Ben Lenail, Sun’s Microsoft relationship manager, told ComputerWire that Sun will encourage Microsoft to submit some of its foundational technologies, normally hidden to the outside world and jealously guarded by Microsoft, to some the industry’s leading standards groups.

Sun is looking at the World Wide Web Consortium, the Organization for the Advancement in Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and the Distributed Management Taskforce (DMTF).

Lenail spoke in the wake of criticism from Java father James Gosling, voiced last week, about Sun’s relationship with Microsoft.

The companies last year agreed to exchange technologies under a landmark legal settlement, however Gosling was reported to have complained last week that although Sun is allowed to view and use Microsoft’s technologies, the company is prohibited from passing those technologies onto the community.

Sun is apparently in the process of licensing a set of technologies from Microsoft, but Lenail was unwilling to provide further details.

Gosling also questioned the value Sun is getting under the deal, saying the agreement was becoming less relevant as the European Union forces Microsoft to reveal Windows server and Media Player APIs through its antitrust case.

The companies have, so far, worked on developing specifications in Microsoft’s WS- web services roadmap, and certified Sun’s directory server, access manager and identity manager on Windows, while Microsoft’s volume task manager has been certified on Sun’s 6920 storage arrays.

Lenail insisted Microsoft and Sun are full and equal partners in their relationship. Once we have laid out the broad lines, we will try to push Microsoft to submit a lot of those things to the standards bodies, Lenail said.

He also insisted the relationship had not been adversely affected by Gosling’s comments. They [Microsoft] know he hasn’t been involved in the Microsoft relationship. They are a lot more interest in what Greg Papadopoulos and Scott [McNealy] have to say, and it’s been very positive, Lenail said.

Papadopoulos is Sun’s chief technology officer, who has been closely involved in the relationship, through engagements with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and visits to the Redmond campus.