Bearded One,
I'm not trying to insult, but I believe you don't know the facts. Please try to be open minded for a moment.
First, the heirarchy that was claimed by Sun to be off limits was java.*, not sun.*. Netscape has added to java.*. In fact, Netscape had already set a precedent for modifying these classes when Microsoft made their changes.
Netscape was 1 year behind in compatibility with JDK versions when Sun sued Microsoft, even though Microsoft wasn't behind at all. At the time, Microsoft passed the tests more cleanly than any other licensee. Baratz was entirely incorrect ;-) when he said otherwise. Sun said they weren't suing Netscape because Netscape said they would comply. Funny thing is, a short time later, Netscape announced that they would drop Java support in their browser. Guess they really meant it when they said they'd comply, eh?
BTW, not everyone is allowed to add APIs. Microsoft is. Don't know about Netscape. About source code, if you're interested, take a look at the license agreements that you implicitly execute when reading Netscape or Sun source code, not very pretty.
Based on your lack of understanding of the issues, I assume you don't work for Sun, Netscape, or Microsoft. If that's true, can I ask why you seem to be so anti-Microsoft? I know I've asked you this before, but your answer included a statement that you previously made money on the stock. I have never seen a positive statement from you about Microsoft, and I honestly would be curious to hear an objective reason for your anti-Microsoft sentiment.
As far as choosing to license, Sun chose to license Java to Microsoft. They also chose to give Microsoft the right to modify functionality in order to entice Microsoft into signing the agreement. It seems that they are now trying to rewrite the agreement in court.
Thanks,
Mike |
