MS Must Ship Java With Windows Within 120 Days

Suppafly writes "Cnet is reporting that a federal judge on Wednesday ordered Microsoft to begin shipping Sun Microsystems' Java with the Windows operating system within 120 days, after the companies fought over implementing a ruling he made last month."

Comments

Re:Its about time

[MisterFancypants]

1) You realize, of course, this won't help you for a long time. This only has an impact on new Windows installs. You'll be dealing with users who have older Windows installs for a long, long time.

2) Use the Sun JavaPlugin and/or WebStart, that's what they exist for.

I feel bad for Microsoft

[pyite]

I have to side with Microsoft on this one. I don't think the government should have the power to say you must include X in your product. It's like the government mandating that Ford must use Bosch break systems in their vehicles even though Ford can make their own cheaper (purely hypothetical situation). How would everyone like it if the court forced Debian to include Sun's Java as part of the standard install instead of the user having the option to install gcj for instance?

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[Sabalon]

I agree they shouldn't be able to say you must include x.

However, from what I read earlier on in ths case it is not as simple. What I read was that MS had signed a contract with Sun that they would include Java and then backed out, so I guess this comes down to being the punishment for breach of contract, not just because Sun is whining.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is a monopoly. They don't face the same market pressures that most companies face, and so have to play by a different set of rules. The government is trying to increase competition on the desktop. This can only be good for consumers.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[squiggleslash]

How would everyone like it if the court forced Debian to include Sun's Java as part of the standard install

I don't think anyone would give a flying f--- to be honest, as long as you could select "custom install" and remove it.

Of course, Debian isn't an abusive monopoly (or abusive, or a monopoly) and hasn't made any efforts to kill Java, so the situation is rather different and a court wouldn't make that ruling, even if it were the case that we'd all be really, really, upset were the court to make it.

Microsoft is a convicted abusive monopolist. Microsoft used its dominant market position to control the market, and has used that control to crush its competitors or would be competitors. Microsoft's behaviour was immoral, has caused immeasurable damage to the industry as a whole, and was, rightly, found to be illegal. Get over it.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[RevMike]

Don't feel bad for M$. They did violate the law.

A major point of law in the area of monopolies is that a company that has a monopoly in one area can't use that monopoly to build a second monopoly in another area.

M$ was using Java, then dropped Java entirely in order to promote their .Net product. By excluding Java in favor of their own product, they are trying to leverage their desktop monopoly into another area.

By your example, Ford does not need to use Bosch brakes because Ford is an oligopoly, not a monopoly. If Ford, GM, VW, Toyota, etc. decided to start a joint venture to make their own brakes and exclude Bosch, the analogy would be more apt.

The Debian analogy also isn't valid. There are many viable commercial and non-commercial distros. And Debian also doesn't own a competing product.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[KDan]

I don't think that analogy works very well in this case. If you look at the history of the case, you'll see that the whole point of Java was to have a write-once, run-anywhere platform. Java published the specs to that, and Microsoft, having identified this as a great danger to its OS monopoly, hurried to try to break it as much as possible. Hence their coming out with a Microsoft VM which is, on purpose, incompatible with the Sun VM. As Sun owns the Java language and virtual machine specs, that's not only unfair but also illegal.

The fact that Microsoft, after bashing Sun's "Network Computers" initiative a few years back, is now coming out with its very own .NET (which is basically a repackaging of Java + network computers), should clue you in to the dishonesty with which they have been acting. Given all that bad behaviour, it's only fair to give Sun a few brownie points and a chance to get back on top with their excellent Java language, especially now that Micro$oft has had all the time they needed to come out with their competing version (.NET).

Oh, and by the way, we're not talking about the Java compiler (which would be comparable to gcj which you mentioned), but about the Java Virtual Machine, which allows Java programs compiled elsewhere to run on your machine.

Daniel

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[RevMike]

Not including a competing product by default, because a company wants you to use the product they make. Shameful I tell you. SHAMEFUL!

In a normal market environment, there is nothing shameful about this. It may be good business.

The key point is that in a market based society, gov't should minimize its interference with companies that are participating in a market. However, when a market does not exist (a monopoly) gov't does have the duty to regulate to protect the consumers and competitors in closely alligned markets.

