The creator of the Java programming language testifies in court today!
WASHINGTON - The creator of the Java computer language will testify at the Microsoft antitrust trial today how the software giant used its industry might to sabotage the software's marketability in order to protect its Windows monopoly. In bombshell written testimony released by the Justice Department last night, James Gosling, vice president of Sun Microsystems, charges Microsoft rewrote and distributed its own version of Java software in order to defeat its main purpose: to allow developers to write programs that can run on any system.
"If Microsoft successfully fragments the Java technology, the cross platform benefits to vendors, developers and users of the Java technology will be damaged, and any threat that the Java technology poses to Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system will be neutralized," Gosling warned in his written statement.
To accompany Gosling's testimony, the government plans to introduce a series of damaging e-mails in which Microsoft CEO Bill Gates discuss plans to "extinguish," undermine," and "wrest control," of the Java programming software.
And Justice Department lawyers will also play significant new portions of grumpy Gates' videotaped deposition in which he attempts to stonewall investigators about his company's response to Java, sources said.
Gates was confronted with an April 1997 e-mail he received from an underling who recounted questions Gates had asked him including "How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?"
Gates replied that he didn't remember the e-mail and denied ever asking that question, sources said.
The issue of what Microsoft did to Java is a critical part of the government's antitrust case against the software giant.
Earlier this month in San Jose Calif., federal judge Ronald Whyte ordered Microsoft to include an unedited version of Sun in its Windows 98 software as part of a separate case in which Sun sued Microsoft for breach of contract.
There is additional intrigue to Gosling's testimony because Sun is a key player in the $4.21 billion Netscape AOL merger - a deal that Microsoft has used to argue that the government's antitrust case has been overtaken by "seismic," competitive changes in the high-tech industry.
Microsoft officials responded to Gosling's charges by saying the company had rewritten Java to make it more efficient.
Most developers write software primarily for Windows, the operating system that powers 95 percent of the world's personal computers. To rewrite applications for other operating systems is a cumbersome and expensive process, Gosling testified.
-- Niles Lathem - 12/02/98