I didn't buy my car thinking I would save money. I knew that I would end up spending more in the long run. (Okay, if I keep it for 150,000 miles, by my calculations, I will come out ahead in comparison the Hyundai Elantra I would have bought instead.) I bought my car knowing it is significantly better for the environment.
Try comparing the Prius to a vehicle of the same basic size and carrying capacity. The Prius' battery pack weighs only 100 pounds, and because it doesn't have a transmission it the conventional sense, it actually weighs LESS than it would if it were a conventional car.
A better comparison would be the Honda Civic to the Honda Civic Hybrid, or the Accord to the Accord Hybrid. Each of which is less than 250 pounds more than it's non-hybrid counterpart. The Ford Escape Hybrid is only 500 pounds more than the non-Hybrid; but it has a special transmission not available on the non-hybrid, and double-size battery pack compared to other hybrids.
Earth to anonymous dumbass, it's flamebait troll if you make an obviously loaded statement like "...and actually been able to pass a semi on the interstate."
I don't call everyone I disagree with a troll. I have disagreed with quite a few comments in this thread, yet I don't consider the poster a troll, or consider their post flamebait.
Ironically, I've found that in my Prius, I get better mileage if I accelerate QUICKLY, to use the gas engine quickly, then let off the pedal to settle in to electric driving. (This is true up to 40 mph, over 40, you have to use the gas engine; but it still seems to be better if I accelerate quickly.) Either that, or accelerate so slowly that it stays in electric mode, but then I feel like an old grandma on Sunday.
The first method uses gas for acceleration, then battery for 'cruising'; the second uses battery for acceleration, which usually gets it pretty low if I get it up to 40 solely on electric, then efficient gas for cruising. (At about 40, with the gas engine running, I get 50-60 MPG.)
If you want, I'll send you my spreadsheet detailing the mileage I have gotten every single day since I bought my Prius. I average 48 mpg.
Yes, from a pure economic perspective, hybrids aren't good choices. But, if you care about the environment, or on reducing dependence on fossil fuels, they're the way to go.
2. Long-term reliability and replacement costs of hybrid system (especially the batteries). 5 or 10 years from now, are these cars going to be proven as reliable as their traditional combustion-engine brethern? Or are they going to be visiting the shop more often to fix issues in their hybrid systems, replace their batteries (which do have a pre-determined lifetime), or whatever??
Well, the first Priuses (Prii?) are now 6 years old (released in 1999 in Japan.) There are documented Prii that have well over 100,000 miles, and are only suffering a minor decrease in mileage (due to the batteries not holding as much charge, so it relies on the gas enigne more; the second generation 2004+ Prius should improve on this.) There are very few reported cases of battery failure, and those appear to be flukes (as often as random combustion engine failures in normal cars.) Even then, it has been discovered that the batteries are not as expensive as originally thought to replace.
Have you really compared the two? I drove a friend's Metro once, and was scared it was going to fall apart on the freeway. (Admittedly, his was in very poor repair.) The Prius is a MUCH larger vehicle. if you want pure mileage, compare the Metro to Honda's Insight. And the Prius is a hatchback with fold-down seats, MUCH more space than a Metro.
Yes, a Metro is a good vehicle for people who just want to commute on the highway, that's what it was made for. But if you want a real family car, the Prius is mcuh better.
Hell, you could compare the Prius to a Volkswagen New Beetle/Golf/Jetta TDI, or some really old '40s-era Toyotas. It's easy to get 50 mpg, by sacrificing a lot. The point of the Prius is that it was designed to be a no-sacrifices environmentally-friendly car.
Well, I shouldn't feed the flamebait troll, but here goes....
First, I haven't seen $2.00 a gallon gas in over a year. It's $2.50 here. And I don't expect it to drop BELOW $2.50 in the next 100,000 miles, more like rise above $3.00. But, let's say $2.50.
Second, you actually overestimate the Prius. As the article submitter mentioned, the Prius only averages about 48. (Most cars don't actually get their EPA estimate, but the EPA test is skewed to make the Prius even higher than it should be comparitively.) Let's go ahead and use the EPA estimate of the Saturn's 35, though. Just to be generous. (So I'm using EPA for the Saturn, but real world for the Prius, just to make the Prius look worse.)
