tests.
Yet another example of intellectual property rights being used to do the right thing...
Thalia
I always knew they were up to no good
by
Chuck+Flynn
·
· Score: 4
Microsoft, I mean. They never knew how to play their hand right. Gates was moneyed from the start, with his father's fortune from the bootlegging days, and Bill's Harvard degree. But he never had the sense knocked into him, y'know?
When I first got started in this industry, it took me thirty years for me to hear the name "Microsoft", and it wasn't because I was off on Madagascar with the lemurs or nothing. It was because Microsoft didn't even exist yet. Didn't even exist. Do you remember what that was like? Some day you kids will tell your young rascals about what it was like to walk to school up-hill both ways knee-deep in AOL cds, but there was a time when these conglomerates didn't exist. That was when IBM was all we needed, the big blue momma. Man, could IBM shine. And then they were shoved out of the PC industry by that devil Microsoft and that whore Intel. I will never forget that day when my boss came in and gave us the news. Wow.
And here's Microsoft getting shoved around by Sun, now. And with the law on someone else's side, too. You never saw IBM make that mistake, no sir. IBM knew how to play its antitrust hand, and IBM knew how to deal with upstarts. IBM is up there next to General Motors in my book, and not just because they made me the man I am (just as GM made me the man I was in the backseat of that Chevy Sport Coupe that summer back in, well darn, it's slipped my mind). Microsoft? No one will remember them in twenty years. Heh, and I won't be around to see it happen, neither.
Sun can keep Java. As long as they don't touch my cobol. It wasn't my first language, but man could I make that baby fly like a greased pig out of an oil can. Object oriented? Object sharing? Classes? My parents' generation taught us in primary school to share, and anything we wanted to learn about classes we learned in the streets with a switchblade. That's why Bill and Microsoft never got off the ground. No common sense. No street sense. If he'd have walked for one mile in another man's long underwear, he'd have known that you don't mess with another man's shoes. Or his Java, either.
Good riddens, Microsoft. I spit on the mockery you've made of us all. You are not welcome at the family barbequeue in Jersey.
Re:Goodbye Java, hello C#
by
donglekey
·
· Score: 4
A few points:
1. Java has done very well without Micrsoft support. I agree that Micrsoft support would be optimal, but I think that java is good enough that it doesn't need it, even though it could benefit from it.
2. Microsoft was not really supporting or helping Java or Sun all along. They did some shitty shit with Visual J++. They put "windows only" extensions and nullified the whole point of Java, thus screwing over programmers, themselves, and Sun to an extent, while at the same time blatantly breaking the licensing and contracts that they had with Sun for the development of a Java IDE.
3. I love java, but where it works best right now is Windows, which is rediculous. If it is to have a bright future on other operating systems, which I completely believe it does, it will need to have everything be more syncronized and not come out with different OS versions at different times. It shows disrespect for their own cross-platform philosophy.
The reason Microsoft should be bashed...
by
Gendou
·
· Score: 5
We do not bash Microsoft because they deliver poor products. This is utterly untrue. Microsoft Office is the model of every other office suite out there. IE is the ideal browser. Windows has AMAZING hardware support (well, NT5+ does - the Win2000 driver model is genius). Microsoft devotes a VERY large sum of money to research.
Microsoft has many good things about them. But, they have a few critically bad things. These things should be the reasons we bash MS:
1. They monopolize the computer industry and stifle competition.
2. They do not open their source so that other developers can create software on an even playing field with them.
3. They are not responsive to fixing flaws in their systems that are discovered by the community at large.
4. They overcharge for their software and force their clients into a nasty, anti-competetive business relationship.
None of these are "bash Microsoft because their software sucks." Now, it's true that Windows is below par, but that's not the only thing they do.
Calm down. Poor quality software is the *worst* reason to bash a closed-source, inflexable, monopolizing corporation. Fundamental matters of principle carry a lot more weight.
