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| A MS-Sun "Debate" |
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Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 02:38 PM EDT
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A Groklaw reader in the UK went to what was advertised as a debate between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems over their respective approaches to web services, .NET and J2EE. He attended what he says turned out to be more of a roadshow with each selling its product, but together, side-by-side. It makes me wonder if the legal settlement requires such co-productions or if they just enjoy each others' company. More likely, my theory is proving true: they intend to present the idea that they are the two good choices for business but that Red Hat is a bad choice.
Here is what the "debate" was supposed to be about:
"The University of Hertfordshire is to host a debate between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems about their respective approaches to Web Services - the exciting new technology that allows computerised systems to locate and use other services over the Web.
"This approach allows the possibility of integrating legacy, corporate and heterogeneous systems into a coherent whole or the leveraging new systems utilising multi-vendor services. Not surprisingly, these ambitious goals require the use of some complex technologies, including XML (eXtensible Markup Language) to achieve data portability across heterogeneous systems, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) to transfer XML-encoded data, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) to allow services to describe themselves, and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) registry services.
"The trick is making all this technology accessible to system designers and implementers. Currently, the two most prominent approaches are Microsoft’s .NET architecture and J2EE based around Sun’s language Java. Unsurprisingly, each approach has its champions and detractors.
"Andrew Bull, YPG liaison for the BCS Hertfordshire Branch says, ‘This event is a good opportunity for the local BCS to get involved with a valuable debate, so we’re encouraging as many BCS members as possible to attend.’
"The School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire is hosting the debate, which will see the Microsoft and Sun Microsystems teams address the following points: overview of the architecture, key design points, customer examples & testimonies and a summary." The University also collected some information on web services so attendees could prepare, including a link to the XML Protocol Working Group's list archive here. I understand slides will be available eventually.
The XML page has a link to the XML Development History page. They also list a Sun and Web Services page and a Microsoft and Web Services page. The latter includes this:
"Get Java/.NET Interoperability with the MS.com Web Service
"Find out how to create a more advanced Java client or Web-based application using the methods outlined in this article, including how the WS-Security specification and implementation can be used to validate a Web service call from Java to Microsoft .NET. So, no moss is growing on Microsoft. Sun's page didn't seem to have anything comparable, by the way. Here is John's report on the event, and I think you'll see that if Sun and Microsoft are still competitors, as immediately after the settlement was announced Sun insisted they still are, they are certainly competing in a brand new way. I think my theory continues to stand: the plan is to present each other as the two good choices and each attack Red Hat: "Open standards are better than open source," dontcha know? Here is another viewpoint.
********************************************
Gosh if that was supposed to be a debate I wonder what a love-fest
complete with flowers and guitars would have been like.
Even the agenda introduced the Sun people as being from Microsoft and
vice versa and no one seemed to mind.
The Sun presentation was how J2EE was a wonderful open standard that
would do everything and let you implement things to make the tea as well.
The M$ presentation was how .NET was a wonderful open implementation
of J2EE (listing all sorts of OSes it was available on including FreeBSD - one OS being conspicuous by its absence I'll leave you to guess which but to help you along it's 5 letters, starts with L and ends with X).
The two "sides" had slide shows on laptops which the Sun team let slip
was on Linux on theirs. Their slide show had nice fading in and out of the points they were making whilst the M$ slide show had a sickening black screen with an hourglass in for about 5 seconds between each slide - heh heh.
The M$ slide show ended with a video presentation from about half a
dozen people saying how wonderful their life had become since they started using .NET - sounded a bit like a sort of "how I got religion" testimony with the same sort of monotone voice and glassy-eyed stare. Didn't end with a hymn to Sir Bill though.
I got the first question in which alluded to the error in the agenda
and asked if I'd come to the wrong meeting as I'd come to a "debate" and could they tell me what they disagree about. They (mostly the chief M$ guy) replied with a load of waffle.
