SUN'S CONTROL OF JAVA IS "SHOWSTOPPER".

Members of the renegade Real-Time Java Working Group look to have spent Christmas poring over Sun Microsystems Inc's new Java community source license model and specification development process. Their conclusion - even after a two-hour conference with Sun's VP Java architecture VP Jim Mitchell - is that Sun's model offers some significant concessions on the previous license but does not address all of its members' concerns. It finds there is also much that has not yet been clarified by Sun. Moreover it is also perturbed that Sun has tried to block its recent attempts to develop standard real-time extensions within the auspices of NCITS, the National Committee for Infromation Technology Standardization. The Real-Time Java Working Group - which includes Hewlett-Packard Co, Microsoft Corp and Siemens AG - has sent the observations to all of its members seeking their approval. The bottom line, the report suggests, is that in the new Java license and development model Sun still retains ultimate power in the speci fication process. This is a "showstopper" the report says. Other issues it says Sun has not adequately addressed include how non-licensees can use specifications created by the so-called expert groups to create clean-room Java implementations. The Java compatibility kit is not available to licensees, and although Mitchell previously hinted to ComputerWire - and also told the group - that it would make the kit available to a wider class of licensees by next April, there are no announced plans to provide the kit, crucial to testing for full compliance, to non-licensees. Moreover, if Sun continues to control conformance testing then the process is not independent as the Sun's appointment of auditors to monitor the process appear to indicate. Some IP issues are still outstanding, as the group believes Sun should not require any derivative work to be controlled by Sun. Under the participation agreement Sun also retains control over the terms of how third party IP and patents are licensed back to others. "Sun needs to be one of the participants in its own process and reciprocate in declaring and contributing Intellectual Property. If Sun declares a patent, Sun should also license it fairly and reasonably or risk having that part of the specification made optional." The group wants non- licensees to have the ability to trademark their Java work. Sun hasn't addressed this. "There are no trademark licenses available from Sun, except to those licensing some or all of Sun's implementation. With additional licensing restrictions, participants have fewer rights than the general public."