But if things don't work right for them, they have the power to force them to. Thereby forcing standards to the lowest common denominator, ie Safari, just like happened with IE6.

What do you mean? Every single web view on iOS uses Safari's renderer. It's against the App Store rules to have your own renderer. The problem is that sure, if you design a website around Safari it'll work everywhere else, but it's a pain in the ass to design it to a 5 year old standard when all the other major browsers support other upgrades, extensions and capabilities that can make code easier/faster/better. It's most apparent when an open standard has replaced an Apple designed one that's inferior, and Apple refuses to change, such as WebSQL/IndexedDB.

http://rlv.zcache.com/earth_wi...

Well, speaking of strawmen...

First of all, gstoddart didn't conflate people who "whine" about the restrictions of the GPL (whether they violate the license or not) with those who respect it and avoid GPL code on principle and in good faith. He only spoke of the former, who indeed want to "steal" GPL code whether or not they actually do.

Second, compiling your code with GCC does not infect your source-code, or the compiled binary, with the GPL. Unless you static-link to a GPL library, but that's avoided easily by linking dynamically.

Don't forget... They didn't build the A-10 and decide to put the GAU-8 in it - they took the GAU-8 and gave it wings. It's hard to beat that kind of focused purpose.

That was exactly my point, per my speculation:

Doh! And I thought you needed a toner refill kit. Who knew?

I wish I could find something on their website that states what they actually do with the returned toner cartridges. All I could find is this:

My emphasis. This is not a commitment to recycle. It's feel-good corporate-speak.

Do they actually dismantle and recycle them? Do they refurbish them, or sell them to a refurbisher? Or do they just dispose of them so that they stay out of the after-market?

I'm sorry to be cynical. Brother may very well be acting as a good corporate citizen. But when I don't see explicit mention of their actions, I start to wonder what they are.

...I can see that a lot of people are breaking the first rule of Bacterial Fight Club!

Correct. Like I said, the "infection" happens through consent, not by accident.

Which is part of the point of getting more developers to move into managerial roles ;)

-Rick

I find this notion interesting.

I am a manager. I have hired people over 50. On my team right now I have 3 people within 3 years of full retirement. One of whom I hired within the last year. I also have two that are within spitting range of 50, one of who I hired less than 6 months ago.

When I'm bringing someone on board in the 40+ category with 20+ years of professional experience, I have drastically different expectations than what I'm looking for in a 24 year old kid who's on his first salary gig out of college.

I'm looking for someone who understands corporate structures, workflow analysis, generalization. I'm looking for someone who says, "When you boil this down, it's an asset management system, and I've worked with half a dozen different vendors and 4 different home grown systems that do the same thing". I want someone who can sit down with users, look at what their doing and not just imagine up a new piece of software, but understand the business process to the point where they can make truly business impacting recommendations with a realistic grasp of what it would take to accomplish. I want someone who will pull the young bucks aside and explain to them the merits of simplicity and maintainability, someone who can do code reviews without being a pretentious dick, someone who can help guide that next generation of developers into the future engineers and architects I need.

People over 50 absolutely have a place in the development arena. But if you're 50 years old and still expect to have the same responsibilities as a 24 year old kid, you will be sorely disappointed.

-Rick

It's a lot simpler than that. Apple wants (a certain amount of) control over what they distribute in the App store. The GPL doesn't let them have it.

Don't worry, An AC on this thread already provided a useful link.

Citation needed.

Sure. But there are other ways to pay programmers than by the sale of proprietary software.

And you don't think the benefit flows in the other direction too?

Great post. Moderators, take note.

I would add one thought: the GPL is indeed viral, but in the sense of HIV, rather than, say, influenza. You need to get "intimate" with GPL code to be "infected" by it. The level of intimacy that causes infection varies with context, but it happens through consent, not by accident.