That M$ has a monopoly on the desktop is unfortunate. That M$ extended that monopoly to Office apps because Lotus and Corel are lame is unfortunate. That M$ successfully leveraged their desktop monopoly into a browser monopoly and is trying to do the same in the run-anywhere language space is a SHAMEFUL predatory illegal business practice.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[silas_moeckel]

This is because MS has a monopoly position and they are calling something that realy isn't fully Java Java.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[rhavyn]

So where's that uninstall IE, OE, MSN Messenger and all that other crap that I don't want button. Oh, wait, there isn't one. So what that means that if Microsoft is able to leverage their monopoly in the desktop operating system market into new markets by forcing people to have those programs on their computers, the only way to fix the problem is to force them to remove those programs (they say they can't) or force them to distribute the competitors. Then no one can complain that the market is skewed in MS's favor because MS is forced to carry everyone's product. Don't like it, don't bitch to me, go tell Microsoft that you want a level playing field for everyone and to get rid of all the shit they "integrated" into the OS.

The point is, Microsoft has been convicted of being an illegal monopoly. They have been convicted of breaking a contract with Sun to carry Java. People who do those things don't get to make all their own decisions anymore. Sorry that MS's customers are being hurt by their illegal behavior, but it's not like no one has been saying to dumb MS to avoid these kinds of problems.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[squiggleslash]

Okay then, look at it from the opposite direction. How would you like if the court ordered Microsoft to include Debian as part of the standard install?

I'd laugh my head off. How exactly do you expect me to respond to that? It's gibberish. How, exactly, does Microsoft include Debian as part of the standard install? Does it co-install BOCHS or some sort of VMWare clone? Gibberish!

This ruling requires a company to ship its competitors product.

It requires a company that's caused physical and illegal harm to a competitor to ship their product, at no (real) cost to Microsoft or the competitor except in that the competitor is kept alive.

You MS astroturfers really are a bunch of whiners. Something tells me that you don't complain to your coworkers everytime you hear of someone being thrown in jail because they've committed a housebreaking or a mugging. You presumably don't react with outrage when you hear of a drunk driver having to pay the hospital bills of some poor sod they ran over. Why are you reacting with such outrage over this?

It's not as if some Judge was walking along one day and thought "Hey, wouldn't it be great if a random company was forced to distribute a rival random company's products?". This is an attempt to resolve a real case of damage. It's fair. The penalty matches the crime. Get over it.

Re:I feel bad for Microsoft

[KDan]

Yes, there was another era I can remember reading about when everyone really felt the government should not interfere in big businesses. That was back at the beginning of the 20th century, when big pharmaceutical firms like Bayer managed to get away with marketting Heroin as a "non-addictive cure for cough".

Governments (in theory anyway) are mandated by the people. Who better than the people to decide whether a company has misbehaved and should be ordered to behave differently?

Daniel

I don't like MS, BUT .....

[mustangdavis]

... I don't agree with the ruling ...

It is like telling AOL to ship MSN8 with their latest distro ....

Sun and Microsoft are competitors. MS developes Visual Studio and should promot their programming distro.

If MS has to include Java, wh don't the have to include Perl, Python, PHP, and interpreters for other languages ... or why don't they have to include the Macromedia plug-in?

Everyone has to download the pluins and interpreters for other products, why should Java and Sun be so special?

BTW: My favorite programming language is Java, so I am definately not biased here ... this is my opinion in regards to fair competition

Re:I don't like MS, BUT .....

[legLess]

Have you been reading the news? You're asking why a convicted child molester shouldn't be allowed to run a daycare center: "All sorts of other people can - what's so special about Mr. Child Molester?" It's special becuase the drastic anti-social behavior for which they've been publically tried and convicted is directly tied to this remedy.

this is my opinion in regards to fair competition

The point appears to elude you. Microsoft has been convicted in federal court specifically for trying to crush Java by illegally extending their monopoly power - this is a remedy. Any company can have a monopoly in any market; what's illegal is using your power in one market (operating systems) to take over another market (e.g. web browsers, office suites).

It is like telling AOL to ship MSN8 with their latest distro

Not at all. If AOL had 95% of the country dialing into their servers, they used their position to try to kill MSN8, were successful in damaging it, were tried and convicted by the federal government, then were ordered to include MSN8 as part of the remedy for their illegal actions ... then you'd have a valid analogy.

If MS has to include Java, wh [sic] don't the [sic] have to include Perl, Python, PHP

Because Perl, Python and PHP weren't the targets of Microsoft's illegal monopoly behavior.

Have people already forgotten that Microsoft has been convicted of the most anti-competitive and anti-free-market behavior possible? That the U.S government has been trying for a decade to rein in their behavior and bring some semblence of competition to the PC market?

This spoke volumes...

[JudgeFurious]

"If my order doesn't get stayed or reversed (on appeal), it's going to get done," Motz said.

