Did Microsoft kneecap Java, judge asks
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Java is a viable language, not my favorite but I know it's viable. My problem with it is not the language but what revolves around it. You have SUN - whiners extraordinare and then it seems every one that jumps on the anti-Microsoft band wagon goes 100% java and 100% linux. Microsoft hatred is not a professional decision - it's a cultural decision, a way of life.
JarrodM wrote: goes 100% java and 100% linux Fortunately they have to live with the headache - not us! :) JarrodM wrote: Microsoft hatred is not a professional decision - it's a cultural decision, a way of life. If only I had space left for another quote in my sig!
I knew it would end badly when I first met Chris in a Canberra alleyway and he said 'try some - it won't hurt you'..... - Christian Graus on Code Project outages Damned nice for remote servers where using Enterprise Manager is like wadding through treacle while covered in velcro, upside down -Paul Watson on SQL Server Query Analyser
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But the version of JVM that MS wrote (or rewote) was faster and better than what Sun wanted distributed. How can you claim damage by improving your product?
Mark Nischalke wrote: But the version of JVM that MS wrote (or rewote) was faster and better than what Sun wanted distributed. How can you claim damage by improving your product? Sun wasn't complaining about any alleged performance increases. Java is a standard and all JVMs must conform to that standard to use the name "Java". Microsoft's JVM didn't conform, end of story. "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."
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True, but thats not everything. There is 'corporate strategy'. I was at a seminar yesterday on web services, and this guy was saying, well we use J2EE on the backend, so we want to use Java on the front end so they were porting all their ASP to JSP. The 2 reasons were 1) Have one pool of devs 2) Don't want to rely on one vendor. Okay the first is a possiblity, but Java guys are more expensive. The second is stupid as they have now tied themselves in to one vendor.
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Clickety[^] "Without the judge's intervention, he said. .NET could trounce Java in the same way that Microsoft's Internet Explorer pushed out competing products. " "We're really [screwing] up on the client side," Gosling allegedly wrote to Sun vice president of developer tools Richard Green in an e-mail dated May 13, 2002, "mostly through neglect." I wonder what could be done to curb this. Certainly from a dev point of view, we should surely be allowed to choose which tools we prefer?
I knew it would end badly when I first met Chris in a Canberra alleyway and he said 'try some - it won't hurt you'..... - Christian Graus on Code Project outages Religion without Science is blind, Science without Religion is lame -Albert Einstein
What cracks me up is that when Sun first made their public complaint about Microsoft's Java VM, someone pointed out that Sun's own VM couldn't pass their own tests.
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JarrodM wrote: goes 100% java and 100% linux Fortunately they have to live with the headache - not us! :) JarrodM wrote: Microsoft hatred is not a professional decision - it's a cultural decision, a way of life. If only I had space left for another quote in my sig!
I knew it would end badly when I first met Chris in a Canberra alleyway and he said 'try some - it won't hurt you'..... - Christian Graus on Code Project outages Damned nice for remote servers where using Enterprise Manager is like wadding through treacle while covered in velcro, upside down -Paul Watson on SQL Server Query Analyser
I feel so honored! :-O
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The way I understand it, all Sun always wanted to do was to ensure the JVM was Java compliant. Sun insisted that anything else shouldn't be called "Java" and I believe they were correct to do just that! "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."
phykell wrote: Sun insisted that anything else shouldn't be called "Java" and I believe they were correct to do just that! Agree with you here. My beef is one day Sun wants Java out of Windows and the next wants it in. If they do not want anything else fine, but stick with it. There is nothing stoping Sun from making their own package to download and install. So just do it and stop making my tax dollars pay for all of their lawsuits. "I will find a new sig someday."