Re:The reason Microsoft should be bashed...
by
istartedi
·
· Score: 3
1. They monopolize the computer industry and stifle competition.
They enforce standards and create opportunities. Making a PCI card? Write a Windows driver for it, and the job is done. BeOS? Would never have been started if it weren't for nasty closed source OS's like Windows and MacOS. Now crappy Open Source desktops are starting to steal just enough market to make BeOS a poor business, so they do the only thing they can do, which is to appease the OSS community, but it was the prospect of selling the OS for $70/per that caused them to enter the market with something new and innovative--not the opportunity to "serve the community".
2. They do not open their source so that other developers can create software on an even playing field with them.
And I bet the Giant's offense won't just hand the ball over to Baltimore. What a bunch of bad guys they are.
3. They are not responsive to fixing flaws in their systems that are discovered by the community at large.
When the problem is fixable, they usually respond in a decent ammount of time. Think Linux is better? Consider the recent Linux worm.
4. They overcharge for their software and force their clients into a nasty, anti-competetive business relationship.
Don't like the high price? Try to offer a similar product at a better price. That's what a free market is all about. There is nothing immoral about them charging as much as they like for an OS. You might counter that this takes money from the pockets of organizations like hospitals that offer lifesaving services. The counterpoint is that if they charged less it would reduce the quality of life of employees and stockholders, which can kill just as many people as bad health care (poverty is no better for your health than an x-ray machine that crashes, it just kills in a less dramatic fashion).
Calm down. Poor quality software is the *worst* reason to bash a closed-source, inflexable, monopolizing corporation. Fundamental matters of principle carry a lot more weight.
The attacks levied against companies selling proprietary software are in many cases just the same old attacks that have always come from socialists. When it comes to morality, it doesn't matter how you think things should be. It matters how things will be as the result of the outcome from your actions. History is on the side of a balance between socialism and capitalism, with the preservation of individual liberties being important. In the case of software, capitalism works better on the desktop so far, and socialism is better on the server so far. Individual liberty has been preserved in that people are allowed to create free and proprietary software, and customers are allowed to choose. Let's hope it stays this way.
-- For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:The reason Microsoft should be bashed...
by
Gendou
·
· Score: 5
I'm sorry, but most of your responses here are just too poorly informed to be remarked on. Grr... But I will make a few comments.
And I bet the Giant's offense won't just hand the ball over to Baltimore. What a bunch of bad guys they are.
This comment is ridiculous. Microsoft has a myriad of API's in Windows that they keep to themselves. This gives them a serious upperhand over other software developers and it's unfair because they are a monopoly. Not to mention that your analogy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If they give the ball over, they no longer have the ball. And comparing the ball to source is also silly. I am not saying Microsoft give up Windows for free, I am saying that they document their API's so that other developers can use them to make better products. Sheesh. You must not have done well on the english section of your SATs.
Don't like the high price? Try to offer a similar product at a better price. That's what a free market is all about. There is nothing immoral about them charging as much as they like for an OS. You might counter that this takes money from the pockets of organizations like hospitals that offer lifesaving services. The counterpoint is that if they charged less it would reduce the quality of life of employees and stockholders, which can kill just as many people as bad health care (poverty is no better for your health than an x-ray machine that crashes, it just kills in a less dramatic fashion).
First of all, have you ever read any of the reasons the DOJ was going after Microsoft? Their OEM practices are deplorable. But I'll let you mill through archives for info on that. Yes, it is a very bad thing to over charge for an OS when you're monopolizing. Try a similar product? There is much to choose from, but you still have to support the mainstream. If Dell or Compaq suddenly decided that they cannot afford Microsoft's products, and go entirely with BSD, Linux, etc., they'd quickly run out of business because of the MS monopoly. In the medical business, you go to several different companies if you want to buy equipment. They quote you prices. You make your selection based on deals. You cannot do this with MS. The information to make a competing x-ray machine is open and available to everyone. It's in science journals. Designs are public knowledge. No one said "you cannot infringe upon our rights to make x-ray machines." However, Microsoft makes their design closed and unavailable so that no one can make an alternative (instead, we use clean room tactics to get as much as we can, hence WINE), therefore, there is no choice to try a similar product at a better price. If Microsoft turned open source, they'd still have a business. People would choose Microsoft as an authority on Windows, but other companies could make Windows-compatible alternatives that would be cheaper and perhaps even better (then again, the source is a mess).