No one from SCO was there as far as I could tell although they only
had to cross the car park to get there and apart from letting slip about the Sun laptop running Linux there and another token mention at one point and a flurry of acronyms (or whatever the collective noun is - "aggregation" perhaps??) to totally transfix the listener it was about as controversial as last year's phone book.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 02:52 PM EDT |
| Spelling: Micosystems -> Microsystems [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PJ on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 02:52 PM EDT |
| Please put all corrections here. Thank you. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:02 PM EDT |
Most of the time I agree with you, but I don't understand why promoting
Java/J2EE has anything to do with RedHat. RedHat Linux is a great platform to
run Java/J2EE, as is any variant of Linux. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Keep Up! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:20 PM EDT
- Keep Up! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 06:24 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:06 PM EDT |
SUN & MS say Red Hat is a bad choice?
What about Novell SuSE (9.1 shipping 5.7.2004 per call today with SuSE US
offices)? Novell SuSE 9.1 is not in stores yet today - some say maybe tomorrow
(friday). I can't wait to get a box that says NOVELL SuSE 9.1 to support NOVELL
vs SCO. I also bought the Red Hat 9 to support RED HAT and also buy others too
(see listing of others in url below)!
Or what about the other distros... they must be bad too?
For a full list of the distributions that may interest you try this url:
http://www.linux.org/dist/[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:24 PM EDT |
Everytime I hear that canard about "Open Standards are better than Open
Source" I want to cringe. They say it as if the two were mutually
exclusive. I can not think of a single true open standard that anyone cares
about which hasn't been implemented in open source form.
Having "embrace, extend, and extinguish" Microsoft talk about
implementing open standards is worth a guffaw or two all by itself. XML is just
the latest open standard they have hijacked. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:43 PM EDT |
"The University of Hertfordshire is to host a debate between Microsoft and
Sun Microsystems about their respective approaches to Web Services - the
exciting new technology that allows computerised systems to locate and use other
services over the Web."
This could also be read as:
"...the exciting new technology that allows computer viruses to locate and
use your PC over the Web."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: martimus on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:48 PM EDT |
Of course, lots of the various application and development environments
run
on alternative OSs, but the point here is that now M$ and Sun are
collaborating and not competing any longer. Until the recent hatchet burying
between M$ and Sun this would not have happened. Will this help Sun live
any
longer? Who knows for sure, but there are plenty of bodies on the side of
the
road that M$ has thrown from the car as they move down the highway. I
hope
Scott McNealy's immortal soul was worth it for this $1.95B dollars.
The devil
usually gets you later with the fine print, and M$ is nothing if
not a master of
the fine print. Sorry to be a little over the top, but with
M$, I can't resist! ;>) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ___Mike_B on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT |
And here's mine:
Pamela, may I presume to be the first to wish the Groklaw Blog a very happy
first birthday on May 16th.
I have been an avid reader from day one...Long may you reign![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 04:08 PM EDT |
| Is it a "coincidence" that both Sun, and Microsoft claim at nearly the
exact same time nearly the exact same thing? (That Linux is not open source but
"proprietary"?) It's obvious to me, and perhaps others around here at least
that these two companies are working together against Linux, but are being
somewhat careful not to make it obvious. Unfortunately while Microsoft's
opposition is expected, Sun's is not and is very disappointing to this Unix "old
timer" who learned most of what I know using SunOS. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: martimus on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 04:08 PM EDT |
Sun just got done supposedly getting a
favorable
settlement with
M$ based on M$s initial attempt at embracing and extending
Java.
This
just puts a new face on the old embrace and extend by pointing out the
new
interoperability features between the two development environments,
with M$
killing Java in the long run by subsuming Java and folding it into a
.Net
ghetto. Sun is willingly walking to the
guillotine and slipping their neck into
the trough. I feel sorry for them, but
they did this to themselves. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: haegarth on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 05:06 PM EDT |
Once upon a time, IBM put quite some efforts into building their own PC OS
(still remember OS/2, anyone?)
When Big Blue (or better, Big Lou) realized that they didn't want to compete for
the desktop, they stopped supporting it (well, at least officially, they provide
us OS/2 users with new drivers even today). That decision had some impact on
their economic situation - giving up a far reaching business branch is not too
easy to deal with, even for a company of that size.
Since then, IBM has claimed to have a 'platform-agnostic' approach (originally
statement on several different occasions), and their solution for supporting
that agenda has been Java and Linux since about 2000.
Well, back then even OS/2 has earned them bick bucks for some years, but
compared to their investments in and gains from their java and linux strategies,
these are almost peanuts.
Now I ask myself some questions here....
