Appeals Court Sides With Microsoft On Java

burgburgburg writes "Reuters reports that the three-member federal appeals court in Virginia ruled today the U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz erred when he ordered Microsoft to include Java with the Windows operating system. Fortunately, Dell and HP, the top 2 PC makers, have already decided to ship Java on the PCs that they sell. Apple, Red Hat and Lindows have also agreed to include Sun's Java." The ruling is available.

Comments

Good!

[mhore]

At the risk of being redundant, I've just got to say that I'd much rather have like, Sun's or IBM's Java package than Microsoft's.

Since Java is not Microsoft's product, it only makes sense that PC manufacturers should be the ones distributing it by default (if they see the need).

Mike.

Re:Hate to say I agree, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

So far in history there is little evidence that anything BUT regulation will solve the problem of a single company getting too powerful.

Re:Yes, this makes sense

[dnoyeb]

Untrue because that version of java was self-squashed by definition. Recall that it purposely sucked.

The proper remedy is to make an attempt to force MS to provide Sun with what they illegally took away. Market opportunity.

If I understood the original idea correctly...

[jd]

The idea was that:

• Microsoft wrote a crippled version under the Java name, which Sun sued over (and won)
  
• That they then renamed their "Java" (amongst other things) that, in effect, created a blockade, preventing Sun from reaching the Windows market
  
• That Microsoft, as a de-facto monopoly, had certain duties and obligations in allowing competition, which would not normally exist in a genuinely free market
  
• That Microsoft had a past history of "knifing the baby" (their words, not mine) when it came to competitor's products - using their enormous capital and userbase to exterminate products that competed with their own
  
• That Microsoft - already developing their .NET product - was acting in a manner that would make alternative products impossible, and were likely (based on past experience - re: DR-DOS) to make Java actually impossible to run, whether consumers wanted it or not
  

On the basis of all these points, it would be a perfectly normal, natural, sane reaction to say "hey, you can't do that!". The Libertarian view of zero (or near-zero) Government only works if one person doesn't have absolute 100% control over the desktop, the OS, the hardware (they tell Intel what to build!), the API, 95-98% of the consumers, and enough money to buy out dissenters if they somehow survive all of this.

When someone has absolute control of 5 markets and has declared intent to obtain monopoly over 5 more (portable code, wireless, TV, servers and ISPs), fair competition doesn't exist. Competition in any sense does not exist.

Should Microsoft actually acquire monopoly status in all ten industries, then Microsoft will be the only voice you will ever hear. Dissent could only be expressed via a Microsoft product and, as such, be eliminated.

Think about this, for a moment. Microsoft has violated anti-trust laws, been found guilty, continued to violate those same laws, and the States that haven't settled yet are (despite having enough evidence to fight on) unable to do so. Why? Because you can't fight City Hall - when it's a partly-owned subsiduary of a corporate giant.

We need to remember that this is NOT a typical case. The precedent is unlikely to reoccur even once in the next 300 years. There has never been a power in the US this absolute. This isn't about Us VS Them, or Govt VS People. This is about whether the Right To Choose ANYTHING AT ALL will still exist when 2010 comes round.

The use of a monopoly in one area to create a monopoly in another is illegal. The use of FIVE monopolies to slowly engulf the entire field of technology should be no more acceptable. It's not as if it's any better!

People have tried protests. They've tried civil disobedience, even. However, Microsoft aren't a threat to human life, so you can't really call out the National Guard. Libertarians would have us believe that guns can protect our rights. But no gun in the world will protect you against a corporate entity that spans the globe, the minds of people, and even the fabric of our lives.

There's nothing we can do to stop the rot. The only people who can are the judiciary, because that is what the judiciary is there for. To stop evil that cannot otherwise be touched. To act as a last-ditch defence against things that can escape or evade every other protection we, as individuals, can place in front of us.

We HAVE to rely on the legal system, because the legal system is the only thing we have left to rely on.

Whizzle. Fizzle. Bang.

[c0d3fu]

Anyone here surprised? It is difficult to hold Microsoft and hundreds of other M.N.C.'s accountable for their actions as they are having to conform to the rules of individual countries less and less.

Corporations have become world-wide economies in and of themselves; of the 150 largest economies in the world, 97 are multinational corporations! Their influence upon important governments world-wide is steadily growing as they amass tremendous amounts of wealth and influence. Governments fear cracking down on them for fear of economic and political repercussions. In the last 30 years, new supranational authorities have emerged worldwide; big global players that carry tremendous capacity for power. Microsoft, though off to a poor and late start in this arena, is one of them.