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Giles wrote: There is 'corporate strategy'. Corporate strategy will soon start to fail if they can't find anybody to use the language, costs will rise, projects will fail because they run like they've been put together by monkeys. Michael Fat bottomed girls You make the rockin' world go round -- Queen
Michael P Butler wrote: Corporate strategy will soon start to fail if they can't find anybody to use the language Thats not what will happen. IBM will be there to outsource to. They have more Java programmers than you can shake a shaky thing at, but they are expesive and will bleed the corporate buget for every penny until the guy who hired them gets sacked, or the company fails outright.
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Giles wrote: The second is stupid as they have now tied themselves in to one vendor. ...and what "one" vendor is that? "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."
In our case. IBM. Webshere coupled with DB2. Its not easy to migrate between Websphere, BEA or Sun One. And as well as having them do half the code, you don't have the in house people who know what the thing does underneath. Just as stuck. It would be a huge project to migrate. Just moving databases is a hassle. One system had to have a change of DB - Sysbase to Oracle because the version of Sybase does not suport Unicode - so if the client did not speak English, they were knackered. Supprisingly even the German clients and other European clients had problems. Discounting a vendor, beacuse of tie-in is stupid. You either comit your strategy to them because they provide the best all round products or not. Not so you can switch to an equally bad platform, or even in this case to one of the vendors you had already assesed, but dropped earlier in the procurment process.
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This whole thing with the specific lawsuit bugs me really bad. Microsoft was worried SUN would try to file an injunction so that they would have to delay the shipment of Win XP. So MS decided not to include the java JVM in their XP. SUN, sitting back thinking it had won from the last lawsuit they had about java all of a sudden gets scared and starts whining. WAIT! You really should ship java, it's your obligation for hurting our business and trying to hijack java so it really needs to go in. MS: Nope, sorry, not shipping Java JVM. SUN: PLEASE? MS: NO SUN: OK, we'll sue you again! at a later time... MS puts their version of the JVM back in to make java people happy. SUN: It's not our JVM! MS: So, we are shipping a java JVM like you asked. SUN: We'll sue!! Maybe I'm wrong but who's product is Windows? Microsoft's right? Shouldn't they have a choice as to whether or not to include a competitors "middleware" product in their own? I don't hear Ford threatening Chevy to put the Mustang Cobra engine in the Corvette or face court time. I do not approve of gross monopolistic antitrust practices but I'm tired of knowing tax dollars we pay are going to help pay for SUN's inept ability to compete in some areas. Jarrod
Maybe I'm wrong but who's product is Windows? Microsoft's right? Shouldn't they have a choice as to whether or not to include a competitors "middleware" product in their own? About 100 years ago, the first railroads were built across the US. JP Morgan owned them, along with a large number of other businesses. The railroads introduced a new low-cost way to move cargo across the US (especially to California). JP Morgan charged all his competition lots of money to use the railroad, especially when they were competing with his own companies. The end result is that JP Morgan virtually owned all the commerce coming to/from the West Coast. He was the richest man in America at the time - he had something like 7 times the US governments annual budget in assets. Now, you might argue that JPMorgan had a reasonable right to overcharge all his competition for using his railroad, but I don't think so. He was actively stiffling competition. The US made him sell-off his railroads. Microsoft Windows is the railroad of the 19th century. The claim that MS should have complete control over the OS is just plain wrong (just like JPMorgan should not have complete control over the railroads). They have too much power to push everyone out of business. For the long-term good of the economy, it is necessary to remove all these "artificial" ways of winning in the market. The market should choose the winner based on the best product - not, as in the case of JPMorgan's railroads or Microsoft's Windows - they simply have superior distribution networks that no one can rival without building a competing railroad or OS. ------------------------------------------ "Isn't it funny how people say they'll never grow up to be their parents, then one day they look in the mirror and they're moving aircraft carriers into the Gulf region?" - The Onion
