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Microsoft Ordered to Carry Java
An anonymous reader was the 17,232th person to submit that "Microsoft has been ordered to include Sun's Java runtime in Windows. Coverage from AP (via Yahoo), Reuters (via news.com), and, let's say, the BBC."
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It's interesting to guess whether others are submitting a given story. I guess this was a no-brainer.
... until you get back to that monopoly abuse.
Coercion: the power to require Microsoft to include Java is the same that allows the gov't, or any successful antitrust plaintiff, to force them to do anything different. Because of their market power, which puts them on nearly every desktop in America, their default config has a lot of promotional influence. Up to now, that influence has entirely favored Microsoft, which sounds appropriate
Whether THIS particular coercion is a good idea, we'll see. Whether coercion is never the right thing, well that's much broader.
A partial analogy would be Microsoft owning the default Yellow Pages distributed to everyone's door and selecting who can be in it -- say, virtually everyone but "Sun." Now, anyone can go get one of the other free directories, but will they? Advantage: Microsoft.
Also, Java isn't exactly a competitor's product; it's also an attempt at an industry-wide open standard that Microsoft wants to subvert, dominate, and exploit. Hey, they already tried.
It's a difficult problem to set things right in the wake of antitrust problems. Market forces generally do a decent job of figuring these things out (the "invisible hand"). But when some clever party makes the market its own, and then abuses it, the rules have to change, and gov't regulation, or a breakup, are the most common remedies.
If you don't think MS should have been sued in the first place, you will not believe any of these rationales, and probably not that antitrust is necessary in the first place. Many think some market failures need correction, but not everyone.
Is it just me, or is this thread boiling over with ignorance?
.NET *cough*
This is *exactly* what MS did to Netscape a few years back, and a court found them guilty. They bundled their own technology and made it inconvienient to use competing products. *cough*
It seems to me that this judge is basically just upholding that ruling and *not* allowing MS to do the same thing to Sun.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
A lot of posters have gone on about the pros and cons of this as a victory for sun. But remember, Sun will benefit very little from this. In the Java software space, they're nowhere. They don't sell the language. They have next to nothing to offer for development tools at a price. About all they get is bragging rights.
It's IBM who's probably tipping the bubbly right now. And, a lot of Java developers.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I'm still trying to figure out why Outlook Express is a required part of Internet Explorer!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
What's next? Should Microsoft be forced to include Mozilla with every copy of Windows?
:)
In a word yes! That is if Microsoft shipped with Windows say a 5 year old version of Netscape and modified it only work for websites running IIS. (Not the best analogy but the best I could think of right now
This is what essentially Microsoft has done with its bastardized version of the Java VM. Microsoft's VM is an old version of 1.1 modified with it's extensions which enabled developers to lock themselves to the Windows platform. Now of course most developers learned this early on and avoided the lock-in, plus most of Java development is done on the server now, but Mircosoft continues to provide their old VM. This alone has pretty much killed off most client side Java.
I believe Sun made the first big mistake years ago by not providing the definitive Windows VM. You didn't see Macromedia giving Microsoft the right to implement Flash anyway they saw fit way back when.
I don't necessarily agree with this ruling either, I actually would have been happy if the ruling was to force Microsoft to eliminate their old VM from existence.
Since you bring it up, nobody knows what would happen if M$ folded up. But I can tell you this much, before M$ came along companies were churning out revolutionary software and services, and M$ still haven't added much to the mix. On the way to buying everything in sight and vaporwareing their way to infamy they have certainly killed off some interesting products that came too close to their core interests. If you don't think that's true then you don't understand fully why they are being called on the carpet as a monopoly.
People think that rich companies are good for the economy. If Big Blue had killed the PC somehow would our economy be better now? IBM was rich, still is, so why not kill the PC? Or how about the Bell system. Got their asses kicked, and good thing. Otherwise do you seriously think your silly cell phone technology would have ever taken off? The Bell system was rich, but that didn't make for a great economy and fabulous options in personal communications. Did it.
You like M$, you can have them. You want to Be Like Bill, have at it. It's just money, it's not progress. Some of us still know the difference.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
If you had a higher UID, I'd accuse you of being a Microsoft astroturfer...
all products from MS that include .NET runtime must supply Sun Java.......this is ass-backwards. .NET is a runtime enviroment (as is java of course).....if an application uses .NET at its core, for example Visual Studio .NET, they need to include the runtime
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Nobody is talking about applications - if MS wants to ship the .NET runtime with their O/S (future versions of XP, etc.) then they also have to ship the Java runtime.
MS adds extensions for Windows only development, which are optional to developers depending on their target market (HINT: Apple has Cocoa extensions in Java......samething......they are optional)
Another poster has pointed out how misleading this is. Java has a method that you can use to add extensions to the language - MS deliberaely chose not to use it, thus creating an incompatible Java implementation. This is not the "same thing" at all.
Microsoft should counter Sun needs to carry .NET with Solaris and StarOffice, as they both include Java. (And MS has a BSD runtime now...for developers, not fully completed libraries yet)
First, I don't see Microsoft shipping a .NET implementation for Solaris now or any time in the future. Second, even if they did, Sun is not a convicted monopolist, which means that they don't have to play by the same rules as MS. When will you MS apologists get this through your thick heads?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Sun is #1 in UNIX sales , Sun sells a huge array of software, all of which runs on their hardware. I have to say you are completely wrong on this point unless you can point us to something besides your statement. Where do you get the %65 figure?
So the more mature technology can be squashed just by just playing the waiting game? I agree with the judge: Motz wrote that if Microsoft's system was to remain dominant, "it should be because of
So weird of an idea that it scared the crap out of MS, the whole make the OS irrelevant thing you may have missed. Hmmm.. I have seen Java applets and full applications on many sites. Please point us to something supporting your 'very few sites' contention. If you think that Flash is the main competitor for Java, then, well, your opinion weighs very little.
Most rabid MS supporters want to ignore that MS was found to be a monopoly in Jude Jackson's findings of fact. MS appealed the judges decision for break up based upon those findings of fact, but the FoF stand as does the monopoly declaration. That means that MS has a different set of rules they must adhere to now because of their dominance in several different markets.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain