Who's an insecure loser? Here's the salient point I get from the Times article, nytimes.com
On Oct. 7, Sun Microsystems took legal action against Microsoft for allegedly implementing a different blend of Java in its products. More specifically, Sun accused Gates's company of having intentionally omitted two key components of the Java technology from its Internet Explorer 4.0 browser software.
This could mean that some Java applications may need to be modified or rewritten to run within the IE browser software, which Microsoft is heavily pushing in order to gain market share away from its main competitor, and market leader, in the browser business, Netscape Communications.
"Microsoft has decided they don't want compatibility," McNealy said.
Yet compatibility is "critical" for Java to become the programming language of the future. Java applications are intended to be written once and then run on any computer platform -- a characteristic that would be undermined if developers were to start delivering products that support only portions of the Java technology.
Java's compatibility is also the main threat to today's dominance of the Microsoft Windows operating system in the personal computing market.
Here's a blast from the past that I had to look up yesterday, in reference to another Microphile poster.
Microsoft declares war www2.computerworld.com
The crux of Microsoft's battle plan is its rejection of the JFCs, which it sees as the real threat to Windows. ''They are trying to get this to be a runtime layer to which application vendors write their applications. Those are the APIs they want people to write to. We want them to write to the Windows APIs.'' [ that was Ballmer]
Hence Microsoft's decision to not ship the JFCs.
Also describing the Java Foundation Classes as ''a competing operating system'' to Windows, was Microsoft Group Vice President Paul Maritz. He insisted in a separate interview that the company isn't legally required to include Sun's JFCs with Windows, Internet Explorer or any Microsoft product.
''We have no intention of shipping another bloated operating system and forcing that down the throats of our Windows customers,'' Maritz said.
Now, if you want a sore loser, take this Microsoftie, please:
"Sun's board should wash his mouth out with soap," said Tod Nielsen, general manager of developer relations. "If my five-year-old talked the same way, she'd be blowing bubbles."
Also, please keep Mr. Nielsen away from my 4&6-year-olds, I think the soap thing is pretty barbaric even in the case of foul language, and I don't see McNealy saying anything foul here, just the truth. Of course, the truth is probably considered foul language in Redmond, where groupthink seems to rule. Microsoft wants to "embrace and demolish" Java, you know it, I know it, everyone who has an ounce of technical sense knows it. Microsoft does not want people to write portable programs that run on Windows and elsewhere, this was clearly stated in the "Microsoft declares war" article, right from the top. But that's the whole point of Java. What did McNealy say that wasn't true? Yes, bombarding Gates with email might be juvenile, but the Microsoft war on Java is juvenile too.
Cheers, Dan. |
