Charles,
If SUNW's claim, that they attempted to change the Java language,
is accurate, a judgement for MSFT would invalidate nearly all
copyright protection, internationally.
Do you happen to remember the George Harrison (Beatles) case?
His hit "My Sweet Lord" was judged to have been a direct copy,
with a few mods, of the R&B song "He's so Fine". During the
trial, it came out that Harrison was to have said upon hearing
a recording of "He's so Fine": "That's a nice song, I think I'll
write it". George then "wrote it", published it with a new title,
& lost the case after both songs were played back-to-back in
court. It cost him dearly. The case was considered important
in the upholding of international copyright law.
A quote from a MSFT exec was something like: "Cross-platform Java
will never work, let's steal the language". MSFT then proceeded
to change the source to make it their own language, then publish
it using their own names & piggy-backing on the Java trademark.
If that's not copyright infringement, I don't know what is.
The only way SUNW would stand to lose, from what I can tell, is
if they said in their contract with MSFT: "For a license fee of
$3,500,000.00 you can take the language and do anything you want
with it, we don't really care." Apparently, they didn't do that.
It looks to me like a limited-use license with certain
restrictions. MSFT could prepare a derivative of the original,
but the source is still the property of SUNW. No assignment of
copyright would be made, in that case. It seems to me that that
means SUNW can still decide how their product can be used, and
what guidelines have to be followed by the licensee.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see a way for MSFT to spin the
contract terms around to make it look like they have the right
to change the actual language syntax, as SUNW contends. It
doesn't seem like any of the other 150+ licensees have interpreted
their Java contracts the way MSFT has. Why would SUNW's legal
department be so stupid as to give away a blockbuster product like
Java? I don't think so, Charles.
MSFT, as usual, is full of shit, & is relying on a slow, ignorant
legal system to let them get away with theft of intellectual
property. They figure that they've got more to lose by complying
with SUNW than by taking their chances in court & trying to delay,
delay, delay, until market forces render the whole case moot.
McNealy realized this, long ago, a made certain that MSFT didn't
get the best and final Java at the outset. When MSFT exhibited
their predictable behavior & decided to publish a non-compliant
Java with the attitude, "so sue us, Scott!", SUNW stopped sending
them updates to the source. Now, MSFT is incompatible & regressive
& all alone & in violation of the law.
I see SUNW's case against MSFT as a pretty clear-cut contract
dispute & copyright violation claim. Fortunately, they don't have
to rely wholly on statutory law to carry them forward, as the DOJ
does. The legally-binding contract is their best weapon, and I
expect them to nail MSFT with it.
cheers,
cherylw |
