Stardate 20010906.0746 (On Screen): Microsoft wins!! (Hee-hee-hee-hee... And there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Gates haters.) It remains to be seen what the Attorneys General of the states will think of this decision. I think that it is increasingly being seen by politicians in the states that during an economic downturn it is not really a good idea to try to destroy such companies as actually are successful and are creating jobs, so I expect a certain amount of angry posturing followed by acquiesence.
(discussion in progress)Update: The Attorneys General are going along with it. Now to see what the EU thinks.
Update 20010907: As expected, the slashdot thread is full of people who are pissed off about it. But one poster says "Justice is the most important point here." He has a strong sense of moral outrage but a poor understanding of the law. Antitrust law has nothing to do with justice in the sense that he's using it, to mean that those who act wrongly should be punished. Antitrust law has nothing to do with punishment and indeed it cannot because it's Civil Law. If there were punishment involved it would have to be Criminal Law and the entire trial process would have been different. Among other things, the burden of proof would have been on the Government and the threshold of proof would have had to be much higher, and the Government would not have been able to force executives of the company to testify (such as the legendary Bill Gates deposition where he couldn't understand the meanings of basic words).
