On 2020-09-01, Martin Gregorie  wrote:

> On Tue, 01 Sep 2020 09:19:26 -0400, Mayayana wrote:
>
>> I don't understand why so many people want to cast
>> Microsoft as the only villain. Yes, MS tried to come up with their own
>> version of Java.
>
> In this case that's because they were: you do NOT grab somebody else's
> product (at that time it belonged to Sun and no part of it was open
> source), hack it about to suit yourself without consulting anybody, least
> of all the originators and standardisation people, and then try to flog
> it to all and sundry. Thats very little different to the way M$ bought
> what became MSDOS from its originators so they had something to flog to
> IBM, though they did at least buy MSDOS it from its authors. I forget
> what, if anything they paid Sun for Java.

Not much, if anything.  Sun borrowed a page from Philips and the
Compact Cassette (remember them?) that was introduced in 1963:
make the licence very easy to obtain, but make one of its terms
a strict compilance to the specification.  This made the cassette
a standard which many manufacturers adopted, and it quickly became
ubiquitous.  Java was on the same path when Microsoft violated the
licensing agreement.  Sun sued, and the judge gave Microsoft 90 days
to either comply with the agreement or pull Windows 98 off the market.
Microsoft had no choice but to back down - but it's little wonder that
they suddenly lost interest in Java.

--
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ /        |  Apple is a cult.
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  Linux is anarchy.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  Pick your poison.

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