BALTIMORE--A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Microsoft to begin shipping Sun Microsystems' Java with the Windows operating system within 120 days, after the companies fought over implementing a ruling he made last month.
U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz summoned lawyers for both sides in the private antitrust suit to a special hearing on their failure to agree on the exact terms of a preliminary injunction.
"I can't sit here hearing after hearing," Motz said. "I want this done in 120 days."
Motz ruled on Dec. 23, 2002, that Sun had a good chance of winning its antitrust case against Microsoft, and said he would grant a preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to include Java in its Windows computer operating system.
He had ordered each side to draft a proposal detailing how to carry out the Java "must carry" directive and then negotiate a compromise with each other.
Sun had complained in a court filing that Microsoft wanted to take up to a year before including the Java program in copies of Windows it sells.
Microsoft, which told Motz on Thursday that shipping Java with Windows was not a simple matter and could harm large corporate users of Windows, is almost certain to appeal--a move the judge anticipated.
"If my order doesn't get stayed or reversed (on appeal), it's going to get done," Motz said.
Sun's lawsuit charges Microsoft has tried to sabotage its Java software and plans to dominate the market with its .Net Web services software.
Sun, based in Santa Clara, Calif., claims Microsoft views Sun's Java software as a threat because it can run on a variety of operating systems, not just on Microsoft's Windows.
Among tactics cited in the lawsuit, Sun alleges Microsoft promoted an incompatible form of Java that worked best on Windows and, most recently, dropped it from Windows XP, which was introduced in 2001.
Motz has been assigned cases arising from the landmark government antitrust suit filed in 1998, including a private suit by AOL Time Warner and class-actions suits on behalf of consumers.
Two states, Massachusetts and West Virginia, have appealed as too weak a settlement of the government case endorsed by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in November.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in 2001, agreed that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly in the Windows computer
Source: CNet News
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