The news beat: Larry Ellison got an early Christmas gift from Europe when the European Union approved his takeover bid of CRM rival Siebel, but Santa was not so nice to Bill Gates when he delivered news that the EU intends to slap Microsoft with a fine if it does not comply with its antitrust ruling. Then again, Ellison isn’t spending the week on the cover of Time’s persons of the year issue, either, so I suppose some balance exists in the universe. In response to the EU, Microsoft’s top lawyer lashed out, claiming the agency “changes the goal posts and demands another change.”Networking: Lucent will take a $300 million charge on a lawsuit ruling in the bankruptcy case regarding Winstar. Best of the blogs: What do Monty Python and UDDI have in common? Plenty, opines Dave Linthicum in UDDI is a dead parrot. Monty Python, you see, has a skit about a dead parrot for which UDDI has become something of a, well, a dead ringer. Software Development