Will IBM be willing to drop java the same way they abandoned OS/2 (not willing
to compete with MS back then)? I guess not, there's even more at stake for them
this time - no wonder why they have been asking Sun to GPL their Java, but AFAIR
this has been some days before the MS-Sun-marriage, wasn't it? If so, someone at
IBM might have had some information we 'ordinary people' didn't have.
It seems that a large part of their business model today depends on Linux and
Java (OK, the Linux part is even greater, but imagine a Linux system without
Java SDK, because that might be what we'll have to deal with in a not so far
future).
On the other hand, IBM has once and may again find that they are a server
company in the first place (like they did in 1995), but Palmisano isn't
Gerstner, who knows what he will be up to.
So what could be the most logical move for them? Maybe they might finally try to
buy out Sun to aquire their Java technology?!? Sounds crazy, of course, and IBM
isn't MS, but who knows...
IBM has to react in some way or another. Wonder what kind of bomb they'll have
to drop...
Don't get me wrong - I've been working with IBM products (hard- and software)
for over a decade, and consider myself an IBM fan, er, at least to some extent
(if I'm comparing my IBM attitude to my Sun/MS/SCO attitude, that is).
---
Everytime I read SCOspeak I'm dumbfounded...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cab15625 on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 05:18 PM EDT |
I've been doing some looking into the whole trademark issue, and one thing
strikes me even more than the question of "why isn't Open Group getting on
SCOG's back?", and that's the question of "why isn't Open Group upset about
SFU?"
It's not as if they never defend the trademark, from their
own pages, look at what they have to say about
Apple.
The Open Group actively pursues anyone who puts this
trademark in harm's way. Initially we seek to use education and persuasion to
obtain the correct usage and attribution of the UNIX trademark. Only in very
rarest of cases do we take legal action, usually after all other courses of
action have failed. At this time we do have a legal case of our own - against
Apple Computer Company. Apple have been using the UNIX trademark on and in
connection with their OS X product. This constitutes an infringement of our
trademark since OS X is not certified under our UNIX system certification
program, and Apple has refused to use that program to obtain certification.
Apple is obviously a valued member of The Open Group, and we have tried to reach
an arbitrated settlement. However, all of our offers have been declined, so we
have no choice but to fulfill our duty to our customers and the industry as a
whole to protect the UNIX trademark.
From what I can tell, all
Apple has doen is say that OS X can run unix programs. That's as far as Apple
has gone in associating the Unix trademark with their product. Compare that to
SFU where the U stands for Unix. It's right in the name. Yet I haven't been
able to find anything about it being certified on the Open Group web page where
they list
certified products.
Microsoft doesn't claim that they can
run Unix programs, but they do claim a large degree of interoperability, and
they do use the trademark in the name of their product. That would seem to
associate the Unix trademark with their product. Can someone explain to me a
legitamit legal reason why Open Group isn't poking MS in the shoulder and asking
them not to do that to the good name of the Unix trademark? Especially given
how little provocation it took for them to start leaning on Apple.
This
is where tinfoil hat theories start to become tempting (i.e., they're scared
of/have a deal with MS, and therefor don't bother MS or MS puppets. However, in
a few years, MS will bite them because they didn't look after the trademark so
MS will release Notepad for Longhorn as "User Note In Xanadu" and try to confuse
us all.)
PS: As someone who got a B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University, this
name for a (Microsoft product, of all things) really bugs me.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 05:19 PM EDT |
| <eom> [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jmc on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 05:37 PM EDT |
One thing I forgot to mention in my report (for 'twas me) to PJ was that the
prize exhibit by Sun of how wonderful J2EE is was the UK Government Gateway
although the bloke mumbled into his beard the fact that you can only currently
talk to the said Government Gateway using an M$ browser (that is currently
supposed to be being fixed).
The Sun presentation ended with a flashy demo of a Java-powered desktop system
(on the L***x laptop) which included windows with backsides. Not much to do with
Web Services (as was admitted) but it looked very pretty and people applauded.
The Sun people used the phrase "our friends at Microsoft". The M$
people didn't go quite that far but it still wouldn't have surprised me if they
had ended in cuddles.
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| Authored by: Greebo on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 05:48 PM EDT |
| I know we've covered this beofre, but as a Brit i have to make the point
again.
