Stop blaming Microsoft for Sun's Java woes
ZDNet | at | by Mike
Microsoft's decision to move away from Java is tied to their settlement agreement with Sun, which places several restrictions on Microsoft that haven't been widely reported. At the top of the list of restrictions: Microsoft is only allowed to ship the ancient 1.1.4 version of Java. Microsoft has taken a lot of grief for this from uninformed observers, but in fact you can blame Sun. At the time Sun sued Microsoft many years ago it stopped delivering code to Microsoft as well, which is why Microsoft's VM has never advanced beyond version 1.1.4. Microsoft actually counter-sued over Sun's refusal to deliver under the contract, but the counter-suit was thrown out along with the rest of the suit. What's more, Microsoft's removal of Java from new Windows versions starting in 2004 isn't exactly a decision it made--that, too, is mandated by the settlement agreement. But Sun's still not happy. Now Sun argues that Microsoft should ship Sun's Virtual Machine with Windows XP. Wouldn't that be nice for Sun.