J++ and Sun
MS and Sun fought over Java language (MS had J++), which resulted in C#, but not over the VM, as MS had their own VM.
This is actually quite complicated and is partly due to Oracle intransigence. The Desktop Java licence is essentially free. The Mobile Java isn't, and was for an era of very limited CPU and RAM, so is a more limited product.
Google actually bought in Android rather than add their own app VM and GUI on say Debian (which was running on mobile devices before Android existed.) Sun or Oracle, I forget which, wouldn't licence the full java for mobile. So Google did their own copy of the JVM.
Ironically the VM (or p-code) used by Visual Basic originally and morphed into .net for C# and other VM based MS Languages AND the originally Sun's VM for Java are both inspired by UCSD runtime for the p-Code produced by Pascal and other compilers. Western Digital or someone even did a bit-slice cpu (5 chips?) to run p-code as native.
So really it's almost unreasonable Oracle citing copyright, especially as they refused to licence the thing for Mobile. It's not like Google has copied all the implementation, but only the interface so existing byte code would run.
Google and Oracle have both been idiots on this.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