Ugh. I should give up. People like you infuriate me so much that I can barely form a coherent arguement against your rebutal to my case of Microsoft's wrong-doings in their monopolizing, greedy, and certainly tyrannical business policies. I have nothing against capitalism, of course it's a great system. BUT, evolution cannot occur when there's only one way of doing things and no way to break out of it. And WHY must you go on with this clearly stupid view of OSS==socialism? Socialism is about everyone being equal and surviving equally regardless. OSS is about survival of the fittest! THINK!
What Java technology can do that C# and .NET can't
by
yerricde
·
· Score: 5
I dare you to find me an application that java can handle that C# cannot - TODAY.
Three things Java technology can do that C# and.NET can't today, January 23, 2001:
Run as an applet in web browsers on Macintosh computers.
Run as an applet in web browsers on GNU/Linux or Solaris systems.
The Last Block in Microsoft's plan
by
hooded1
·
· Score: 3
As most of us know Microsoft was out to get Java from the start. Their reasons were quite simple really: they feared and hated what they could not control. Over the past 5(more/less?) years we have seen microsoft make many attempts at destroying java. Many of these attacks have been only partially successful, although they have removed Java from some areas, it is still quite strong in others. As some of you may know, Java is the most common language taught in College Comp Sci courses. In the past 2 years schools have been increasingly moving away from c++ and closer to java. I believe this recent victory of Microsoft will barely influence college's choice to use Java.
-- A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
This is actually a pretty good settlement for Sun
by
alexhmit01
·
· Score: 5
Microsoft settled for VERY intelligent reasons. They need to conserve their legal resources. They got embarassed in the anti-trust suit, and with the findings of fact, there was no way that they'd win this suit.
The injuction about the logo wasn't too big a deal. MS doesn't need it. However, this goes beyond the logo.
They can't use Sun's IP. That means that they can't produce a Java anything. They can keep their existing Java software on the market for 7 years, (very key, screwing with Visual Studio now would annoy them) but they can't make more.
This means that the JVM plug-ins can be used preventing MSIE broken Java. With the next version, the Java VM disappears. Now, it is questionable if a third-party can write a reasonably fast Windows JVM, but who knows.
Java is taught at MIT, it is taught at most schools. Except the "elite" CS schools that still teach whatever their developed version of LISP is, most schools are teaching Java starting from the intros. With the CS curriculum in HS switching, Java programmers will be prevalent.
This won't change. Java is a REALLY good teaching language. Yes, there are easier ones, but schools don't like teaching strange tech. They want to be able to be "real world" enough to interest students. C++ has been a nightmare, Pascal was long dead when it was given up, Java is a nice language. It is easy to teach CS principles in it.
Java will still run on Windows. However, it will be a Sun or IBM Java VM, not a MS one. This means that MS can't break compatibility. Sun won. MS settled because they'd lose everything in the case. Also, this is good for MS Spin because they "drop support" for Java. However, Java won't go away.
Java IDEs are getting better. They will replace VB for "stupid apps." Meaning, I can write my DB applications in Java (possibly for JSP deployment via web browser), and run them on Solaris, Linux, and Macintosh, plus Windows. Someone will have to write a good VM for Windows, but it can be done. Also, Win2K helps here.
Win2K makes it easy to deploy applications across the Enterprise (if you are big enough to waste the time to learn all the stuff for it). This means that big companies can deploy the new VM quickly. This will help Java.
MacOS X is going to help Java, Mac will probably be able to build up to 10-15% of the user base. Why? With the Internet, the local platform matters less, and MacOS X is intuitive and powerful. I expect Linux to grab about 5%-10% of the userbase as it becomes more easily used.
MS will maintain 75%-80%, but a unified front of MacOS/Linux (via Java and a shared UNIX/BSD background) will prevent the monopolization of the past as long as the anti-trust lawsuit stays around.