Anyone else read this and get the impression that Motz isn't particularly confident that it will happen? I read that line and my brain converted it to: "If Microsoft doesn't mind and decides not to take their money and lawyers to a more friendly court farther up stream then it's going to get done, but don't count on it."

It will only matter if...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

It will only matter if it is the real, pure, clean and true JRE from Sun that is running. If Microsoft gets to put there own M$-Java in the install, it will make things much worse.

http://java.sun.com/getjava/index.html

Re:how about the reverse

[laertes]

Still sound reasonable?

You know what, you're absolutely right.

Forcing a company who has been found to have illegally leveraged Windows (the same OS that MS has been found to have an illegal monopoly on) to destroy a product to help that product.

is exactly the same as

Forcing a free, minor OS to help the company trying to illegally leverage Windows to destroy the free, minor OS.

Thank you for clearing that up.

Monopolies have different rules

[semios]

What microsoft is doing is more akin to the phone company, a legally acknowledged monopoly, that blocks you from calling a competitor of theirs. Except in microsoft's case, they reroute the call to a mock phone company which provides different rates and services intentionally meant to dissaude people from switching to that competitor.

It's anti-competive. It's illegal. And this is a fair punishment.

Re:Too little, too late

[mindstrm]

Javascript and Java have *nothing* to do with each other.. nothing at all. This is like comparing Javascript to TCL. Or C.

Applets? It's about more than applets. Java applets are a niche? I use some daily in my work, and I *need* them, and it's a pain in the ass when microsoft made using java difficult. It USED to be easy.

Javascript developers? Who are you kidding? Javascript is a joke.

Don't compare them. Don't contrast them. That's like comparing Apples to Moonrocks.

Because...

[mobiGeek]

Bad analogy. All analogies are bad...it's just like, say, pork.

1. AOL has not been found guilty in a U.S. federal court of law of illegally using their monopoly to quash competitors.
2. Perl, Python, PHP (or the entities responsible thereof) have not taken Microsoft to court to argue that they have been stifled by illegal monopolistic practices.
3. Sun is the plaintif; the ruling is in favour of Sun.
4. fair competition is what started this whole case (or a lack thereof).

This is a load of smelly poop... isn't it?

[xmutex]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Sun start out suing MS to _remove_ Java from Windows, then sue to get it back in, and so on? A few times back and forth?

That's sort of obnoxious, like having a little brother with ADD and a mean streak.

As a developer

[captainclever]

I think this is excellent news; as a developer, the fact that java is not shipped with windows makes it a pain in the ass to write java apps for windows users.
if i write a c++ app, no problem, a user can simply download and run it. If i write a java app, and say distribute it as a JAR file, your average user isnt gonna want to download the Java runtime or sdk, then launch the jar file calling java -jar or javaw.exe or whatever.
Java pre installed on windows means i can easily write pure java apps that will work easily on all windows boxes. Bring it on :)
RJ

Re:Odd...

[Hezaurus]

It's not about preinstall. It's about the fact that M$ deliberately includes an outdated & mangled (something like 5 years now) version of Java to make it look bad.
Java and Linux are threat to microsoft, so it's good for M$ when another frustrated users curses 'that fu**ing java' again when it crashes on microsoft's ancient runtime.

Think it like this: how would you feel if all the games would preinstall some buggy old beta version of the display driver for the hardware that your company is manufacturing. If you do this, you should at least inform the users that something better is available.

Funny, if I click to open a pdf-document (without acroreader installed) my XP offers to search the right tool from the internet. I think it should behave the same way if double click on that *.jar - package.

What does this have to do with my rights online?

[stratjakt]

I never lost the 'right' to use Java on windows.

This is about MS's rights in the marketplace, not my rights online.

Or does anything that has to do with MSFT automatically categorize it as YRO to get peoples dander up?

Re:How hard is it?

[javahacker]

Installing Java is not the issue. They provided tools to their customers that rely on their VM being present for their corporate web pages to function. I know this because the company I am currently doing contract work for has a web application they purchased for content management of their shared project/business documents. It is written using Microsoft tools, and won't work if you have the Sun VM activated for your browser.

Their argument is valid, that this will cause problems for their corporate clients. It will cause problems whenever it comes out, because some of their corporate clients (or their customers) will not be able to view their web pages properly.

Delaying this rollout is not really going to help much, because most web application get updated when the application changes, not when the client changes. Their corporate customers are going to be very angry with them about this kind of problem.

