To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Sun sued Microsoft over the MS-java third party implementation in 1997 and it was settled in 2001. Sun is to my knowledge the only company in the history of software that has ever actually sued anyone over a programming language.
With good cause to boot. MS got a commercial license from Sun to produce a Sun Java compliant MS JVM. MS went ahead and tried to use Embrace Extend Extinguish with their Java implementation to kill Sun Java. Sun Java was at the time a possible threat to MS' desktop stranglehold.
Since MS grossly overstepped the bounds in their license, Sun took them to court after they refused to mitigate their dirty deeds.
Sadly, although MS lost the case, they got what they wanted. Java on the desktop is all but dead.
Wrong. Sun sued Microsoft because they were bastardising the language with their own Windows only 'extensions' while at the same time continuing to promote their implementation (J++) as being fully "Java Compliant". This was clearly in violation of the licensing agreement they had with Sun so they were correctly taken to task for it.
Here's a good analysis of what went down...
http://www.aaxnet.com/news/J010124.html





Member since:
2008-10-30
So when was it that God was a teenager? Sun sued Microsoft over the MS-java third party implementation in 1997 and it was settled in 2001. Sun is to my knowledge the only company in the history of software that has ever actually sued anyone over a programming language.