In a shock! horror! announcement, the Open Software Foundation reveals that it has discovered that since April 1991, Sun Microsystems Inc has been funding the lawsuit brought against the Foundation by Addamax Corp, the security software company whose technology was submitted but passed over following the Request for Technology that led to the Distributed Computing Environment. Contrary to impressions created publicly by Addamax and others, this lawsuit was not the simple effort of a small, independent software vendor, declares a scandalised Foundation. Rather, Sun has been involved from the outset, and only by recent court order (which was opposed by Addamax) was Sun’s multi-million dollar financial backing of the suit revealed.It notes that the Foundation was founded under the auspices of the National Co-operative Research Act, allowing competitors to do research and development to minimise duplication of effort. We are appalled at Sun’s behaviour, considering our continuing good-faith attempts to involve Sun in this industry-wide co-operative effort, said chief exective David Tory. Sun says Addamax – a vendor to Sun – asked Sun to give it a loan guarantee, and it agreed because it believed the suit raised serious issues.
