The judge presiding over the court in the Department of JusticeÆs case against Microsoft yesterday called into question SunÆs argument that Microsoft had deliberately circumvented the Java specification and developed its own brand as a means of protecting its dominance over the PC market. During the redirect examination of Sun vice president James Gosling, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson asked Gosling if he agreed with what Jackson believed had been the general implication of the questioning so far. A goodly proportion of the cross examination had to do with documenting evidence that said Microsoft had grasped the significance of the work you were doing, had run with it and had produced a better version of it….they simply couldnÆt wait for you to catch up. But Gosling, once again stressing the importance of what he frequently referred to as a community, standards-based approach, said: They represented [their technology] as better, but their version of better is tied to the Windows platform and prevents interoperability with other platforms. Anything thatÆs a standard has to be worked on by lots of processes…..we involved literally millions of people. We didnÆt just sit down and say æOK, let’s do that.Æ The whole communication process leads to something thatÆs better in terms of a technical sense. During the redirect Thursday afternoon, the governmentÆs chief lawyer, David Boies, asserted that Microsoft had deliberately used its power and marketing muscle to freeze SunÆs main Java distributor, Netscape Communications Corp, out of the market by bundling its Internet Explorer browser for free with its Windows 98 operating system. And at the same time, having integrated its own non-compliant version of Java within the OS, the software giant used its powerful distribution channel to try and pull the rug from under SunÆs feet. To illustrate his case, Boies used as evidence an internal Microsoft document which, under a heading marked Strategic objective, read, To kill cross-platform Java by growing the polluted Java market. Further down, the document went on to say: Since cross platform capability is the fundamental desire in the Java market, VJ98, being primarily the tool for Java development for Windows, does not cater to the current market demands. Thus the Java market needs to be made aware of the pitfalls of cross-platform Java and needs to be educated in the merits of Java development for Windows. Turning to Gosling, Boies asked him how MicrosoftÆs so called pollution had effected Java. Microsoft engaged in changes to their development tools such that the output of their Java compiler, if you followed their recommendations, produced something that wasnÆt cross platform, Gosling replied, Microsoft took this level playing field we tried to create and carved out its part. But because of its market share, it carved out 99% of the field. Gosling said, there were some knobs you could twist, within MicrosoftÆs development environment that would enable you to write applications in 100% Java but they were buried quite deeply in the software. Sometimes too deeply, he asserted, for even the most technically-savvy developers to find. And with MicrosoftÆs refusal to implement the both the JNI and the RMI standards, once you slid in there, you were locked in, Gosling said. Gosling was expected to finish giving evidence late Thursday, whereupon it is expected the government will call its penultimate witness, Edward Felten, from Princeton University. That being the case, the last witness, IntuitÆs William Harris, will take the stand during the first week of the new year. The government will then begin cross examination of MicrosoftÆs 12 witnesses early January.
