Has Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly helped set the stage for a computing disaster of unprecedented magnitude? She's not the only culprit involved, but her ruling affirming the Justice Department antitrust deal with Microsoft may have devastating results that we'll all come to regret. Regardless of the judge, anyone who seriously thought Bill Gates would ultimately get more than a slap on the hand probably also believes in the tooth fairy and trickle-down economics. But let's set aside the core money issues of the case and think about a different aspect of Microsoft's overwhelming dominance of the PC world -- the potential for a computing-related Armageddon buried within the proprietary code of Microsoft software.
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