Expect MacOS X.1 or whatever they call it to support X natively, that will let open source apps run on it. Microsoft isn't going away, they aren't going under, they may not even shrink (the market is still expanding, albeit slowly), but their ability to force everyone out will be gone soon, and Java may do it.
This DOES justify Sun's keeping Java proprietary. That's why MS couldn't kill it with Embrace and Extend. Open Source can "win" in that nobody can destroy it, but it can't "win" in the legal game. Sun was able to fight off MS, even if they weren't as pure with their code as we'd like.
While everyone is busy rejoicing Microsoft's departure from the land of Java, I'd like to remind them of what else Java is losing:
- Microsoft's innovations. Feel free to knock their OS'es, but their language experience is great. They built a wickedly fast (albeit nonstandard) JVM way before anyone else could.
- Top-notch tools. Dev studio is one of the slickest IDE's out there, and puts the other clumsy, bug-ridden java tools to shame (jbuilder, cafe).
- Exposure. Like it or not, Microsoft represents the majority. Losing MS won't make it any easier for java to gain mainstream acceptance. Wouldn't it be great if IE5 supported Java 2 right out of the box?
-- Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Re:Java needs MS - Sorry, you are incorrect.
by
slashbrent
·
· Score: 3
Your comment makes the unwritten assumption that MS is the only way Java can be developed and/or implemented on an M$ box/databse/OS.
Borland, Metrowerks, Netscape, AOL, Whoever *CAN* produce compliant (and labeled appropriately) Java tools/apps for an M$ system. I dont see how M$, as one vendor, halts support on the entire platform. Perl and Apache run on just fine on M$, as does Java under Netscape/Mozilla (except Java on the current Linux builds, which sucks, but i digress).
The real "win" here is that MS can no longer kill Java by embracing it and essentially polluting it until its only of use to Gates and company. Maybe now we can force them to use the *correct* version.
Hey Bill: McNealy OWNZ you!!!:-)
..Brent "One musn't enthone ignorance simply because there is so much of it."
--
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
Java Becoming Irrelevant...
by
pnatural
·
· Score: 3
because languages are becoming irrelevant. or more specifically, differences between languages are becoming irrelevant. remember 10 years ago when the only way to write a fast app was to code in C? these days, you can get almost the same performance from any number of languages. what happens when all user-land code is relegated to the same run-time sandbox? does the language matter at all?
on the one hand, a language independent compiler or byte-code is a good thing because it provides an additional layer of abstraction, but in the specific case of Java, Sun has made a very determined effort to associate Java the language with Java the byte-code. (or if you're a half-empty kinda person, Sun has not made the effort to distinguish between the two). if the language becomes less important, so does the byte-code. enter.NET, a platform with true language independence, and Sun/Java suddenly looks much less attractive.
i don't mean to spew off MS FUD, but what they've done with.NET and it's language independence is remarkable. i can (and have) written a class in Python, inherited from that class in VB, and debugged the two together as a Perl app. seems to me that with.NET, i'm getting my cake and eating it, too.
Re:This is actually a pretty good settlement for S
by
_xeno_
·
· Score: 4
It should probably be noted that as it turns out, Sun concentrates on the Windows JVM for their JDK first, then on Solaris, and then on Linux. The Windows version of JDK1.3 was out before the Solaris version. The Windows JDKs from Sun are already very good.
As long as developers can bundle the Java Runtime Environment installer for Windows, Windows Java Apps won't suffer at all.
-- You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Re:This is actually a pretty good settlement for S
by
RayChuang
·
· Score: 3
Well, there is a real good reason why Sun wants the Java VM to work on the WIN32 API first: that is -85 percent- of the market for desktop computers and small servers.
Sun may dislike Microsoft but frankly, Sun knows that for Java to be significant they -have- to be able to run on the most popular OS platform by a long, long way.
Don't be surprised that this settlement may result in a deal for a Sun-certified Java VM to be part of Internet Explorer 6.0, or at least provide direct hooks to work under IE 6.0.
Slashdot Mirror
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
``The Microsoft .NET platform is the best way to build, deliver and aggregate Web Services, and Microsoft is committed to helping software developers build Web Services with whatever programming language is most appropriate for their particular needs.''
