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Sun Microsystems and Microsoft demonstrated Wednesday that they could agree on something regarding Java: Both made their once-sealed Java licensing agreement public on their Web sites. The legal tussle over the interpretation of that contract, however, is still on.
The mutual decision to publish the contract comes on the heels of Sun's federal lawsuit alleging that Microsoft violated its licensing agreement.
The Java community and general public were looking for information regarding the status of the agreement, and publishing the contract seemed to be the best way to provide it, said John Loiacono, director of marketing strategy and branding for Sun.
"Both parties wanted to post this information but each looked to the other to draw up the contract," Loiacono explained. "This took five to six days to get rolling."
The 27-page license outlines the terms of implementing Sun's operating system, including Java Foundation Classes and the Java Native Interface, the trademark of any Java application as defined by Sun.
In publishing the contract, Sun was not looking to make a political stand or take its case to the public. Loiacono maintained that Sun merely wanted to put as much information in the public domain as possible and to let the courts decide the interpretation.
Microsoft took aim at Sun in its Q&A, charging the Java creator with using the court of public opinion to help decide the case.
"Sun selectively revealed and paraphrased parts of the agreement," the Microsoft Q&A said. "Given that Sun has been attempting to argue this case in the court of public opinion, it was important to make sure that the entire contract was revealed, not just the individual sections Sun has already disclosed."
Tod Nielsen, Microsoft general manager for developer relations, declined to offer specific instances of such paraphrasing, saying company lawyers had directed him to refrain from doing so.
The 11 March 1996 contract initiated a 5-year license for which Microsoft is to pay US$3.5 million a year to Sun for the use of Java.
Sun also posted another interesting document on its site today: its amended federal court complaint against Microsoft, which includes details about damages sought in the case.
The Java creator's complaint says Sun is entitled to any and all profits Microsoft has derived from the misuse of the "Java Compatible" logo, the amount of damages sustained by Sun as a result of this misuse, Sun's costs in attorney's fees and expenses, and compensatory damages to be determined at trial. Sun is also seeking $35 million in liquidated damages sustained from Microsoft's posting of Java source code on its site that was publicly accessible.
The code was part of a developer's kit for IE 4.0. Sun, in testing IE 4.0 for Java compatibility, examined the developer kit and found the code. Because Microsoft made Sun's code available to IE 4.0 developers, the software giant violated the "term and termination" clause in the contract, Sun says. The clause spells out the conditions and the amount in damages due in the event of violations.
