Just Call It SPAMja
March 1998

Microsoft has spit in Sun's face yet again. After humbly licensing Sun's Java programming platform a few years ago, Microsoft has not only failed to maintain compatibility with Sun's test suite, they are now shoving a new product out the door just as fast as they can, trying to win control in the marketplace before Sun can get justice in the courtroom. Microsoft is trying to capitalize on the popularity of the name Java, while providing a fake from of Java that excludes the non-Windows world.

Java gains its usefulness and its popularity because it is not a platform-specific product. It's not a Windows product, it's not a Mac product, it's not a Unix or OS/2 product -- it's an "all of the above, and more" product. To tie Java to one platform is to ruin it by taking away its most vital and most popular quality. It's the equivalent of trying to do away with U.S. Dollars by changing the Denver Mint to produce Confederate dollars instead. The result is counterfeit dollars, not real U.S. dollars. If a few zealot-like holdouts want to honor them, it still doesn't change the fact that such paper is phony. The fact that Microsoft zealots want to honor fake Java does not change the fact that such a product is counterfeit.

This is so much like the quackery and the subterfuge used by the Internet spammers, the mass-mail freaks who want to fool you into answering their e-mail sneak attacks. Spammers want you to buy their wimpy products, and they don't care who gets fooled or deceived by the flood of slick advertising copy they mail to everyone.

If Microsoft wants to "Spam" us with fake Java code, let's call a spade a spade. From now on, let's refer to the Microsoft product by a more appropriate and accurate term: SPAMja. Microsoft Spamja. Bad to the last drop.

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Most recent revision: March 13, 1998
Copyright © 1998, Tom Nadeau
All Rights Reserved.
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