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Maybe I'm wrong but who's product is Windows? Microsoft's right? Shouldn't they have a choice as to whether or not to include a competitors "middleware" product in their own? About 100 years ago, the first railroads were built across the US. JP Morgan owned them, along with a large number of other businesses. The railroads introduced a new low-cost way to move cargo across the US (especially to California). JP Morgan charged all his competition lots of money to use the railroad, especially when they were competing with his own companies. The end result is that JP Morgan virtually owned all the commerce coming to/from the West Coast. He was the richest man in America at the time - he had something like 7 times the US governments annual budget in assets. Now, you might argue that JPMorgan had a reasonable right to overcharge all his competition for using his railroad, but I don't think so. He was actively stiffling competition. The US made him sell-off his railroads. Microsoft Windows is the railroad of the 19th century. The claim that MS should have complete control over the OS is just plain wrong (just like JPMorgan should not have complete control over the railroads). They have too much power to push everyone out of business. For the long-term good of the economy, it is necessary to remove all these "artificial" ways of winning in the market. The market should choose the winner based on the best product - not, as in the case of JPMorgan's railroads or Microsoft's Windows - they simply have superior distribution networks that no one can rival without building a competing railroad or OS. ------------------------------------------ "Isn't it funny how people say they'll never grow up to be their parents, then one day they look in the mirror and they're moving aircraft carriers into the Gulf region?" - The Onion
I disagree with your comparison of MS to JP Morgan. Yes, Windows is a great way to distribute software since it holds so much market share. However, in the case of JP Morgan there many companies were faced with no other means of transportation of their products. From production to consumer, they were forced to use the rail ways to distribute nationally. How does this differ from today? Distribution of software like the SUN JVM can travel the 21st century railway - the internet. Windows isn't the railway, it's a locomotive. If Windows was the only way to obtain software I would gladly agree with you but it's not. If you are going to sell and distribute java software, license the jvm and install it with your product (and pay SUN's royalties for even selling a java based package). If you want to make sure they have it - provide a link to download it. It's available, Microsoft hasn't taken over the internet so that all traffic to SUN gets rerouted to Microsoft. If you want it, you can get it. If you don't know you need it and expect it to be there - that's the responsibility of the software developers/distributors to make sure you have it. No, not in a general sense of it MUST be included in windows but with the setup packages available today, just include it as part of your setup. I can think of no more wide reaching distribution channel than the internet. Jarrod Marshall Author: Beginning Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition, Professional Commerce Server 2000 (Wrox Press)
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I disagree with your comparison of MS to JP Morgan. Yes, Windows is a great way to distribute software since it holds so much market share. However, in the case of JP Morgan there many companies were faced with no other means of transportation of their products. From production to consumer, they were forced to use the rail ways to distribute nationally. How does this differ from today? Distribution of software like the SUN JVM can travel the 21st century railway - the internet. Windows isn't the railway, it's a locomotive. If Windows was the only way to obtain software I would gladly agree with you but it's not. If you are going to sell and distribute java software, license the jvm and install it with your product (and pay SUN's royalties for even selling a java based package). If you want to make sure they have it - provide a link to download it. It's available, Microsoft hasn't taken over the internet so that all traffic to SUN gets rerouted to Microsoft. If you want it, you can get it. If you don't know you need it and expect it to be there - that's the responsibility of the software developers/distributors to make sure you have it. No, not in a general sense of it MUST be included in windows but with the setup packages available today, just include it as part of your setup. I can think of no more wide reaching distribution channel than the internet. Jarrod Marshall Author: Beginning Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition, Professional Commerce Server 2000 (Wrox Press)
