By Tim Clark and Dan Goodin
Staff Writers, CNET News.com
September 9, 1998, 3:30 p.m. PT
SAN JOSE, California--The creator of Sun
Microsystems' Java
programming language testified today that he was
"appalled"
when he learned that Microsoft had unilaterally
written extensions
to the language outside the normal process for doing so.
In testimony in U.S. District Court here, James
Gosling, vice
president and fellow at Sun, said the move contradicted
Microsoft's earlier positions on unilateral
extensions--additions
made to the programming language without the consent
of Sun or
others in the Java community.
Specifically, Gosling recalled a meeting in early
1997 in San Jose
during which Microsoft executives and others said
they were
worried about people making unilateral extensions to
Java.
"Everybody, including Microsoft, said not only that
[extensions]
were a bad thing, but that they wouldn't do it," he
testified.
"They said they would never be cowboys and go off and do
something on their own."
--"The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand." ...Eric Schmidt, Sun Microsystems
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