A software producer can write whatever it wants into its operating system and it is perfectly legal. Though it sounds dreadful, Microsoft advertising its own services in Windows is a huge mistake on the part of the corporation - it will turn large number of people off. That's part of the reason all the .NET promo died off. Competitors such as OSX, Lindows, and Red Hat will gain ground from such nastiness.

It is easy to criticize Microsoft. Keep in mind that Windows is a standard, something desperately needed in a world with hundreds of different programming languages, operating systems, and a plethora of different types of hardware and (OMG!) media storage out there. Take Sony for instance. Sony uses Stick Media not because it is better, but because it is non-standard and they can charge mucho dinero for it. They could have easily conformed to a standard media with a dozen other companies if it economically beneficial. Granted, everyone is conforming to Microsoftâ(TM)s standards, but itâ(TM)s better than another long-standing war of software standards such as that between IBM-Compatibles and Apple Computers. Even Linux doesnâ(TM)t even conform to a set of unified standards (though United Linux will theoretically change that).

Microsoft needs reform. It will be difficult to force it to do so, as it has a tremendous amount of influence. Ideally, a global standard operating system needs to be developed. We need a U.N. resolution. :)

Re:Yes, this makes sense

[GooberToo]

You obviously never followed the topic.

The "Insightful" moderation is simply sad.

This is more like you burning down my house, on purpose, and a judge says I'm allowed to live in your house until restitution is made by you, while my house is being rebuilt. Then, these other judges come along and say, "woe", that doesn't make any sense. Even though you burned down my house on purpose, you shouldn't be held responsible unless the on-going legal action says otherwise. In the mean time, I have to go live under a bridge while you and the judges all laugh at me.

This has nothing to do with marketing or product promotion. This has to do with holding Microsoft responsible for it's very illegal and harmful activities.

MS must undo the damage it has done to Java

[wukie]

How else will people actually see that Java works, and it works well if they are NOT stuck with Microsofts pathetic implementation. Certainly Java has flaws (which are usually bypassed) but some "write once, run on any platform" is better than none.

Java is Sun's contribution to computing, and it is on par with Xerox's GUI and Mouse, Apples multimedia in a desktop and Microsoft's Office.

Millions of developers want to take the next step with Java, but Microsoft is intentionally hold them back from over 90% of users and trying to push it's C# language to further isolate all competitors (Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, ONX, MacOS, etc.) from the market.

The sooner this situation is rectified the better!

Re:I have mixed feelings.

[j3110]

Well, the problem was going to be Microsoft shipping their technology for free, and no competition (IE, they were going to do the same thing they were doing to netscape). They are going to ship .Net runtimes, and then all the programers have one extra reason to program for .Net that they don't Java, which tilts the scales of fair competition toward MS. That's what this case was about.

The other cases in the past were about MS shipping broken versions of the JRE that actually caused Java more harm than good. SUN had an agreement with MS a long time ago to let them continue shipping theing JRE because MS clients were reliant on their JRE at the time (but that didn't change because MS didn't give them any incentive to change until .Net). Now that things have changed (.Net) it would follow that MS clients would no longer need the JRE MS ships.

When you combine these two arguements, the logical arguement is to A) prevent MS from shipping .Net with the OS (like they were going to do with IE), or B) force them to include competing products (maybe they should have to include perl and python as well?). Either way, it stems from MS's verticle integration in the marketplace giving them an unfair market advantage. If they can hook you on one product, you have to run every peice of the MS puzzle. Java threatens this domination by allowing third party developers to write programs that will run on hardware and operating systems that the developer couldn't have even imagined. This makes software completely unreliant on market fads, and the software improves with the OS, JRE, and hardware. Java doesn't care if you are using MySQL or MSSQL, it's all the same.

This scares MS a lot, which is why they wanted to mutilate it from the start. If they have control of the VM, they can always make it preform better on their OS and hardware. SUN hasn't taken advantage of Java like this (thus Java on Solaris is horrible compared to windows).

Basically, this ruling is saying that it is OK for MS to ship products with their operating systems without including 3rd party competing products. It's a complete reversal of the Netscape issue that lead to a government investigation and almost a break up of the MS company. What was wrong before the monopoly investigation (or before Bush took office, your choice) is now just fair trade.