Technology: Sun Microsystems vs. Microsoft

January 23, 2001: Microsoft agrees to settle a lawsuit with Sun Microsystems over the JAVA COMPATIBLE issue. The reason for the lawsuit lies in the introduction of Java in 1996. The basis of Java was to introduce a method of introducing interactive, live, content into a web page with more flexibility then what is supplied in languages such as JavaScript. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons it could not be embedded deeply into any one operating system. Microsoft then, illegally, created their own version of Java to be included with Windows that had enhanced features set deeply inside of the Windows architecture. This created a security risk, but more importantly, it was a blatant software patent infringement. Microsoft would later pay the price in $20,000,000 and loss of legal freedom to sell and support some products.

December 15, 2003: Support is suspended for 25~ Microsoft Products, including Windows 98 (excluding SE) most Office 2000 products, SQL server 3, and service pack 3 of SQL server 3.

Author's note: Yes, I know that this is old news, but I thought it might be kind of nice to write a short article on it. Don't expect all my work to be of this low, low grade.