sun and microsoft have at long last reached a settlement on their java lawsuit. as far as I can work out microsoft are allowed to continue distributing their current incompatible versions of java for the next seven years but all future versions will have to pass sun’s compatibility tests. that’s good.

the curious bit is that microsoft aren’t ever going to be allowed to say that their products are “java compatible” even if they are! i really fail to see how that injunction can help developers.