You do NOT refer to Billy as Sir Bill
Yes.
I know that for some bizare reason someone somewhere decided that giving Billy a
Knighthood for his 'Services to Software' was a good idea, but he is NOT a
British Citizen, and is therefore NOT entitled to use, or be refered to as
Sir.
This might seem like splitting hairs to some people, but to us Brits
it's important - especially in this case when it goes to someone
undeserving.
Greebo ---
-----------------------------------------<
br />
Recent Linux Convert and Scared Cat Owner [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: BJ on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 06:46 PM EDT |
If you're lucky you might get some baloney too.
---
__
|Warning:
|Encountered Proprietary Standard and/or Patented Protocol.
|Choose method of payment[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 06:49 PM EDT |
| It is still unknown if a those who accept the pizza must also acknowledge a
licence agreement to do so.
Probably not. More likely it's just a ploy
to get you to drink the kool-aid.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 07:32 PM EDT |
this may be a daft question, but do we actually need .net, j2ee or whatever
"web services"?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- It's just code - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 07:49 PM EDT
- It's just code - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 12:44 AM EDT
- It's just code - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 08 2004 @ 10:07 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Rhys Weatherley on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 07:52 PM EDT |
A quick note: the MS FreeBSD version is called Rotor,
which is distributed under the "Shared Source License".
Rotor is extremely crippled, with poor performance
(interpreters regularly beat Rotor's JIT on common
benchmarks). It lacks most of the important C# class
libraries, and the license prevents it being used in any
environment other than academic teaching and research.
Rotor has been ported to Linux, Mac OS X, and a few others.
But it is little more than a joke compared to other .NET
implementations. MS uses it to claim that they are
portable, while at the same time setting the license up
so that no one in a real environment can use it.
Rhys Weatherley, author of Portable.NET.
http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 06 2004 @ 08:54 PM EDT |
Open Source to my mind enhances and anchors Open Standards somewhat limiting
custom extensions. It does this by having a competetive array of
implementations. With a single implementation the standard is mostly just hot
air as the single implementation defines the defacto standard. Same goes for
implementations that have a monopoly on users.
If you compare implementations of XSLT vs Implementations of Web Browsers you'll
notice this in stark contrast.
XSLT 1.0 has numerous implementations all of which try and implement the
standard. On top of that they somewhat agree on the pseudo EXSLT standard of
extensions. So much so that XSLT 2.0 contains much of that functionality. Each
also has its own cutom extensions that are totally non-standard. Those that rely
on non-standard extensions are effectively tied to that implementation (and
sometimes even a on particular version).
The Web Browser market is still dominated by MS Internet Explorer. At it's
height it established a defacto standard that deviated more and more from the
published standards. Luckily MS changed its direction and now seems intent on
XAML and .Net. It could have released a new version of its browser every year,
each one with more and more wild extensions that required windows, further
eroding the standards. Examples of where MS standard has driven the development
of Mozilla is the WYSIWYG editing component (that admittedly many argue is
something sorely lacking from the standard HTML forms).
Essentially if Governments are serious about Open Standards, they should be
serious about a diverse IT infrastructure. They should have a preference for
technology not tied to a single platform, operating system, product or
implementation. So called Open Standards like Java and .Net do not really fit
the bill yet.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 12:15 AM EDT |
I get it now, the only thing Linux and the Distro houses have to compete against
.NET is .J2EE, and since Sun has an iron grip on .J2EE -- this puts Sun in a
position to be first amoung distributions -- hence strong competition.
Furthermore, it would be likely that other distros having to have to pay Sun
license fees. No wonder they keep harping on Sun to open source Linux. Their
business models of taking something for free, then selling it is at jepardy.
Kudos for Sun for positioning itself in the future and remaining relevant.
Now can groklaw please get back to technological legal issues like Rambus
threatening to sue memory chip manufacturers because Rambus believes they
conspired to defeat Rambus?
I would rather Groklaw maintain objectivity then just becoming another open
source fanboy site.