2857.14 gallons at $2.50 = $7142.85; 2083.33 gallons at $2.50 = $5208.33, net savings: $1934.52.
The base price of a Prius is $21,000. The base price of an ION is $12,000. $9000 difference. (Oh, by the way, the Prius is a midsize, the ION is a compact; A/C, and CD are standard on a Prius, it'll cost you $1300 to add them to an ION.) So, to get an ION equivalent to the Prius, we've spent $1300, plus the $1934.52 more we'll pay in gas, now we're only $3234.52 away. Take that from the price difference, and the Prius really only costs $5765.47 more. Let's see, you get more headroom, legroom, hip room, shoulder room, front and rear, more cargo space, better 0-60, better 1/4 mile, plus you're saving the environment.... I think it's worth it.
Oh, and if we compare it to the more similarly sized L300, it's not even close. (The L300 starts $1000 over the Prius.)
(Oh, and I've never had any issues passing a semi in my Prius. The Prius has a measured top speed above 103 (that's where the limiter kicks in,) and thanks to it's unique variable transmission and electric motor, has a lot more torque than most cars, available at any time.)
The Prius battery pack weighs 100 pounds. Because it has a VERY simple transmission in comparison to your average automatic tranny, it balances out to probably a net zero.
Toyota has a PDF (Sorry, I can't find the link, email me if you want a copy, I've got it on my HD somewhere,) that says that the Prius does, indeed, create more pollutants to create, but because it's built to be 100% recyclable (including the batteries,) and it has so significantly lower operating emissions, it balances out. (Ah, found my local copy, thanks 10.4 Spotlight!) So the PDF says it breaks even at 20,000 km, and after only 100,000 km, you have generated 7.5 tons less CO2 than a 'similar size' conventional car. (Their environmental comparisons are based on the car being recycled/thrown away after 100,000 km, there are many reports of Prii lasting well over 100,000 miles.)
There are many dealerships that do not add a markup. If the one near you does, just say "Sorry, but I refuse to pay your luxury tax. You have lost any future business from me." and go somewhere else.
Call all the Toyota dealers near you, even 200-300 miles away, I can almost guarantee that you'll find one in stock, at MSRP. (I only had to wait 2 days for mine. And it wasn't even 'ordering', it was calling all the dealers on Saturday, getting on their 'lists', and getting a call back on Monday saying they had 2 in stock that met my requirements (Blue, Tan, or Green, 2004 Packages 7 or 9, which are now called 5 and 6.) I drove a Blue package 7 Prius off the lot a mere 2 days after starting my search. (I could have had a top-of-the-line package 9, but it was in 'Tideland Pearl', which I mistakenly thought was green, it's more of an olive drab. So I picked the lesser-package 7 in blue, because I actually liked that color, and the extra features weren't important enough for me to want to wait.)
hehe.. In many dealerships, there are no waiting lists any more; nor do you have to pay extra. The trick is to hunt around, sometimes this means calling dealerships 200 miles away or more. But if you're persistent, you CAN get a Prius today, for MSRP. (There are even reports of people paying UNDER MSRP.)
That's why I said "his parts." If he revoked his permission for just the parts he has written, Linux would fall apart. (I don't have to completely dismantle my car for it to stop working, all I have to do is remove the sparkplugs.)
First, the GPL specifically precludes that. Second, the copyright laws of most countries (including the USA, where Linus lives) also forbids it.
No, it doesn't, and no, it doesn't.
The GPL contains no provisions whatsoever stating that the licensee has a permanent license. Like any other license, it can be revoked at any time. One of the writers of the GPL even sees this as a major impediment to the GPL.
Copyright law says the copyright holder has final say, unless he has specifically granted someone else some permissions. The GPL does this; but again, the GPL doesn't say it can't be revoked. The copyright holder doesn't have to RESERVE rights, he has to GRANT them. It's a 'positive' system, not a 'negative'. I don't have to tell you what you CAN'T do with my stuff, I just have to tell you what you CAN do. And the GPL doesn't say your license lasts forever.