Well, this seems to be the party line for the forseeable future.
While the Technology looks promising, the big problem is their track record. Ultimately, the old saw of never buying version 1.0 of anything is very true of MS products.
This is just my opinion, based on my experience. Even if I want to trust that vision, I find that I cannot. I have been burned too often. In each case, it as a matter of a litte less value, for a little more money. Maybe I exagerate, but that is what it seems like.
and so I make a comment only slightly tongue in cheek when I saw that I am slightly concerned about the World Wide Web becoming Microsoft's fishing .NET
It makes me nervous.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
To me, this looks like a major hiccup for Microsoft. Under the terms of this agreement, MS has permanently lost the rights to the Java Compatible trademark. From the Sun press release:
With the contract terminated, Sun and Microsoft have agreed to end the current litigation, initiated in October, 1997 before Judge Ronald M. Whyte in U.S. District Court in San Jose, under the following general terms:
- The Court will enter a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark. Previously, the Court found that Microsoft had distributed incompatible implementations of the Java technology, and the court entered a preliminary injunction barring Microsoft from using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark on these incompatible products.
- To protect developers and consumers who have already invested in Microsofts implementations of the Java technology, Sun has agreed to grant Microsoft a limited license to continue shipping essentially as is its currently shipping implementations of the outdated 1.1.4 version of the Java technology. Those products have already been modified to comply with injunctions secured by Sun in the litigation. The license covers only the products that already contain the Java technology, and lasts only for seven years.
Beyond that, Microsoft has no rights to distribute the Java technology, or to otherwise use any of Suns intellectual property.To those who believe this sounds the death knell for Java, think again. Microsoft is now in the unenviable position of not being able to use the most widely recognised java trademark, while its competitors (Sun, Netscape and others) will be able to capitalize on it. This agreement is even wider than Java, stopping MS from licensing, distributing or making use of any of Suns Intellectual Property either. That may make C#'s passage into the world a little tricky if Sun has much of the Java technology patented...
C# doesn't cut it. It's not here now and Java is and has been for six years.C# is still months off release and even at the first release it won't get wide use until the development tools and toolkits catch up. That will hurt.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
MSFT wrote the best and fastest compiler for Java hands down when Sun started this stupidity. RMI was a freakin' mess, Netscape caused half of it, and then Sun comes after MSFT. There are cases where MSFT does some annoying stuff, like forcing MSN bookmarks in IE, but this one I can't fault them for. I give a big middle finger to Sun for blowing what Java could have been.
Yet another example of intellectual property rights being used to do the right thing...
Thalia
Microsoft, I mean. They never knew how to play their hand right. Gates was moneyed from the start, with his father's fortune from the bootlegging days, and Bill's Harvard degree. But he never had the sense knocked into him, y'know?
When I first got started in this industry, it took me thirty years for me to hear the name "Microsoft", and it wasn't because I was off on Madagascar with the lemurs or nothing. It was because Microsoft didn't even exist yet. Didn't even exist. Do you remember what that was like? Some day you kids will tell your young rascals about what it was like to walk to school up-hill both ways knee-deep in AOL cds, but there was a time when these conglomerates didn't exist. That was when IBM was all we needed, the big blue momma. Man, could IBM shine. And then they were shoved out of the PC industry by that devil Microsoft and that whore Intel. I will never forget that day when my boss came in and gave us the news. Wow.
And here's Microsoft getting shoved around by Sun, now. And with the law on someone else's side, too. You never saw IBM make that mistake, no sir. IBM knew how to play its antitrust hand, and IBM knew how to deal with upstarts. IBM is up there next to General Motors in my book, and not just because they made me the man I am (just as GM made me the man I was in the backseat of that Chevy Sport Coupe that summer back in, well darn, it's slipped my mind). Microsoft? No one will remember them in twenty years. Heh, and I won't be around to see it happen, neither.
