"Apple reserves the service manuals to authorized service providers. To be authorized, they have to demonstrate their competence. If Apple doesn't act against anyone publishing their confidential service manuals in whole or in part without authorization, then they lose control of the service of Macs, which results in slipshod work performed by unqualified technicians." How many times do you ask the repair guy "Can I see your manual to verify that it's a valid copy?" If there's gonna be slipshod work, there's gonna be slipshod work regardless of who sees the manual. There are a million and ten "Fix your computer" businesses in NYC, for example. What's more appealing-having a college kid fix your Mac for 20 bucks an hour at your home, or schlepping the monster-Macs down to the Apple store/Tekserve? If you've got a laptop, I guess the answer's obvious- schlep away. But an iMac or a G5? Forget it. You practically have to hire movers.

You have to be crazy to recommend to a person who is complaining about tie in to a vendor solution and he should 'hire 5 experiences C++ programmers' and hope that they stick around for the future. When looking at languages and architecture you shouldn't go down a path whereby you end up over the barrel with 5 programmers telling you they want a 500% pay raise because they designed/wrote/implemented your webserver/application/infrastructure? Balance is the key