Dan Gillmor on WinXP

A reader writes:There's a new column from Dan Gillmor on SiliconValley.com about Windows XP. The column calls for an injunction stopping the shipping of WinXP. Dan's got a well thought out list of reasons why and how it would work."

Re:Why stop them in court?

[Ozric]

That sounds fine, but it won't work. I hate to say it, but most people are really stupid. Have you ever talked to a layman about the problems with XP, and watched their eyes glaze over. No, people will buy PCs with XP and not know any better. They will all sign up on passport and that will be that. I fear that a law protecting the common public is in order here.

We as the Tech savy should take it up and inform as many people as we can about XP and the evil that it is. But again, the public at large will eat it up. And the Linux freaks might just make matters worse. Remember most people still don't understand what the DOJ case is about.

Java isn't gone anyway...

[cqnn]

Java may not be in the shipping version (beta)
of Windows XP. But it is one of the first
choices of things to install for IE from
Windows Update.

Also, as I understand, if IE detects a page that
has Java, and has not already installed support,
it can prompt the user to install it at that time.
Just like support for flash, shockwave, and other
plugin technologies works. So I don't see this
breaking Java functionality for the Web.

Where this might have an impact is for Java
applications that are written in-house, or
to be run without the browser. In which case
the user is probably better off trying to install
the latest compliant Java engine anyway.

Tried and denied

[decesare]

According to the Register in this article [theregister.co.uk] from yesterday, the DOJ tried to get the case expedited for the purpose of getting said injunction, but was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Re:The man is a fool or a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun got an injunction to stop Microsoft distributing Java

This is blatently false -- it is you who is the fool or the liar. Microsoft has a seven year licence for their existing version of Java [cnet.com], and will continue to distribute it in the exact same way it was packaged in IE 4.01, IE 5.0, and IE 5.5 (downloaded as needed). Now stop spreading flamebait-ridden FUD.

Re:you are :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, mod up. In a Wired interview, Ballmer basically admitted that when they signed the Java licencing agreement, both sides knew they were going to end up in court. Despite this, Sun out-lawyered them, but that's just business, and as you point out, contract law.

As a side note, if you look at what MS was doing with J++ and COM, it's easy to understand their .NET strategy. J++ was the only high-level COM development environment where things like threading were possible, not to mention directly accessing Win32. C#/NET is shaping up to be everything that J++ wanted to be, but couldn't without breaking the underlying assumptions of Java.

FUDmeister

[szcx]

Microsoft removed the Java environment from XP, thereby breaking thousands of Web sites that use Java. XP customers will face endless downloads to replace the functionality they'd come to expect.

Way to go, FUDslinger.

It's not installed by default, but it is featured prominently on the Windows Update [slashdot.org] page. Here's the description Microsoft has for it;

Microsoft Virtual Machine
Download size: 5.2 MB
You have probably heard a lot about Java and all the cool things it can do on the Web. The Microsoft Virtual Machine (Microsoft VM) is what you need to be able to see and interact with all those cool Java applets. It's a special place for the applets to run where they won't interfere with the rest of your system.