No damages for Sun in Java case

US Federal District Judge Robert Whyte has announced that he did not believe

Sun Microsystems is entitled to collect $35 million in damages from Microsoft

for having briefly published the Java source code on its Web site.

The damage award is one of the many issues at stake in the Sun vs. Microsoft

Java lawsuit, which is expected to go to trial late this year or early 2001.

Microsoft briefly made the Java code available on its Web site when it was part

of the Microsoft Software Development Kit for Java 2.0.

Microsoft has claimed that the release was unintentional and the result of an

automated copying process performed by lower-level employees. Sun on the other

hand believes the release was ordered by high-level Microsoft executives in a

deliberate attempt to undermine Java. "Sun fails to raise a genuine issue

of fact as to whether an officer, director, or general manager at Microsoft

purposely released the code," Whyte said. He invited both parties to make

further arguments in support of their claims.