That’s according to Sun’s chairman and CEO Scott McNealy, who said the agreement is simply establishing a set of rules, certification, testing and compliance that enable them to conduct a cleaner fight.

We are shaking hands with Microsoft in the same way two boxers enter the ring and tap gloves before they beat the hell out of each other, McNealy told press during partner Oracle Corp’s Open World in San Francisco, California, conference.

McNealy said Sun and Microsoft are boxing by the rules in the same way boxers do, so they don’t get their ears bitten off.

Sun and Microsoft have a bitter history of rivalry, a rivalry that has been spearheaded by McNealy whose trademark acerbic style has found its mark on both Microsoft chief software architect Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer during events like OpenWorld.

McNealy has also derided Microsoft’s .NET technology and Windows, Internet Explorer and Outlook products for security defects, whilst Sun, until this year, was relentless in its pursuit of Microsoft through the courts over violations of Java licensing.

Additionally, Sun supported, and even encouraged official US and European antitrust investigations into Microsoft.

McNealy said that despite this April’s settlement with Microsoft, Sun would continue to promote notions of choice and community.

As such, McNealy used his OpenWorld appearance to play-up Sun products including Java Desktop System (JDS) as alternatives to Microsoft’s Office, noting JDS is more interoperable with Office than Office while highlighting JDS’s low-cost subscription-based price.

He repeated his mantra that the world has come down to two development camps: the Java web services stack and .NET.

McNealy also talked-up Sun’s commitment to open source. Claiming Sun invented open source in the way former US vice president Al Gore invented the Internet, McNealy said Sun had commercialized open source by taking Berkley BSD in 1982 and adding services, indemnification and support.

Now it’s like some new invention. Red Hat is like: ‘Let’s take some open source code and make a company out of it.’ Huh we haven’t done that since 1982? McNealy said.