Yep. It was George Soros who planted the fake Obama birth notices in Hawaiian newspapers.

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A "hostile takeover" merely means that non-owners (the management) are opposed to the owners (shareholders) choosing to sell.

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If someone offers you a pile of money for your home, and you decide to sell it, it's wild ideological nonsense to say they're taking your home by force.

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Not really. Merchants can out you.

Sure, but first you have to let me take your photograph, to prove that you're not afraid that it's going to steal your soul.

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According to the article Apple is asking for court documents. Although its not clear if they have been doing so from the initial contact. This probably had to work it way up a few levels of customer support to get to someone who knew what should be done. Lower levels probably only know to tell people to reset their password and check their email.

"off the market" and "legally own" are two different things. There is no "I forgot my password" link for bitcoins.

So in your opinion the probate court system for executing a will is optional? Businesses are free to transfer accounts to people without court approval, including accounts that have monetary value or are linked to credit cards?

Also, do you not understand the security vulnerability if Apple just starts taking people's word for it with respect to resetting passwords on Apple IDs?

From wiki:

"A representative example of a complete probate clause, from the 14th century (or earlier) onwards ...
"This will was proved at London before the worshipful Sir Richard Raines, knight, Doctor of Laws, Master Keeper or Commissary of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, lawfully constituted, on the twenty third day of the month of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and ninety seven, by the oath of Mary Bathurst, relict and executrix named in the said will, to whom administration was granted of all and singular the goods, rights and credits of the said deceased, sworn on the holy Gospel of God to well and faithfully administer the same. It has been examined"."

Probate. From wiki:

"Probate is a legal document. Receipt of probate is the first step in the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person, resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's property under a will. A probate court (surrogate court) decides the legal validity of a testator's will and grants its approval by granting probate to the executor."

In short, Apple seems to want to see the court document stating that the person contacting Apple is indeed the executor of the will.

I don't think the will itself has any authority to transfer ownership. Rather it is the probate court that has such authority and the will is the instructions to the probate court on how such transfers are to be made.

Apple may be complying with the law by requiring instructions from a probate court.

Or maybe Apple is complying with the law? They have not said no, they have said show us something from a judge. In the US we have probate courts that handle transferring owner of property as stated in a will.

Frankly, it would be more of a security vulnerability to reset a password because you got a letter from a lawyer than instructions from a judge. A letter from a lawyer is social engineering (persuasion), even when real. It lacks legal authority, unlike instructions from a judge. Plus judges orders can be verified.

We paid for a library that was useful and saved us time. We paid extra to not be dependent. We contributed back our fixes to help other users of the library and to simplify things when we got an update. In those updates, some bugs were fixed by the developer of the library, others were fixed by other customers.

Did you think that one user can only help another user in the FOSS world? One user can help another as long as they have access to source, and such access does not require FOSS.

We paid for the privilege of not being dependent upon then, of controlling our fate. Our barely on time project only lost two days. It was a win-win.