It's an age-old AtAT tradition to send you all off on your respective weekends with something to fume about, and what better to raise one's hackles than yet another instance of Microsoft getting away with something shifty? (The best part is, it happens at least once a week, so it's always a handy option. Thanks, Redmond!)

The latest in the saga of Microsoft's seventy-zillion antitrust suits comes courtesy of faithful viewer Peter Sachs, who gave us an update on that tussle with Sun over Java. You remember this one, right? Sun alleges that Microsoft included Java in Windows, but tainted it by failing to support all of Java's required features and by including its own Windows-only features, which essentially capsized Java's central strategy of "write once, run anywhere" software; developers who wrote Java code in Windows may well have wound up with software that would only run on Windows, while developers who wrote pure Java code might find that it ran on everything but Windows.

It wasn't exactly Microsoft's most subtle attempt to sink a competitor, but then, Microsoft has never been known for subtlety. (Just look at its user interfaces, for pity's sake.) Anyway, Sun sued, and Microsoft's reaction was to announce it was eliminating Java support from Windows altogether-- which, again, isn't exactly subtle either. Well, last year Judge Motz sided heavily with Sun and issued a preliminary injunction requiring that Microsoft include Java in Windows and comply with Java standards. Unfortunately, Microsoft appealed, and according to the Associated Press, a federal appeals court just voted 3-0 to overturn that ruling.

Note that this is only overturning a preliminary injunction, and it's not a final ruling in the case itself, but it still represents a serious setback for Sun in its attempt to prevent Java from being poisoned (or killed) on the vast majority of desktop computers. But that's how Microsoft plays the game; it's got all the time and money in the world, and it knows that for every Judge Jackson that'll kick its ass, there's a Judge Kollar-Kotelly to kiss it and make it all better; for every Judge Motz, there are three appellate nimrods who somehow can't see what Microsoft is trying to do. Whom do you want to crush today?

A Microsoft spokesman was appropriately smug about the ruling: "This is another step in a long legal process and we consider it to be a positive step. Our focus really has been to move beyond these conflicts and to work collaboratively with the rest of the industry." Well, gee, fella, wouldn't that best be accomplished by, oh, let's see, here... shipping a version of Java that actually works with the rest of the industry? Uh-huh. Right. Next week: Microsoft shoots the Pope and is sentenced to eat a Snickers bar, take in a movie, and kiss a supermodel right on the mouth-- but no tongue!