Sun Microsystems' action is a private antitrust suit filed under the antitrust laws of the United States as well as the laws of the State of California. Sun is the plaintiff, Microsoft Corporation is the defendant.
Sun's suit seeks to restrain anticompetitive conduct by Microsoft and to remedy the damage suffered by Sun as a result of Microsoft's illegal efforts to maintain and expand its monopoly power. No damage amounts have been specified.
Court
Suns civil antitrust suit was filed in March 2002 in the San Jose Division, United States District Court for the Northern District of California. (more).
What Sun Charges
Sun's lawsuit charges that Microsoft's illegal behaviour harmed the Java Platform. In addition to this the suit specifies that Microsoft:
Engaged in illegal monopolization of and/or monopoly maintainance (violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act) of the:
Intel-capable PC operating system market
Web-browser market
Office product/suite market
Attempted to monopolize (violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act):
Workgroup sever operating system market
(more).
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based, object-oriented[6] scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is also considered a functional programming language[1] like Scheme and OCaml because it has closures and supports higher-order functions.[7]
JavaScript is an implementation of the ECMAScript language standard and is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as part of a web browser in order to provide enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites. This enables programmatic access to computational objects within a host environment.
JavaScript's use in applications outside web pages—for example in PDF documents, site-specific browsers, and desktop widgets—is also significant. Newer and faster JavaScript VMs and frameworks built upon them (notably Node.js) have also increased the popularity of JavaScript for server-side web apps.
JavaScript uses syntax influenced by that of C. JavaScript copies many names and naming conventions from Java, but the two languages are otherwise unrelated and have very different semantics. The key design principles within JavaScript are taken from the Self and Scheme programming languages.[8]
History
JavaScript was originally developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape under the name Mocha, which was later renamed to LiveScript, and finally to JavaScript.[10][11] LiveScript was the official name for the language when it first shipped in beta releases of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995, but it was renamed JavaScript in a joint announcement with Sun Microsystems on December 4, 1995,[12] when it was deployed in the Netscape browser version 2.0B3.[13]
The change of name from LiveScript to JavaScript roughly coincided with Netscape adding support for Java technology in its Netscape Navigator web browser. The final choice of name caused confusion, giving the impression that the language was a spin-off of the Java programming language, and the choice has been characterized by many as a marketing ploy by Netscape to give JavaScript the cachet of what was then the hot new web-programming language.[14][15] It has also been claimed that the language's name is the result of a co-marketing deal between Netscape and Sun, in exchange for Netscape bundling Sun's Java runtime with its then-dominant browser.
JavaScript very quickly gained widespread success as a client-side scripting language for web pages. As a consequence, Microsoft named its implementation JScript to avoid trademark issues. JScript added new date methods to fix the Y2K-problematic methods in JavaScript, which were based on Java's java.util.Date class.[16] JScript was included in Internet Explorer 3.0, released in August 1996.
Trade Mark
Vendor-specific extensions
JavaScript is officially managed by Mozilla Foundation, and new language features are added periodically. However, only some non-Mozilla JavaScript engines support these new features:
- property getter and setter functions (also supported by WebKit, Opera,[28] ActionScript, and Rhino)[29]
- conditional
catchclauses - iterator protocol adopted from Python
- shallow generators/coroutines also adopted from Python
- array comprehensions and generator expressions also adopted from Python
- proper block scope via the new
letkeyword - array and object destructuring (limited form of pattern matching)
- concise function expressions (
function(args) expr) - ECMAScript for XML (E4X), an extension that adds native XML support to ECMAScript
History
The first web browsers were monolithic. Later they adopted a more modular approach and were split into a user interface and an engine.
The engine does most of the work. It essentially takes a URL and a screen rectangle as arguments. It then retrieves the document corresponding to the URL and paints a graphical representation of it on the given rectangle. It handles links, cookies, scripting, plug-ins loading and other matters.
The user interface provides the menu bar, address bar, status bar, bookmark manager, history and preferences window among other things. It embeds the engine and serves as an interface between the user and the engine. Since it provides the graphical elements surrounding the area in which the engine paints documents, the term chrome is sometimes used to refer to it.
The advantage of this modular approach is that it then becomes easy to embed web browser engines in a variety of applications. For example, the same engine used by a web browser can be used by an email client to display HTML mail. On-line help systems integrated in applications have largely moved from using custom formats to using standard HTML displayed with a web browser engine.
The term shareware (also known as trialware or demoware) refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a periodical such as a newspaper or magazine. The rationale behind shareware is to give buyers the opportunity to use the program and judge its usefulness before purchasing a license for the full version of the software. Firms with superior software thus have an incentive to offer samples, except if their product is already well known, or if they do not want to be listed in direct competition with other products on shareware repositories.[1]
Shareware is usually offered either with certain features only available after the license is purchased, or as a full version but for a limited trial period of time. Once the trial period has passed, the program may stop running until a license is purchased. Shareware is often offered without supports or updates which only become available with the purchase of a license. The words "free trial" or "trial version" are indicative of shareware.
