Additional benefits to your proposal:

In Objective-C, the syntax makes it far more clear when you are leaving the âoepure Câ realm to do something object oriented. Even with glasses off and the screen blurry, if it looks like a function call, itâ(TM)s a procedural function call and not an OO method invocation.

The object model in Objective C is (subjectively) much more sane and (objectively) going to better align with the expectations of people coming from almost any other OO language other than C++.

Objective-C doesnâ(TM)t conflate structs with classes.

I suspect that $250 may have coming from looking at the "All the IDEs" price?

Used to be that JetBrains licensed each IDE separately. Then they shifted pricing models, where it's $50-150$ for one specific IDE and then $250 for two-or-more. Suboptimal if there are exactly two that you have cause to use, but handy if you already use more than two.

I mean, sure, but that applies to any software purchase - the seller can change the license after it's been agreed upon. But in either case, why would you agree to such new restrictions? Just keep operating under the original license.

I do understand that for ye standard phone-home-for-permission rental situation, new terms like that could be unilaterally enforced by not supplying the "permission granted" response. And, worse, that circumventing such actions could put you in violation of DMCA junk. Which is one of the reasons I don't participate in standard phone-home-for-permission rental situations.

In the unusual case of the Jetbrains perpetual license, however - I don't see any mechanism by which they could effectively require me to re-activate a subscription in order to continue using the product. I have an offline and archived download of the version of software for which I have the license. I have an offline copy of the license file needed to continue using the product. I have firewalls that can prevent unauthorized network communication (such as phoning home). Short of sending armed thugs to my house, I don't see what their options would be for requiring me to do anything before continuing to use the product.

If I wanted to upgrade to a new version, it could absolutely become an issue - new version, new rules. But again, that's a potential issue with any software license, whether sane or subscription.

(Also, for perspective: one of the use cases for which they adjusted the payment model was "I do long-term work at a remote research station without internet access and need all my software to be operable without a network for indefinite amounts of time, so cannot use any software that requires permission even if it's only once a year. Hard to enforce changed terms and requirements on someone like that!)

JetBrains has two versions for both their Python and Java IDEs - a paid "Pro" edition with a bunch of extra enterprisey stuff, and a free (gratis, and I think also Libre) "Community" edition. And it's not a "Pro=core features, Community=crippleware" situation either, but a "Community=core features, Pro=extra special-purpose features" one.

I'm one of the many JetBrains users who vocally objected when they first announced their intent to switch to a subscription policy. With the exception of the occasional skidloader or backhoe, I don't rent tools. I research them, and then invest in owning them if they're worthwhile, and will maintain and upgrade them as appropriate. But I will not have any tool I depend upon in the long term dependent on the ongoing availability of a third party's permission.

Unlike most of the software tools for which I've lodged similar objections (and then stopped using the tool, because the standard response is "we've decided to rent seek, and don't care what users have to say"), JetBrains actually listened to what I and others were saying. Yes, they did still adopt what is superficially a subscription model, but the way they implemented it has some importantly unusual elements:

• Once you've made a year's worth of payments, you have a perpetual license to the latest version as of a particular date.
• The perpetual license can be set up to require no phoning home on launch or other publisher-permission mechanisms.
• The payments can be made in a lump sum. Which, together with the above items, means that the system can be operated nearly indistinguishably from a traditional direct license purchase.
• Add another month of payment, your perpetual license is good for the latest version as of a month later than the previous date.
• One year's worth of payments works out to costs me less than I was previously paying annually for version upgrades. Which most "we're moving to a subscription model for your benefit!" transition documents I see from other publishers will say, but which is usually a bald faced lie once fine print and elapsing introductory pricing is taken into account.

So, yes, PyCharm (and the other JetBrains tools) are subscription based. However, in rapid and well-communicated response to user feedback, it was adjusted into an unusual subscription model which allows it to be operated like a respectable non-subscription model.

Could you word your requests a bit more carefully? I don't want to see a new law come into effect that says "If an agent takes more than four articles of stuff from an innocent civilian, the agent must charge the civilian a 'processing fee' of $100 per item."

Bad enough your stuff can be appropriated, but putting a limit on how much stuff can be taken before you start getting charges? Eugh!

I know of at least one organization which had a significant Y2K problem, even after making preparations.

Sadly, the preparations were "Hire someone to take the fall when the shit hits the fan so we can continue with business as usual. Er... hire someone to ensure Y2K preparedness."

The fatal glitch in the plan was that the person who got hired made friends with an exec in the parent company before the ball dropped. So, when things went south the hire got a silver parachute while the rest of the company folded.

Quite a mess. Should certainly count as a "significant problem".

I remember reading a Chapter from Freakonomics describing how temporarily imposing an economic contract (X happens, Y dollars change hands) on what had formerly been a social contract (X happens, you should feel proud/guilty) ended up permanently voiding the social contract.

While it's probably the case that MS is some combination of "Afraid bounties would bankrupt them" and "Using obscurity in place of security" and "Everything you don't want to be", I do wonder if they might accidentally be doing the Right Thing. Probably not, of course, but what if Mozilla and Google's Big Bounties actually ended up damaging the motivation of those who search for and report vulnerabilities because it's the right thing to do?

Anyone know how many other companies have substantial vulnerability bounties? Moreover, anyone know if there's any research on possible links between bounty offers and useful reports?