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Duelling Lawsuits (10/27/97)
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It's an immutable law of high-tech big-business litigation: "What sues, then gets sued." And the legal shenanigans between Sun and Microsoft are no exception; a scant three weeks after Sun sued Billy & Co. for breach of contract, Microsoft has followed suit. And filed suit. To be exact, they filed a lawsuit alleging-- all together, now-- breach of contract. That's right, the mainstay of all high-tech legal activity! ZDnet has the story.

While Sun claimed that Microsoft violated its contract by shipping an incompatible version of Java (and leaking Java source code to developers), Microsoft is alleging that Sun has repeatedly failed "to live up to its obligations" and has not delivered Java technology that passes its own test suites. In addition, Microsoft says that Sun hasn't provided software that "runs on the Microsoft Reference Implementation," which is a phrase we find scary in the extreme. We don't know what that is, and we don't want to know.

At least now we know what we're going to be for Halloween. Ding-dong. "Trick or Treat!" "Why, aren't you cute! What are you supposed to be?" "I'm a Microsoft Reference Implementation!" Screams, fainting, consternation ensues.

 
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The above scene was taken from the 10/27/97 episode:

October 27, 1997: (Sorry—this was before we started writing intro text for each episode!)

Other scenes from that episode:

  • 125: Digital Assimilated (10/27/97)   Meanwhile, Digital has met the enemy-- and they are it. That's right; just as Microsoft and Sun enter into lawsuits and countersuits, another long-standing legal battle has come to an end. Months after Digital sued Intel for violating patents in development of the Pentium (and Intel countersued Digital for patent violations in development of the Alpha), the end came not with a bang, but a buyout-- Intel is purchasing Digital's semiconductor operations as part of the settlement...

  • 126: Jobsian Suspense (10/27/97)   Well, the long-awaited and widely-rumored announcement of Steve Jobs' permanent CEO-ship didn't come today, and the most vocal of the predicters, thessaSOURCE, is now reporting that the announcement may be delayed for a few days...

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