However, in the case of JP Morgan there many companies were faced with no other means of transportation of their products. From production to consumer, they were forced to use the rail ways to distribute nationally. Actually, there was still the 'old' way of distribution - by horse. Of course, any company shipping across the country via the old method would get beat by any competitor using the railroad. (Sounds quite a bit like packaging things with Windows, doesn't it?) I don't really like the idea of companies distributing their software with Windows because where do you draw the line? On the other hand, MS uses it to push out competition like Java and OpenGL. (Yes, MS once announced they would no longer ship OpenGL -- the obvious reason was because it competed with DirectX. Leave it to MS to try to kill anything cross-platform.) The Internet would be a better conduit if it was faster (note: MS benefits by slow internet speeds). There are a lot of things I simply can't get in less than 10 hours of downloading (and my ISP cuts me off after 4 hours). It's also important to realize that people often don't know about competing products. MS competition must advertise to get the consumers attention and then get them to find the site and download. Packaging with Windows means that it's "just there". No finding the consumer. No advertising. No convincing the consumer. No inconvenient downloading (and tying up the phone line). I'm sure a lot of people would be amazed to find out that IE isn't the only browser on the market. I know my parents don't know what Netscape is. I consider them to be the "average" computer user. Netscape actually has to spend money on advertising, hope that the consumer will go to their site, spend hours downloading, and then the consumer gets a product which is pretty similar to one that was already on their computer. Why would the average consumer do that? (Unless they have a grudge against MS.) Further, for all Netscape's effort in adverising and paying for bandwidth, they give their product away for free? Packaging with Windows is obviously the superior distribution method. ------------------------------------------ "Isn't it funny how people say they'll never grow up to be their parents, then one day they look in the mirror and they're moving aircraft carriers into the Gulf region?" - The Onion
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The way I understand it, all Sun always wanted to do was to ensure the JVM was Java compliant. Sun insisted that anything else shouldn't be called "Java" and I believe they were correct to do just that! "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."
MS's JVM is now compliant, and has been for many years. It's just not the most recent JVM, because sun has enjoined them by law from supporting the most recent JVM. The thing is, Sun settled with Microsoft, and agreed to allow Microsoft to continue shipping MS's JVM until 2008, now they want to change the deal. -- Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?
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In our case. IBM. Webshere coupled with DB2. Its not easy to migrate between Websphere, BEA or Sun One. And as well as having them do half the code, you don't have the in house people who know what the thing does underneath. Just as stuck. It would be a huge project to migrate. Just moving databases is a hassle. One system had to have a change of DB - Sysbase to Oracle because the version of Sybase does not suport Unicode - so if the client did not speak English, they were knackered. Supprisingly even the German clients and other European clients had problems. Discounting a vendor, beacuse of tie-in is stupid. You either comit your strategy to them because they provide the best all round products or not. Not so you can switch to an equally bad platform, or even in this case to one of the vendors you had already assesed, but dropped earlier in the procurment process.
Sorry, but if you feel "tied-in" to WebSphere and DB2 then there is a problem with your design. J2EE's core requirement is one of adhering to standards and all the application server vendors provide implementations which at least support the standards. It is then up to developers/administrators whoever, to decide how much to tweak the code to take advantage of vendor specific functionality but that is their choice. As for being restricted to DB2, there is no reason why you can't configure WebSphere or any other major application server to use whatever back-end database you have, for example, Oracle. The migration issues you talk about and the difficulty of finding the right staff or training them are common to many projects, and are nothing to do with whether J2EE is suitable for your purpose or not. J2EE, although mature, is a developing technology and I don't for one minute want to trivialise the selection and procurement process let alone migration, but what usually concerns we developers and technical architects is what business constraints already exist - what support contracts have our enterprises already got with people like IBM etc. These are the real factors that tie us in to specific vendors, not the technical issues such as platform constraints, etc. For example, as you say "commit your strategy to them because they provide the best all round products" - this is often a pipe-dream for the techies - actually selecting the best product for the task? I've never been involved in a project yet where development have had free rein to use whatever they think is best for the job. There's always some support contract we have to honour, or there's some legacy system that needs to be integrated. Certainly the latter is well handled by J2EE, and is perhaps one reason why J2EE still commands such respect in the back-end server market. "The folly of man is that he dreams of what he can never achieve rather than dream of what he can."