Legal Archive

The battle between Sun and Microsoft over inclusion of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in Windows wages on. At stake, according to a U.S. District Court, is the fairness of the fight between Java and .Net. for middleware supremacy. Read the analysis at ZDNet TechUpdate.

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.

The order to carry Java with Windows will remain in force pending the final outcome of Sun Microsystem's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. According to Sun, Microsoft tried to marginalise Java by unfair usage of its software monopoly position, making Windows incompatible with its platform independent programming language. More info at CBSNews.com and CNET News.com.

These frivolous news comes from fellow news web site, windowsxp.nu, which is one of the well known sites for Windows-related news on the web (traffic-wise seems to be similar to OSNews, around 90,000 page views per day). Microsoft sent a legal threat to Steven Bink to hand over the site before Dec 19th, otherwise they will respond legally. Microsoft has taken a similar hard line against other similar Web sites in the past; in 1998, the company demanded that Paul Thurrott should change the name of the 'Windows SuperSite' to 'SuperSite for Windows', and Active Windows was forced to change its name to ActiveWin. Read more for a short editorial on the subject.

"In short words, the company broke the law--and got away with it. It's been a while, I know, since the Court of Appeals upheld the original trial's Findings of Fact, sending only the question of appropriate remedy back to the lower court for reconsideration. But as I noted at the time, one of the crucial questions was whether Microsoft could freely stifle potential competing technologies without abusing its monopoly powers. The company claimed that the very novelty of alternative platforms, such as the Java-enabled browser, kept them from being part of the market in which Microsoft's monopoly exists." Read the editorial at eWeek.

A federal judge largely approves a proposed settlement in the years-old antitrust case. The government praised the decision, while critics said the case should have looked at what Microsoft's up to now. It may not be completely over, yet; the remaining states could appeal.

The court decided yesterday, at a trial where an internet cafe's owner was charged of letting his customers play Counter Strike, that the law that prohibited playing games is unconstitutional. This paves the way for the law to be struck down. There's some additional information at ZDNet UK.

Sun Microsystems and Be Inc. lost bids to keep their antitrust cases against Microsoft from being sent to a court handling more than 100 other lawsuits against the world's biggest software maker. A panel of federal judges said it moved the California cases to a Maryland court to expedite pretrial fact-finding proceedings. Lawyers have said that the East Coast court is more conservative on antitrust issues and that could favor Microsoft. Read more here and here.

"Attorneys for the states seeking tough penalties for Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust actions have backed off of a demand for a modular version of the Windows operating system, saying information sharing is more important than dismantling the Redmond, Wash., software maker's flagship product." Read it at eWeek.

"On behalf of all people who would like to see a more fair and competitive market for desktop operating systems beunited.org has submitted a brief to the court involved in the Microsoft antitrust trial. The brief outlines the issues that are important for OSBOS projects to survive and how the remedies need to be changed in relation to these projects. The full press release is available here. You can also get a copy of the brief from our publications section on this page." Get the .rtf & .pdf files at BeUnited's web site.

"Nine states seeking stiff antitrust sanctions against Microsoft showed the judge on Wednesday a commercial version of the Windows operating system that already has removable features -- similar to one of their key demands. Microsoft has said requiring a version of Windows that can be customized by computer makers and rival software companies would fragment the operating system, cripple Microsoft, harm consumers and hurt the entire computer industry." Read the story at Reuters.

"Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says his company would be unable to allow manufacturers and consumers to choose which elements of its Windows operating system to install on their computers under sanctions being proposed to a federal judge.The issue stems from how different portions of Windows are reliant on each other. If one piece is removed, such as the part of the Internet Explorer Web browser that makes Web pages appear, other features like the Windows Help system would break." Read the rest of the story at Yahoo!News. You can also read the submitted Gates testimony as a PDF here. Our Take: Personally, I prefer products to be solid and in one piece, as they were designed to be. Recreating something like Linux's dependancy hell at all levels, is naturally something that does not benefit the consumer. Or my hot temper when dealing with it. What is needed IMHO, is restrict Microsoft's business practices, not its product line. Update: More about Gates on the stand.

A former Gateway executive recently testified (NY Times login required) that Microsoft punishes PC clone manufacturers like Gateway for developing rival products. This was i.e. done by reducing discounts Gateway received for the Windows operating system. Gateway at a time was developing a new Amiga computer, but all of the sudden this ambitious project was cancelled, reliable sources (read the comments section of this article I recently wrote for OSNews) have stated Microsoft to be the reason behind this sudden move. My opinion: A good example of how Microsoft stifled technological progress within the computer industry these last 10 years. Hopefully people will start to understand why it has taken the Amiga community this long to get a new Amiga computer onto the market and why PC manufacturers left Amiga technology in the cold when the classic still was clearly superior technology compared to Microsoft's offerings.

"Sun is railing at Microsoft, but maybe it should be hiring coders rather than lawyers. Sun boss Scott McNealy is an entertaining act, with a nice line in puns. For example, Microsoft's .net becomes ".not", Intel's Itanium is the "Itanic", and IBM's Regatta server is "Regretta". As comedians, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are not in the same league." Yet another editorial on the web about Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft, this time on CW360. We wrote about this too.