The Windows Java runtime dispute runs and runs

By Alun Williams

Posted on 4 Feb 2003 at 13:35

The long running legal battle between Sun and Microsoft has taken another turn. The dispute over how the Java runtime system should ship with Windows has received another court edict.

Yesterday, Microsoft said it would begin shipping an updated version of Service Pack 1 for Windows XP, one that includes a more current version of the Java runtime environment from Sun Microsystems.

Microsoft, however, appealed the preliminary ruling and later in the day the software giant heard that the US Court of Appeals had granted a stay of the order. As a result, Microsoft does not have to carry Sun's Java technology just yet.

Microsoft, of course, welcomed the latest ruling. It always wanted to delay questions of implementing changes to Windows until the matter was decided by appeals court.

What happens next? All parties will have to wait for the Appeals Court to rule - preliminary injunctions have now been set aside. Unfortunately, no date has yet been set for the appeal against the original finding that Microsoft acted uncompetitively over Java. Both sides, however, have requested to hear the appeal on an expedited basis.

Those who have kept an eye on the case will remember that at the end of last week - Sun bids to shut out MS Java appeal - Sun claimed Microsoft appeal was part of delaying tactics to ensure Java's demise. 'Since this is a competition "for the field," a stay now could cause the very harm the Order is designed to avoid,' Sun claimed in a 25-page filing.

In mid January, Microsoft was given three months to ship Java. Judge J. Frederick Motz affirmed his original ruling that Microsoft must carry Sun's version of the Java runtime. He gave the parties 120 days to implement the preliminary injunction issued at the end of last year.

The original case involves Sun suing Microsoft for $1bn over the allegedly inferior version of Java shipping with the Windows OS and IE browser. Sun alleges that Microsoft is attempting to discredit the platform-agnostic system in favour of Microsoft's own more proprietary .Net framework

The Java runtime system is the technology that allows Java programs - which in theory are platform neutral - to run on a specific platform. The concern of Sun is obvious: with Windows being a dominant operating system, the success of Java (in part) will rely on its acceptance by Windows-based desktops and IE browsers.