I don't feel sorry for Microsoft, because they got themselves into this mess by trying to spin Java out of Suns control, and make it into a Microsoft specific version. Now they have been told to live up to their contract with Sun, and must pay the price for their behavior. I do feel sorry for their corporate customers who bought into systems designed around the Microsoft VM, because they were dumb, not culpable. They will end up paying part of the price for Microsoft's past errors.

Most corporate clients will have control of their desktops, and can make their internal users use the Microsoft VM until they can fix things. They can't make joe user on the internet do that, which is where things will break down.

Re:About damn time

[TheAwfulTruth]

Suns JVM is the ONLY... PROGRAM... EVER... To cause my 512 meg windows machine with 752 meg of VM popup and say "Windows is increasing your windows VM" when running a tiny editing program. Every single actual java program I have ever run using Suns JVM has been buggy and slow. It turns a p4 2.5 gig machine into a 486. It's the crappiest piece of junk I have ever been forced to install on a Windows box (And I've been forced to install both Quicktime AND Real multiple times), and now the entire world has to suffer having it.

Microsoft's JVM was 4x faster and less buggy that Suns. It was SO FAST, that sun had to rig one of their benchmarking programs to hide the fact!

Sun screwed themselves over by being lazy and stupid with their poor JVM implentation and lousy development tools. 4 years later, Sun's Java on the desktop is still a piece of crap. Java could have been something if Sun had had any balls and/or brains. But they have neither and they destroyed their chance.

Why is the Slashdot crowd pro-Java?

[sbillard]

By reading the threads in this article it is obvious that:
Microsoft = Bad
Sun/Java = Good
But have you all forgotten that Sun reneged on ISO standardization of Java. Isn't that a bad thing? After promising ISO compliance as a means of getting the developers hooked, shouldn't Sun and Java be looked upon with scorn? All you Java developers are locked into a proprietary platform. How is that any different from riding the Microsoft trolley?
The anti-Microsoft stuff is getting ridiculous. It is just plain pathetic when it becomes hypocritical. Mod me down all you want, troll, flamebait, whatever. Some of you need to take a step back and assess your priorities.

Re:Why is the Slashdot crowd pro-Java?

[rhyd]

Oh yeah... sun pulled out of the whole ISO thing because it was clear MS would have then been free to embrace and extend AKA kill. They provided the JCP as an alternative body which they use to protect Java from the nasty people in redmond. Java isn't really propriatry there are many VM implementations the JCP specs are open. Its just the name Java(TM) thats protected and licensed.

Re:Too little, too late

[Wraithlyn]

Your post is so full of misinformation I don't know where to start.

JavaScript is a client side SCRIPTING language, which has nothing to do with Java. (JavaScript's author, Netscape, decided to cash in on Java's rising popularity by hikacking its name) It does very SIMPLE things through your browser. It has NOT been "overwhelmingly chosen [...] for advanced web-based functionality". Where do you get this stuff?

There are no such thing as "JavaScript developers" anymore than there are "Logo developers". There are web developers who have some scripting skills, and there are real coders who use JavaScript for basic, limited stuff. Advanced client side tasks require something like a Java applet. These are everywhere. Nobody "switches" from JavaScript to Java, the very concept is absurd. They are not designed for the same tasks.

There is huge demand for Java development right now. It is not a niche, it is at the forefront of the mainstream. For desktop apps, AWT is dead and has been for quite a while. Swing 1.3+ is very lightweight and fast, if you know how to code it efficiently. Our company has written many Java desktop apps. Way faster to write than C++ and far less bug prone. And the compiled code will run identically everywhere.

One thing you don't mention at all is Server side apps. Java is kicking ass in this arena and has been for years.

If you read the article, you'd notice it said that Microsoft has been ordered "to begin shipping Sun Microsystems' Java". Not implement their own version. So they won't be tainting it... although they will likely add as much hassle as they can to using it, like not installing it by default.

Re:Its about time

[DunbarTheInept]

You're right - it is a bad thing that the program you have to support was developed for Microsoft's broken implementation only. But don't make the world pay for this mistake by asking for that broken implementation the standard.

Re:In what ways did it not meet standards?

[CustomDesigned]

A partial list was provided with the initial lawsuit (which was posted online). However, the two problems were naming and completeness.

As part of their contract, MS was forbidden to add public names to system packages (e.g. java.lang, java.net, etc). Nevertheless, they did so. There were some stretchers on both sides.

