Sun and Google shake hands

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Clearing up Confusion

I stand technically corrected, MSJVM has avaliable with windows installations, however realistically, as you elude to, it was, and has remained, a an old version of the JDK (1.1.4) which was a pre 2000 release.
You wrote:
I'm not certain why Sun demanded having a less than optimal version of java in Windows

I believe Sun did this to make sure that the MS extensions died an early death and did not continue to exists as a rouge package being attached to better implementions of the JDK over several years. But, with a 1.1.4 impl, you might as well not have had anything at all (ok, maybe applets).
You are exactly right about the court case. MS made 'improvements' mainly adding the delegate model to the language, but this was a break in techinical philosophy from what Sun was trying to achieve through it's elaborate interface/listener model. (http://java.sun.com/docs/white/delegates.html)
Some of MS other behaviors, that you express a little more fully (i.e. misrepresentations), I just assume attribute to 'protecting' their interests.

Although, MS promises to assist tranisition of programs requiring MS's extensions to current JVM impls (or, as they also suggest to .NET), I have yet to see any indication that they will be packaging a 3rd party JVM with windows beyond XP (naturally), actually I've seen the opposite.
While perhaps I was overstated in saying that not bundling a current JRE with windows killed consumer 'Desktop'(Web distributed or not) java apps in leu of the many problems with 'using java', I think it is also an overstatement to say that the 'public has always had access to Java through Windows', as really they only had access to 1.1 (basically requiring the user to download a new JRE to run anything more than applets since, say 2001). This is especially important with the coming of J2EE serverside apps as RMI/IIOP was not part of 1.1 (more of an enterprise issue).

So then why is this significant and as you surmise, why is Google positioned to encourge java use?
One, the new wave upon us is OS independent applications. There are many reasons for this, one being the increased stability and ease of use of linux is begining to make it a viable OS option (and certainly less expensive), another simply being backwards compatability for many businesses(i.e. cost of upgrading every couple of years).
Two, couple interoperability with a new distribution and licensing model. Web-based allow for smaller footprints, easier updates, more choices and most importantly, no dependency that the software has to be installed on a particular machine (i.e. my applications, or more correctly my destop follows me like online email!).
Which also leads to licensing. The old model, you pay for it whether you use it never or everyday (look at Windows Corporate OS licensing model to see a gross example of this, as you must pay a licensing fee for each computer your company has reguardless if it has Windows on it or not). The new licensing will be more pay on demand.

Because Google wants to become your online desktop, for those of us that don't want to use Jump Linux!, the platform they support for their backend services and their thicker 'desktop' clients becomes very important!
They could have just as well picked .NET, but MS has their own initiative with MSN that is essetially the same idea with .NET.

This is the begining of the battle for the online desktop, and this partnership assures it will be a good one.

Posted by: JonnyBlade   Posted on: 10/06/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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