The term shareware is used in contrast to retail software, which refers to commercial software available only with the purchase of a license which may not be copied for others, public domain software, which refers to software not copyright protected, and freeware, which refers to copyrighted software for which the author solicits no payment (though he or she may request donations).
Java Platform
Java refers to a number of computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, that together provide a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones on the low end, to enterprise servers and supercomputers on the high end. Java is used in mobile phones, Web servers and enterprise applications, and while less common on desktop computers, Java applets are sometimes used to provide improved and secure functionalities while browsing the World Wide Web.
Writing in the Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as Java bytecode, though there are bytecode compilers available for other languages such as Ada, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. Several new languages have been designed to run natively on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), such as Scala, Clojure and Groovy. Java syntax borrows heavily from C and C++, but object-oriented features are modeled after Smalltalk and Objective-C.[1] Java eliminates certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has a very simple memory model where every object is allocated on the heap and all variables of object types are references. Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection performed by the JVM.
On November 13, 2006, Sun Microsystems made the bulk of its implementation of Java available under the GNU General Public License,[2] although there are still a few parts distributed as precompiled binaries due to copyright issues with code that is licensed (but not owned) by Sun.[3]
On the next page you will see some of the history of how the internet as we know it came into being.
Early computers had very little networking capability, and in the 1980's typically used two floppy drives which had to be exchanged between drives or between different computers.
Then modems came along, first using a telephone handpiece plugged into the device connected to the computer, then a digital device inside the computer, and late again simply using software originally supplied by Lucent.
The latest browsers use a scripting language called JavaScript, and there was a legal battle in the late 1990's to gain control of the browser market.
The result was that teh United States Courts ruled that Sun (Microsystems Limited) owned the rights to the browser which was written in JavaScript to recognise the JavaScript language, and this was owned by Sun. The ruling was againsr Microsoft who were ordered to pay $700,000,000 to Sun Microsystems and discontinue from distributing there version of the browser, however it has not done so.
The latest development of this story is that by some agreement between Sun and Oracle, Oracle has taken over the running of Sun. It has even assumed the trade mark JavaScript, however the browser itself is being developed by Mozilla under the name Firefox.
Historically, Mozilla had been used internally as a codename for the Netscape Navigator web browser from its beginning. Jamie Zawinski came up with the name during a meeting while working at the company.[1] The name was created as a portmanteau of the words "Mosaic killer",[2] hinting that Netscape would be the end to the (then only) competitor browser, Mosaic. The logo was a reference to the name of the fictional monster Godzilla.
"Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. As of August 2011, Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 30% of worldwide usage share of web browsers.[8][9][10] The browser has had particular success in Germany and Poland, where it is the most popular browser with 55% usage[11] and 47%[12] respectively.
To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features that are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.[13]
The latest Firefox features[14] include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based exclusively on a Google service[15] and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers,[16] of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.
Firefox runs on various operating systems including Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and many other platforms. Its current stable release is version 6.0, released on August 16, 2011.[17] Firefox's source code is tri-licensed under the GNU GPL, GNU LGPL, or Mozilla Public License.[18]"
In fact, the browser is not free, it is shareware, and the licence price depends upon which country it is being used in. For example, in the United States of America, the price is $2011 (the same as the current year), in Australia it is payable in Australian dollars, and in New Zealand, New Zealand dollars.
The government of New Zealand is aware of my claim, as a letter from the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Hon Stephen Joyce confirms, and has taken legal moves against me to prevent me taking this matter to the courts. However, that will not alter the facts, as time will tell.
One piece of software I wrote called Box simply drew a box using the Microsoft Keyboard code borders around a string of a specified length (17 characters or bytes). It sold for $2 but I was not the recipient, and did not mind this.
Another is called Paws, which uses the timing system to pause or blink or do a number of specified options to the software object. At the time the microsoft equivalent was "Strike any key to continue, and was usually a Yes (Y) No (N) option. Some of you may remember it from the 1970's.
As I claim, Sun (a Chinese word written in the Emperor's robe and illustrated at the top of this page) is an international trade mark first registered by the Emperor of China (or Dragon).
India was the first country to recognise and respet this claim, in turn
for China respecting its territorial claims, international boundaries,
and system of government. Sun or Sun corp. (corporation) is or was then
the name of the Chinese Army. Under the law, it served its owner, the Emperor, or Dragon (brand), and is owned by Dragon.
Firefox consists of two words in Mandarin, Fire and Fox.
JavaScript is a trademark belonging to Sun
http://cs.sun.com/suntrademarks/JavaSafe(TM)JavaScope(TM)
JavaScript(TM)
JavaServer Pages(TM)
JavaServer(TM)