The short answer, Frank, is that Microsoft's agreements with Sun prohibit
Microsoft from distributing (or supporting) any MS products that contain the
"old" Java code that was found to be in violation of patents.
As a result, several historical Microsoft products are no longer available
(e.g. to developers, who need them to support products written and still
running on older versions), and Microsoft is working to eliminate all
vestiges of this code from existing deployments.
<opinion>
While ambitious, it's hardly practical. Given the volumes of Win9x and
Office 97/2000 installations that we see every day -- which are also
affected -- worry about whether Office 2003 is at SP1 or SP2 is hardly a
drop in the bucket compared to the legacy installations.
Of course the legacy installations are already "not supported", and support
for Office 2003 SP1 installations will expire, in due course, later this
year, so the issue of 'required' upgrade to Service Pack 2 is really
academic. Microsoft has been "forcing" upgrades to the latest service packs
(by virtue of not supporting systems running older versions) for years.
The article is just a different spin on a long standing practice preferred
by Microsoft.
</opinion>
