Sun's Litigation Against Microsoft
Sun Microsystems had originally licensed Java to Microsoft but later initiated litigation against Microsoft for trademark violation. (Sun's trademark license for usage of the Java brand insists that all implementations be "compatible".)
Some observers have remarked that this was deliberate from Microsoft, in an attempt to at least slow the advance of Sun's Java technology.
The failure of the MSJVM to pass Sun's compliance tests was a large factor in the initial lawsuit. On January 24, 2001, this and all other outstanding Sun-Microsoft lawsuits were settled as part of a wide-ranging agreement between Sun and Microsoft. The settlement document outlined that Microsoft also could not advance J++ beyond its mirrored implementation of Java, version 1.1.4. This effectively ended J++ and further updates. As well, the MSJVM had to cease to be distributed and is no longer available for download.
However, due to settlement of outstanding litigation, Microsoft was allowed further to update the MSJVM to fix security holes and any problems relating to the security threat. Microsoft has since ceased support for the MSJVM on December 31, 2007.
The technology of J++ was eventually recycled, and survived for a while, as part of the Microsoft .NET platform and the J# programming language.
Read more about this topic: Visual J++
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