🚀 go-pugleaf

Huzon Furst wrote:
> 
> This business of Sun's wanting to hold on the the Java name as a
> trademark, and the ISO voters objecting to it, isn't this really about
> marketing?
> 
> It seems to me Sun could either:
> 
> 1) come up with a different trademarked name for their own distribution
> - how about "SunJava"? OR
> 2) come up with a different name for the spec, which it will not hold
> trademark on - how about "JavaSpec".

Sun's response is that they are reserving all rights to the Java
trademark and that anyone who wants to use it will have to conform their
definitions, for example The Java Platform(tm) (which is Java VM + Java
Language + Java API).  

For those who simply want to conform to whatever degree they wish of the
ISO Standard XXX regardless of the the restrictions on the Java
trademark they are free to do so (sans the Java label of course).

This is a reasonable position on Sun's part (carrot and stick and all
that) and conforms to ISO guidelines.

For more details (including ISO member comments in the vote on Sun's
request to be an ISO PAS Submitter and Sun's response) see
<http://java.sun.com/aboutJava/standardization/>.

The real issue that will cause Sun to lose in the second vote just as
they did in the first is that Sun wants to retain maintenance of the
standard definition so that they can continue to revise the Java API
singlehandedly ("open" being a word which means exactly what they want
it to mean).  Nearly every ISO member commented that Sun would need to
release maintenance to some other organization, such as an ISO JTC1
subcommittee, in order to be accepted as the Submitter.  Sun's answer is
that they will not.

My suggestion is that they must form a quasi-independent consortium like
the other ISO PAS Submitters: EWOS (European Workshop for Open Systems),
X-Open, DAVIC (Digital Audio Visual Council) and VESA (Video Electronics
Standards Association).

We will see how serious Sun is about Java being an de jure international
standard (rather than simply a de facto one) after they lose in the next
vote (there is the slimmest chance they will pass since all the ISO
members do want Java to be an ISO PAS).  If they are sincere then they
will go ahead with the formation of such an organization (which is what
they would have done in the first place if they were both sincere and
rational and thus saved a year's delay in the standardization process).

jim
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James P. White                        Netscape DevEdge Champion for IFC
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