Microsoft PR claimed that Sun was forbidding them to add Windows specific extensions. This was silly - there was no problem with any number of packages named com.ms.* or whatever (except that the ms.com domain belongs to Morgan Stanley, and thus didn't follow the 3rd party naming convention - but that wasn't in the contract). There were some very nice extensions with proper names - like JDirect which let you call Microsoft DLL's without writing JNI glue. The problem was that Microsoft wanted to name some extensions java.*. This would of course cause the unwary programmer to inadvertantly create Java programs which only run on Windows - despite not knowingly using any MS specific packages. Exactly what MS wanted.

On Sun's part, the contract included a list of packages which Microsoft could not touch the public name space of. More system packages were added to Java 1.1. Sun claimed that Microsoft couldn't touch those either - reasonable, but they weren't in the specific list in the contract.

The completeness problem was along the same lines. Microsoft provided a complete 1.0 API. However, they left out components of the 1.1 API that competed with their own offerings. For instance, they left out RMI and offered DCOM support instead. Sun said that it was understood that the same restrictions regarding system name space pollution and completeness would apply to the packages of subsequent API versions. But this was not spelled out in the contract. It would not be in the ruthless spirit of Microsoft for them to follow the spirit of a contract if they could find a loophole.

Regardless of quibbling over whether the system package list under contract should expand to match new API versions, Microsoft polluted even core packages from 1.0 with handy additions sure to entice the unwary. So they were guilty even by the letter of the law.

What was Sun thinking?

[spells]

I can't believe people think that this is good for Java! As an enterprise developer, this absolutely sucks.

Java has become one of the primary tools for enterprise development, mostly on the server, but also on enterprise clients, where downloading an applet or java app is typically not time consuming for the client because they are on a LAN.

What takes so long in software development? TESTING, and in java testing different versions of the VM. Up until this point, enterprises have been able to enforce a VM version on enterprise clients, and the developers can count on that version being on the client desktops. Now what? If the enterprise wants to stick with its 1.2.2 or 1.3.1 VM, they can't install WinXP SP2? What happens with the next SP and a new java VM? All enterprise java apps will need to be thoroughly tested with each new service pack, since Sun's VMs are not all backwards compatible.

In addition, if anyone is still righting java applets for the internet, how does this help? What percentage of users are going to have XP SP2 in the next 12-24 months?

This solves none of the Java VM version issues. This was Sun saying "wah wah" in court and getting a sympathetic judge.

Sun needs to hand over Java to the JCP and stop using it as a weapon in its fight against MS.

Get a clue!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear that so many of you have NO idea what this is about.

Sun and MS (sorry, M$) had an agreement where Microsoft would include a Java runtime with Windows. Only M$ made their own VM/runtime that was 'tweaked' and extended with extra functionality that ONLY worked under Windows.

Sun complained that this implementation was NOT Java, because it didn't match the Java specs. So they got a court to make MS remove their non-standard non-Java Java VM from Windows. But they didn't replace it with a fully-functionaly VM - they replaced it with nothing, contrary to their agreement with Sun.

So all Sun is doing is getting their agreement with MS enforced by a court. This has NOTHING to do with MS being a monopoly or Sun wanting their VM on Windows or anything like that. It comes down to MS creatively breaking a contract in order to kill Java (by nullifying it's main goal of platform-independence) and replace it with C#.

So please, no more posts about "But they wanted MS to remove IE, now they're adding Java?!?" or "This is okay because MS is a monopoly". Go start a thread elsewhere if you want to bitch about it, instead of crapping on about MS abusing their position as monopoly in every Slashdot article. Fuck off.

Re:Other avenues

[rking]

Ignore the ruling. What are the courts going to do, issue another ruling that says, "we really mean it this time?"

Probably first there would be essentially an ultimatum, yes. Beyond that, start putting people in prison for contempt of court. Board level people I would imagine.

You miss the point

[jam42]

The poster said he has to support an app that is written to "real" Java, and on Windows systems the poster has to walk users through downloading and installing a "real" JVM (from Sun)because MS's is garbage.

Actually, in previous stages of this case Sun got an order forbidding MS from including Java because MS was bastardizing it (with "Java Foundation Classes" wrappers for MFC). Then they "settled" and agreed to let MS include Java, but only version 1.1.3. This was when the current version was 1.3 at least. So the most recent MS JVM is at least four years behind the times.

MS Java *is* Java, but way outdated

[aquarian]

The problem with MS'Java is not that it isn't real Java, but that it's woefully outdated. Therefore, users can only run old-style Java software, which is severely limited compared to what can be done with Java today.

A good analogy would be some imaginary operating system promising Windows compatibility, but when you actually try it, you find it only supports Windows up to 3.1. Well Windows has changed an awful lot since then, and Java has changed similarly between 1.1 and 1.3/1.4.