Sun can keep Java. As long as they don't touch my cobol. It wasn't my first language, but man could I make that baby fly like a greased pig out of an oil can. Object oriented? Object sharing? Classes? My parents' generation taught us in primary school to share, and anything we wanted to learn about classes we learned in the streets with a switchblade. That's why Bill and Microsoft never got off the ground. No common sense. No street sense. If he'd have walked for one mile in another man's long underwear, he'd have known that you don't mess with another man's shoes. Or his Java, either.
Good riddens, Microsoft. I spit on the mockery you've made of us all. You are not welcome at the family barbequeue in Jersey.
Read the rest of this comment...
A few points:
1. Java has done very well without Micrsoft support. I agree that Micrsoft support would be optimal, but I think that java is good enough that it doesn't need it, even though it could benefit from it.
2. Microsoft was not really supporting or helping Java or Sun all along. They did some shitty shit with Visual J++. They put "windows only" extensions and nullified the whole point of Java, thus screwing over programmers, themselves, and Sun to an extent, while at the same time blatantly breaking the licensing and contracts that they had with Sun for the development of a Java IDE.
3. I love java, but where it works best right now is Windows, which is rediculous. If it is to have a bright future on other operating systems, which I completely believe it does, it will need to have everything be more syncronized and not come out with different OS versions at different times. It shows disrespect for their own cross-platform philosophy.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Microsoft has many good things about them. But, they have a few critically bad things. These things should be the reasons we bash MS:
1. They monopolize the computer industry and stifle competition.
2. They do not open their source so that other developers can create software on an even playing field with them.
3. They are not responsive to fixing flaws in their systems that are discovered by the community at large.
4. They overcharge for their software and force their clients into a nasty, anti-competetive business relationship.
None of these are "bash Microsoft because their software sucks." Now, it's true that Windows is below par, but that's not the only thing they do.
Calm down. Poor quality software is the *worst* reason to bash a closed-source, inflexable, monopolizing corporation. Fundamental matters of principle carry a lot more weight.
I dare you to find me an application that java can handle that C# cannot - TODAY.
Three things Java technology can do that C# andLike Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
As most of us know Microsoft was out to get Java from the start. Their reasons were quite simple really: they feared and hated what they could not control. Over the past 5(more/less?) years we have seen microsoft make many attempts at destroying java. Many of these attacks have been only partially successful, although they have removed Java from some areas, it is still quite strong in others. As some of you may know, Java is the most common language taught in College Comp Sci courses. In the past 2 years schools have been increasingly moving away from c++ and closer to java. I believe this recent victory of Microsoft will barely influence college's choice to use Java.
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Microsoft settled for VERY intelligent reasons. They need to conserve their legal resources. They got embarassed in the anti-trust suit, and with the findings of fact, there was no way that they'd win this suit.
The injuction about the logo wasn't too big a deal. MS doesn't need it. However, this goes beyond the logo.
They can't use Sun's IP. That means that they can't produce a Java anything. They can keep their existing Java software on the market for 7 years, (very key, screwing with Visual Studio now would annoy them) but they can't make more.
This means that the JVM plug-ins can be used preventing MSIE broken Java. With the next version, the Java VM disappears. Now, it is questionable if a third-party can write a reasonably fast Windows JVM, but who knows.
Java is taught at MIT, it is taught at most schools. Except the "elite" CS schools that still teach whatever their developed version of LISP is, most schools are teaching Java starting from the intros. With the CS curriculum in HS switching, Java programmers will be prevalent.
This won't change. Java is a REALLY good teaching language. Yes, there are easier ones, but schools don't like teaching strange tech. They want to be able to be "real world" enough to interest students. C++ has been a nightmare, Pascal was long dead when it was given up, Java is a nice language. It is easy to teach CS principles in it.
Java will still run on Windows. However, it will be a Sun or IBM Java VM, not a MS one. This means that MS can't break compatibility. Sun won. MS settled because they'd lose everything in the case. Also, this is good for MS Spin because they "drop support" for Java. However, Java won't go away.
