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Sun Files Suit Against Microsoft for Anti-Trust Violations
Herve writes "Sun Microsystems announced it has filed a private antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation. The suit, filed March 8, 2002 in the United States District Court in San Jose, CA., seeks remedies for the harm inflicted by Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior with respect to the Java[tm] platform and for damages resulting from Microsoft's illegal efforts to maintain and expand its monopoly power. In June 2001, the Federal Court of Appeals found Microsoft guilty of illegally abusing its monopoly power with respect to Sun and the Java platform. Sun's suit seeks to redress the competitive and economic harm caused by Microsoft's illegal acts."
Companies like Netscape and AOL and now Sun are just now all sueing MS simply because they have lost faith in the Justice Dept to hand down stiff penalties on Microsoft, so companies harmed by Microsoft are now seeking to send down their own penalties (as in most of these lawsuits will end in MS paying off the plaintiff).
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Check the mozilla source code for what's required for a browser... Even after you remove things that are more than just the browser (mail, news, etc), there is still quite a bit of work on top of an HTML renderer.
:)
The net layer stuff for communication with servers, bookmarks, history, security, etc...
If the 'HTML component' does all of this, then I would argue its a part of IE.
PS: let's just consider the fact that everyone is already familiar with the 'mozilla bloat' jokes/comments and we don't need to rehash them
MS's attitude was that there was no way they were going to allow Java to take over the Windows programming market in a way that might make Windows irrelevant underneath. They succeeded.
Sun's attitude was that there was no way they were going to allow Java to become "just a better way to write Windows apps." They succeeded.
As a result, Java is virtually irrelevant to Windows client app development, and since Windows is the vast majority of all "computer-scale" clients, Java is irrelevant for almost all client programming. Go team!
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
M$ has actually done a pretty good job of manipulating the whole Java thing. They new initially that IE would ide unless they included Java. But, the couldn't help themslves, and had to add proprietary M$ extensions.
Then they jumped on the bandwagon of people trying to get Sun to release a standard for Java (and release control if it). But they weren't doing this because they felt that it would be good for consumers/customers. They wanted it standardized so that they could manipulate the statndard. Since Sun knew this, (and they don't have a monopoly) Sun had to do something to keep some control over Java so that M$ couldn't destroy it thru manipulation of the standard.
(M$ C# doesn't have they problem, so M$ "standardized it". When will the first M$ only exstension appear? Since M$ holds a monopoly and can create a new defacto standard if anyone else comes close to competing they aren't worried. I'd love to see someone like Sun propose a change to the "standard" just to see M$ either use it's weight to block it, ignore the new standard, or what ever.
Anyway, now M$ is trying to play all innocent and portray Sun as evil. But, in reality, M$ was successful in killing Java in the browser and are now trying to replace it with C#. Just trying to copy^h^h^h^hinnovate great technology.
On January 23, 2001 Microsoft and Sun settled on the lawsuit about Microsoft shipping non-standard versions of Java. Part of the settlement was the following: "Sun has agreed to grant Microsoft a limited license to continue to distribute its current version of the software, provided that all future versions of such products pass Sun's compatibility tests. This part of the agreement lasts seven years. Beyond that date, Microsoft can not distribute Java technology or use any of Sun's intellectual property."
Ok, so Microsoft can't distribute any Java after 2008. But Microsoft decided not to included the Java VM with Windows XP, kind of saying we don't need your stinking POS. Now, on this new lawsuit Sun asks among other things for: "Preliminary injunctions prior to trial requiring Microsoft to: Distribute Sun's current, binary implementation of Java Plug-in as part of Windows XP and Internet Explorer." Why don't they make up their fucking mind?
It seems to me Sun is just looking for some money to pad their lackluster balance sheet. If you think Sun is doing any of this for the good of the public you should stop watching the Teletubbies.
It's amazing that Sun's (or any other non-M$) VM could approach the M$ VM perf considering the proprietary hooks and low-level tricks M$ used to get that kind of performance.
That's the basic sin of M$ that hurts the consumer: They ensure their monopoly of apps because they don't disclose the available APIs to get the best performance. They save those goodies only for themselves, then point fingers at how slow the other guy's app runs. NO KIDDING!! If I was able to pre-load all of my piece-of-junk apps so they open quickly then use tricks no one else can access to speed them up, I'd be doing well, too! No wonder that non-M$ apps stay slow...they only get the leftovers of the resources M$ apps hog!
No matter how you frame it, the consumer has the ultimate choice in the matter...to buy or not to buy. If the majority of consumers cared about this, they'd change their buying habits.
at the danger of being accused of being 'dismissive', and of feeding a troll..
have you even looked up the definition of a monopoly? exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action. basically that means the monopolist has such leverage in the market, individuals no longer CAN choose an alternative. that is the point.
Antitrust laws are unobjective and arbitrary, punishing successful companies for the "crime" of being better than their competitors.
Far from it. It is fine if Microsoft is so much better than their competitors that they control most of the desktop operating system market. That is fine and good, a monopoly is not in and of itself an evil thing. But, if a monopoly uses that monopoly position to: (1) artificially inflate prices of a necessity (such as a desktop OS); (2) tie their products in other markets to their monopoly position in the desktop OS market (such as a web browser); or (3) use illegal 'blocking' means to prevent and/or stifle competition (such as agreements with computer vendors to bundle Windows and only Windows or pay the consequences).
note that i'm not trying to 'dismiss' you, just point out that maybe you don't realise that people do NOT have the choices you claim they do.
-rp
Seriously, if you MS spies or whatever you call yourselves are going to come onto slashdot and post up pro MS drivel in the face of criticism, the least you an do is try to mask it a little bit. Good Lord. That entire post is possibly the most ignorant, Microsoft Certified Shit Comment I've ever read.
I realize that I should not attack your post with only insults, so I'll give an example, but only one since I don't have much time.
You cannot honestly ask any company to ship their competitor's product with their own. That is an absurd idea at best.
The problem is not that MS Windows doesn't come with Netscape or Java or any other competition. The problem is that Microsoft makes contracts with resellers that say if they're going to sell Microsoft Crap.X version of the OS then they have to include certain things, and they have to leave out certain things (like netscape and java.) Therefore, the illegal action is not leaving the competition off their CDs, but forcing the computer sellers to only have MS crap on their machines. That's mafia-esque and just as illegal.
~ now you know
IANAL, but it looks as if they are alledging that Microsoft built the CLR off of their "illegal" Java VM. I have to say, it *was* the first thing that entered my mind when I heard how the CLR functioned. Proving that they are one and the same (with many many many additions and modifications along the way) could be the thrust of this whole lawsuit - carefully buried in item #184 all the way at the end of the document.
I'm a 2000 man.
It's amazing that Sun's (or any other non-M$) VM could approach the M$ VM perf considering the proprietary hooks and low-level tricks M$ used to get that kind of performance.
You know what most of those proprietary hooks and low-level tricks are?
Not using fopen and malloc to handle all of your memory management and file i/o.
That's it. End of story.
Use VirtualAlloc for memory management, and you'll get better perf.
Use CreateFile with overlapped I/O or completion ports, and you'll get better perf.
Basically, Sun writes their code to be ported, and MS writes it directly to their platform. Portable code = sucky performance. Live with it -- don't blame Microsoft because Sun don't tune their code.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra