JavaSoft responds to ISO community on standards issue

San Francisco (09/22/97) — Sun Microsystems has made public its response to concerns raised by members of the International Standards Organization (ISO) when they voted two months ago on Sun’s proposal to get its Java programming language approved as an ISO standard.

Sun officials said its responses, posted at https://java.sun.com/aboutJava/standardization/index.html#resp, go a long way toward addressing the concerns of ISO members and in the end clear the way towards getting Java accepted as an ISO standard.

“I am pretty optimistic we get the approval, but of course you never know until the vote is in,” said Jim Mitchell, vice president of technology and architecture at Sun’s JavaSoft division.

In informal meetings held last week on the sidelines of an ISO meeting in Ottawa, Sun found strong support for its plan and found that only arch-rival Microsoft Corp., as well as Intel Corp., are opposed to its efforts, Mitchell said.

Under Sun’s proposal, the Java platform — which includes the Java virtual machine, the Java language specifications, and the APIs for Java class libraries — would become an ISO-approved standard. In addition, Sun would be named a Publicly Available Submitter (PAS), the entity in charge of maintenance of the Java specifications.

PAS status has mostly been awarded to independent industry consortia and organizations. But Mitchell said ISO rules don’t preclude a for-profit company from becoming a PAS.

A PAS controls only the maintenance process for a specification. Maintenance means resolving bug fixes and ambiguities, but not making additions to the standard.

“We don’t even deal with the aspect of PAS in our response, but include a letter from ISO explaining PAS,” Mitchell said.

One analyst, however, remained skeptical about Sun’s attempt to be named a PAS.

“They want Java to be sanctioned as an international standard and at the same time keep control over it,” said David Folger, program director at the Meta Group.

Sun’s Mitchell said, under its plan, the company will implement a working group within ISO that would control the Java maintenance process.

The 27 members of ISO who voted on Sun’s plan in July voted either yes or no with comments, giving Sun 60 days to respond. Following the submission of Sun’s response, ISO members have 45 days to vote again, but this time the ballot is limited to a clear yes or no vote — with no comments, Mitchell said.

Sun’s move to publicize a response follows an open letter sent to Mitchell last week by Microsoft Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., and Intel Corp. asking Sun to turn over ownership of its Java development language to an international standards body, and to give up the rights to the Java trademark.

Last week Sun rejected the letter as a pure public relations stunt. In a teleconference held today, Sun officials, including JavaSoft president Alan Baratz, spent a great deal of time criticizing Microsoft for fighting the ISO plan.

“Sun cannot and will not give up the Java trademark,” Baratz said, adding that Sun has contractual obligations with Java licensees to retain the trademark and would only give it up if Microsoft decides to make the Windows API an open specification.

Baratz also dismissed Microsoft’s recent moves of reportedly pulling Java applets off its Web servers and forcing Java developers out of its own developers program as desperate attempts by a monopolist.

“Seems to us that Microsoft is panicking and in denial. They have their heads in the sand,” Baratz said. “Microsoft is doing anything they can to push back a rising tide.”

The Meta Group’s Folger was taken aback by Baratz’s comments.

“It was Sun being extremely arrogant and in your face,” Folger said, following the conference call. “I think what they are trying to do is replace Microsoft as monopoly of the OS APIs, claiming they are more open to participation by other vendors,” he said.

Folger said he would like to see Sun solicit more high-level input of CTOs of Fortune 500 companies on the development of the Java specification and technology.

Meanwhile Sun maintains that Java is already a de facto industry standard for writing cross-platform applications and that development of the specifications has been an open process involving the entire industry.

In addition, Sun’s desire to get ISO approval for Java is driven by customers who need and want to buy ISO approved products, officials said.

“It would help us to sell in countries where they have ISO certification as part of procurement procedures,” Mitchell said.

He added that if Sun loses the ISO vote, the company will maintain the same open process for developing Java technology, which involves input from various other vendors and the developer community as a whole.

Sun, in Mountain View, CA, can be reached at (650) 960-1300, or on the World Wide Web at https://www.sun.com.