Java IDEs are getting better. They will replace VB for "stupid apps." Meaning, I can write my DB applications in Java (possibly for JSP deployment via web browser), and run them on Solaris, Linux, and Macintosh, plus Windows. Someone will have to write a good VM for Windows, but it can be done. Also, Win2K helps here.
Win2K makes it easy to deploy applications across the Enterprise (if you are big enough to waste the time to learn all the stuff for it). This means that big companies can deploy the new VM quickly. This will help Java.
MacOS X is going to help Java, Mac will probably be able to build up to 10-15% of the user base. Why? With the Internet, the local platform matters less, and MacOS X is intuitive and powerful. I expect Linux to grab about 5%-10% of the userbase as it becomes more easily used.
MS will maintain 75%-80%, but a unified front of MacOS/Linux (via Java and a shared UNIX/BSD background) will prevent the monopolization of the past as long as the anti-trust lawsuit stays around.
Expect MacOS X.1 or whatever they call it to support X natively, that will let open source apps run on it. Microsoft isn't going away, they aren't going under, they may not even shrink (the market is still expanding, albeit slowly), but their ability to force everyone out will be gone soon, and Java may do it.
This DOES justify Sun's keeping Java proprietary. That's why MS couldn't kill it with Embrace and Extend. Open Source can "win" in that nobody can destroy it, but it can't "win" in the legal game. Sun was able to fight off MS, even if they weren't as pure with their code as we'd like.
- Microsoft's innovations. Feel free to knock their OS'es, but their language experience is great. They built a wickedly fast (albeit nonstandard) JVM way before anyone else could.
- Top-notch tools. Dev studio is one of the slickest IDE's out there, and puts the other clumsy, bug-ridden java tools to shame (jbuilder, cafe).
- Exposure. Like it or not, Microsoft represents the majority. Losing MS won't make it any easier for java to gain mainstream acceptance. Wouldn't it be great if IE5 supported Java 2 right out of the box?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Your comment makes the unwritten assumption that MS is the only way Java can be developed and/or implemented on an M$ box/databse/OS.
Borland, Metrowerks, Netscape, AOL, Whoever *CAN* produce compliant (and labeled appropriately) Java tools/apps for an M$ system. I dont see how M$, as one vendor, halts support on the entire platform. Perl and Apache run on just fine on M$, as does Java under Netscape/Mozilla (except Java on the current Linux builds, which sucks, but i digress).
The real "win" here is that MS can no longer kill Java by embracing it and essentially polluting it until its only of use to Gates and company. Maybe now we can force them to use the *correct* version.
Hey Bill: McNealy OWNZ you!!! :-)
..Brent
"One musn't enthone ignorance simply because there is so much of it."
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
because languages are becoming irrelevant. or more specifically, differences between languages are becoming irrelevant. remember 10 years ago when the only way to write a fast app was to code in C? these days, you can get almost the same performance from any number of languages. what happens when all user-land code is relegated to the same run-time sandbox? does the language matter at all?
.NET, a platform with true language independence, and Sun/Java suddenly looks much less attractive.
.NET and it's language independence is remarkable. i can (and have) written a class in Python, inherited from that class in VB, and debugged the two together as a Perl app. seems to me that with .NET, i'm getting my cake and eating it, too.
on the one hand, a language independent compiler or byte-code is a good thing because it provides an additional layer of abstraction, but in the specific case of Java, Sun has made a very determined effort to associate Java the language with Java the byte-code. (or if you're a half-empty kinda person, Sun has not made the effort to distinguish between the two). if the language becomes less important, so does the byte-code. enter
i don't mean to spew off MS FUD, but what they've done with
As long as developers can bundle the Java Runtime Environment installer for Windows, Windows Java Apps won't suffer at all.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Well, there is a real good reason why Sun wants the Java VM to work on the WIN32 API first: that is -85 percent- of the market for desktop computers and small servers.
Sun may dislike Microsoft but frankly, Sun knows that for Java to be significant they -have- to be able to run on the most popular OS platform by a long, long way.
Don't be surprised that this settlement may result in a deal for a Sun-certified Java VM to be part of Internet Explorer 6.0, or at least provide direct hooks to work under IE 6.0.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA