... because nerds don't go outside.

Does anyone in this thread really think that Apple, a company utterly obsessed with aesthetics, good design, and usability, would put ads in their operating system? Not likely. Remember when Apple switched to Intel chips? There were no "Intel Inside" stickers for Macs.

I think the poster and the first commenter have it right: this is a protection measure to make sure that any company stupid enough to try and set this precedent (advertising in the OS) will have to pay through the nose to Apple. It is in fact, the quintessential poison pill.

Eh... I don't know if you can equate front-end-oriented database apps like Filemaker and Access to SQL-server products. Besides, if Apple owned MySQL, would they really neglect it in favour of Filemaker Server?

I suppose it depends on who you ask. In my web-development circles, you need a database backend. Because MySQL comes pre-installed on OS X Server, it's sort of the default choice. So perhaps "essential" should have been "important".

The problem is that MySQL the company is a significant contributor to MySQL the project. Personally, I see a lot of value in MySQL, but lately the open-source community's love seems to be shifting to PostgreSQL. So I'm guessing that there's some question as to whether the MySQL project could go it alone without the resources the company provides.

Okay, here goes... Maybe they should sell it to Apple?

Yes, hate me, throw things at me. But Apple DOES love MySQL, it's an essential part of OS X Server. Unlike Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, Apple doesn't own an existing database product. Also keep in mind that MySQL the commercial product is not necessarily synonymous to MySQL the open-source project.

Unfortunately, MySQL uses the GPL, whereas Apple has always preferred to open-source under the Apache license.

SnotBot.

WELL said, sir.

I have plenty of gripes about capitalism. But yes, it is AWESOME to see it work the way it's supposed to. Content providers have protected their interests by making an investment in network infrastructure. And by doing so, it makes the internet, and internet-related industries at large, more competitive, diverse, and structurally robust.

Getting back on TOPIC...

Original poster is spot on. The big telecomms like to argue that a tiered internet, where big content providers pay extra for better transport, is necessary (nay, crucial) because that traffic produced by the content providers is consuming so much bandwidth that major infrastructure upgrades are needed.

Instead, we see that big content is handling much of the fat transport by itself. So it seems to me that content providers have stepped up to the plate in terms of managing their own bandwidth usage.

Time for big telecomm to shit down, shut up, and eat crow.

Surprise surprise: programming for the iPhone is as lucrative as programming for any other platform.

"Don't hog it all, smelly-head!"

"Go to hell, zitface!"

Boston dynamics teams up with Harvard to make a robot dog with robot bees in its mouth and when it barks it shoots bees at you.

It's about being a grown-up.

I'm certainly not going to sit here and defend Israel, which has its own laundry list of indiscretions. However, when you go have a head of state going around saying that the holocaust was a lie, that your neighbour should be wiped off the map (however translated), and then tinkering with your elections much to the chagrin of a huge population of politically-inspired young people, whom you then brutally oppress... well, you don't get to play with the big toys.

No one judged if the U.S. and Russia could become nuclear powers because they were the first. But in today's society, if a nation wants to become a member of the nuclear club, they have to earn it. They have to demonstrate that they can wield that technology responsibly. If they can't, they demonstrate that they are a threat to the world community, and the world community feels obliged to protect themselves.

This is not an unreasonable demand. I for one feel that Iran has the potential to be an excellent citizen of the international community, but their current path is not the way to go about it.