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| Authored by: blacklight on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 03:48 AM EDT |
Thanks, PJ, for reporting that MS-Sun "debate". I find this
"debate" particularly interesting, given the Sun's past animosity
toward Microsoft. These two lovebirds have obviously found common cause. Finding
that common cause as well as chronicling those of their actions that are
consistent with that common cause is certainly worth our time and consistent
with groklaw's mission as an anti-FUD site.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Milisha on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 04:55 AM EDT |
One of my work-mates went to a Sun usergroup breakfast recently, and the
normally outspoken anti-Microsoft Sun representitives had all of a sudden
started to like Microsoft.
As he knew one of Sun guys personally, he asked what was happening internally
between Microsoft and Sun. The rep said that in return for the money Microsoft
had given Sun (as you know Sun hasn't been doing stunningly financially),
Microsoft got to put 4 Microsoft members on the Java steering group. The group
has 11 members (from memory), and so 4 doesn't constitute a majority, but
because there are financial people, etc in the group, 4 was the the majority of
the technical people on the board.
Essentially Microsoft has played a trump card over Java, and more and more we
will see Java and .Net converge in the future.
You can place bets that we'll see more J2EE/.Net integration (from both
Microsoft and Sun sides) in the near future.
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| Authored by: Vaino Vaher on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 05:31 AM EDT |
So just when java is taking off big time (see this
article for example), Sun and MS shake hands and become friends.
Now
that Java finally can take on the monopoly it becomes a part of the monopoly, or
what?
Will WindowsCE be deliverd with a Java client? Will there be a .Net
plugin for J2EE? Will Sun allow for properitary versions of the class library,
like Microsoft had before (and which lead to two things: vendor lock-in and a
lawsuit that earned Sun billions).
My own reflection is that the sooner
Java becomes an Open Standard the better. (And I don't mean 'Open Standard' the
way MS describes it, but rather the OSF way).
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| Authored by: booda on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 09:31 AM EDT |
More likely, my theory is proving true: they intend to present the idea
that they are the two good choices for business but that Red Hat is a bad
choice.
Red Hat? This is completely wrong, PJ. Seriously, please don't
comment on things unless you understand them.
J2EE happens to be a Java
standard. It works just as well on Windows, Solaris, or Linux. That's what web
services are supposed to do. And do, when implemented correctly. And, with
projects like the Mono project, it even holds true (or almost true) for
Microsoft's .NET.
My company uses Java on Linux (yes, Red Hat), as well as
Microsoft Windows and Solaris. We don't use J2EE, but we do use web services
that are XML-based between multiple tiers (publishers and subscribers). I know
what I am talking about, and the fact that Sun would be with Microsoft at a show
is simply marketing. It doesn't say anything about Red Hat, IBM, or anyone
else. You can easily use Java on all of the above platforms, and many, many
people do. Regardless of what Sun and Microsoft's marketing and PR arms do with
each other.
I donated money to Groklaw because I appreciate the value of the
legal information available here. But inaccurate comments on the I.T. industry
from someone who doesn't understand the issues aren't helpful at all. It is
it's own kind of FUD. If someone else, who doesn't understand the issues, like
an executive with little I.T. experience, were to read this article here, they
would think that choosing J2EE meant that they couldn't choose Red Hat or SuSE
or whatever, that the options are only Sun or Microsoft, and that simply isn't
true.
Maybe some of the people who have helped out on this site in the past
and also have extensive I.T. experience can proof articles for accuracy before
posting. I'm sure the legal discussions and research are fine, but I've noticed
quite a bit of editorial comments on the I.T. industry that simply show a
significant lack of understanding. This is understandable, but it certainly
doesn't help. Go ahead, editorialize, it is your site, but at least be accurate
if you're going to do it.
booda
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| Authored by: Leonard on Friday, May 07 2004 @ 04:13 PM EDT |
"Currently, the two most prominent approaches are Microsoft’s .NET
architecture and J2EE based around Sun’s language Java."
I wonder how they measure "prominent"? Number of press releases
perhaps? Number of paid advertisement? Server deployments? Oops not that
because according to NetCraft the Apache consortium "product" has
66.99% and growing.
Leonard[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 15 2004 @ 01:39 AM EDT |
Something I've not seen here or anywhere else:
Just because the timing is backwards, it doesn't mean that M$ is not behind the
license purchase betwen Sun and SCO last year. Sun paid something like $30M to
SCO for some kind of license that they probably didn't need. Six months later,
M$ and Sun reconcile their differences and are suddenly best buddies.
Coincidence?[ Reply to This | # ]
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