Why, we’ve been asked, did the Open Software Foundation put out that press release about Sun Microsystems Inc funding the Addamax Inc anti-trust action against the Software Foundation, Hewlett-Packard Co and Digital Equipment Corp (CI No 2,015)? Well frankly we don’t know. It didn’t win it any friends in the Sun Microsystems Inc camp, where the Foundation could do with a few friends. It made at least one of the co-defendants uncomfortable and risked irritating the judge by appearing to play fast and loose with the legal system. One is forced to ask what the Software Foundation had to gain, and wonder if it wasn’t some kind of supralegal manoeuvre to put pressure on Addamax and Sun because they’ve got something on the Software Foundation contingent. But how can you pressure Sun when it’s locked in with what the judge himself considers an irrevocable letter of credit to cover the legal bills if Addamax loses? It was that very irrevocability that caused him to lift his own confidentiality order, leading to the Software Foundation spilling the beans. He apparently reckoned that any pressure wouldn’t be effective. The Software Foundation press release and its mock Shock! Horror! surprise also doesn’t allow for the fact that Addamax voluntarily revealed Sun’s involvement to defendents’ counsel in October last year and that the Software Foundation itself has known about it since at least May of this year. The point is that the kind of sugar daddy Sun is playing is neither uncommon now is it illegal.
