What's brewing in Java's future?; Developers sound off on their anxieties, hopes, and fears about the future of Java on the Windows platform

Summary - As Microsoft and Sun battle for control of Java, developers of the cross-platform language wonder what's in store for them. If one side wins the war, Java developers fear they'll be the losers. Plus: Geoff Friesen takes you through the basics of building applications that combine the best of Windows and Java technology, in his companion piece to this article, "The Win32-Java hybrid." (4,000 words) Groups such as the Java Lobby, an organization of more than 36,000 Java developers who are committed to an open and standardized Java, are trying to make their voices heard on various issues. Developers, worried about the direction Java is taking, hope to remind the corporations vying to control it that there's more to be concerned with than which company will claim majority market share. More and more, independent developers large and small are coming forward to make sure their demands aren't lost on the Java battlefield. This article first offers an overview of the background that led to the current state of affairs, then probes the attitudes of Java developers today, with an eye to uncovering their hopes and fears for the future. On October 7, 1997, Sun Microsystems launched its lawsuit against Microsoft. In the suit, Sun claimed that Microsoft broke its contractual obligation to deliver products that implement Sun's Java technology in the manner prescribed by Sun's licensing specifications. Sun claimed that Microsoft was trying to break Java's cross-platform nature in order to deliver a technology that appeared to be Java but only worked with Microsoft products. According to the lawsuit, Microsoft did not fully implement all areas of the Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1 and made changes to this JDK, thus violating its agreement.