Judge orders up Java for Windows
Published: 21 Jan 2003 16:43 GMT
A federal judge in Baltimore on Tuesday moved ahead with his order that Microsoft distribute Sun Microsystems' Java programming language with its Windows operating system.
US District Judge J. Frederick Motz approved terms that Microsoft and Sun jointly developed over the weekend. The closed-door negotiations came after Motz ruled on 23 December that Sun stood a good chance of winning its antitrust suit against Microsoft and told both sides to craft a mutually agreeable preliminary injunction.
Tuesday's 11-page order gives Microsoft 120 days to include Sun's Java runtime environment in every copy of Windows and Internet Explorer it sells. For versions of Windows in languages other than English, Microsoft need not include Sun's software until it receives a localised version.
Microsoft must also "notify customers via any and all Microsoft update services" that the latest Java software is available and "refrain from disabling" the Java software, the order says.
Microsoft has pledged to immediately appeal the preliminary injunction to the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia.
Sun, by contrast, lauded the judge's action.
"This preliminary injunction is a huge victory for consumers who will soon have the best, latest Java technology on their PCs," Lee Patch, Sun's vice president for strategic litigation, said in a statement on Tuesday. "It is also a victory for enterprises and for the worldwide Java Community of developers and system vendors."
Sun filed the suit, which claims that Microsoft tried to sabotage Windows, after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., agreed with the U.S. Justice Department and some state attorneys general that Microsoft had violated federal antitrust laws.
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