Parties are asked to work out JNI/RNI differences January 7, 1999 — You can work it out. Or at least you are going to try. That is the order from U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte to Microsoft and Sun Microsystems over one issue in the breach of contract lawsuit Sun filed against Microsoft alleging misuse of the Java programming language.The issue the judge wants the parties to settle has to do with the two different paths the companies have taken to let Java work with native code. Sun’s Java Native Interface, or JNI, “was designed to allow native code to run on any virtual machine on a given platform and to minimize the effort to port the native code to another platform,” Whyte wrote in his settlement order, issued on December 29, 1998.But Microsoft’s RNI interface produces a class file unable “to run on any virtual machine other than Microsoft’s,” according to Whyte’s settlement order. The Microsoft approach does have its advantages, such as yielding better performance in some cases, according to Whyte’s order. Representatives for both companies said both vendors are willing to try to solve this issue.Other major issues that remain outstanding in the lawsuit include Sun’s allegations of unfair competition, said Sun spokeswoman Lisa Poulson.Sun filed this lawsuit in October 1997 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to “preserve the cross-platform compatibility of the Java language and [ensure that)]the needs of our developers and customers are met,” Poulson said. The case is still in preliminary stages. A trial date has not been set, officials at both companies said.In November, the court sided with Sun’s petition for a preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to modify some of its software products. Software Development