Sun retracts accusations against c|net regarding StarOffice
August 2 - 00:55 ET  Sun Microsystems has retracted an earlier statement accusing c|net of deliberately taking out-of-context comments made by a senior director who said Sun was working with Apple on the development of a Mac OS X version of StarOffice.

In a carefully worded statement, Sun spokesman Russell Castronovo admitted the original story written by c|net on July 26 was accurate, based on comments made by Tony Siress, Sun's senior director of desktop marketing solutions. Although Castronovo did not speculate as to why Siress said in the interview that Sun and Apple were working together, developing a Java version of StarOffice that would result in a commercial version in 2003, Castronovo said, "In no way do we accuse c|net of misconduct on this particular issue."

Since the story ran, Sun has tried to smooth over bad sentiment between the company and the OpenOffice.org developer community, who are working on a Mac OS X version of the product, and who felt slighted by Siress' comments. Sun set up planned interviews with a number of Mac news organizations to clarify the matter, which was only made worse by comments that appeared to accuse c|net of wrongdoing.

Castronovo admitted Sun isn't working on their own version of StarOffice for Mac OS X, at this time. Siress said in a statement to the open source community on Thursday that Sun and Apple were not engaged in a partnership to develop a product jointly. Siress did not comment on whether Apple was working on their own version independently, although Sun has admitted providing programming assistance to Apple when it has requested it. An Apple spokesperson has not acknowledged it is working on a closed version of Open Office for OS X, but at the same time has not categorically denied reports.