It *SHOULD*, but it doesn't by itself. You need third-party DVD decoders (hardware or software,) to do the job. Obviously, most OEMs (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc,) include this with the computer; but if you upgrade your existing PC from Win 98/Me to XP, you will no longer be able to play DVDs. (98/Me software DVD decoders don't work in XP. You need an XP-compatible version. And DVD decoders can't be downloaded for free (even as updates,) because of DVDCCA rules.)
Because the terms of the license agreement for the OEM version is that the OEM supports it. (For example, when you buy a Dell computer, you have to call Dell for support on Windows problems, *NOT* Microsoft.)
Yes, MS will be happy to charge you for tech support with ANY version of Windows, OEM or not; but the whole point of OEM is that it gets Microsoft out of providing tech support. That's why it's cheaper, because the OEM is supposed to provide that support. (Likewise, Microsoft's license for OEM copies says that it has to be sold by an OEM with a qualifying piece of hardware. The fact that lots of places sell it 'bare' is technically against Microsoft's license agreement with the seller.)
Not to mention, for most of the OEM versions, you specifically CAN'T have a previous version. OEM copies refuse to 'upgrade', and can only do a clean install. (I haven't verified this for XP, but I know it was true for 95-Me.) And if you're trying to 'upgrade' from Me to XP, not being able to use the actual 'upgrade' option is a bit of a limiter for the non-Geeks out there.
Thank you for the confirmation of my argument. Too bad/. mods are so biased that any anti-GPL argument gets modded down to -1, even when it has valid arguments...
Larry's book is where I got my argument, I just couldn't REMEMBER that's where I got it, otherwise I would have referenced it.:-)
Yes, indeed, my point was that Linus is the copyright holder, and unless you have signed a contract with the copyright holder granting you specific legal rights, you are bound by the copyright holder's whims in regards to the license.
AOL is a great example. An AOL employee released a piece of software under the GPL, which AOL then revoked. That was AOL's right as copyright holder. (The employee thought he was the copyright holder, he was wrong. His employment contract with AOL gave AOL the copyright.) I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the software, I do remember it was by the authors of WinAMP, after AOL acquired them. (I'm pretty sure the software ended up being re-written free of AOL's influence, because I remember it was a fairly major piece of anti-establishment software, P2P, I believe.)
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well. If you are the sole copyright holder of a program, even if you have only ever released it under the GPL, you can revoke that license. The GPL does not preclude this. You can revoke all users license at any time, and even replace it with a non-free license, if you so desire.
For example, take a look at the 'acknowledgements.rtf' file in Mac OS X. Many different open-source projects are credited there. There are even two that specifically grant Apple a DIFFERENT license. CUPS, for one, is GPL. But they have granted Apple a non-GPL licensed version that means that Apple does *NOT* have to release their changes. This is a 'retro-active' license change. CUPS is/was GPL. CUPS decided later that they would give a different (and more restrictive, in one sense) license to someone else. This does not violate the GPL at all.
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder. He could declare those parts to be under a completely different, closed, license, and insist on a $100 per copy charge. And he would be legally entitled to it.
THIS is why the FSF promotes assigning free software copyrights to them. They have promised to never revoke or change the license, so someone can't decide later to change their mind and close-source something that's been assigned to them.
Except Apple's OSes aren't 'upgrade' versions. You can sell your old ones perfectly legally; I have sold my 10.1 and 10.2 discs on eBay for over $75 each when I upgraded; and I plan to do the same with my (soon-to-be) replaced 10.3 discs.
With XP, for those prices, you're paying for an 'upgrade' which means you had to have a legal copy of Win 98/Me/2000, and you aren't allowed to resell your old copy.
That combined with the family pack means I have spent less upgrading four Macs to Tiger than I spent installing two copies of XP. (One OEM, one upgrade. For which, the OEM is *NOT* eligible for any tech support whatsoever.)
People complain about Apple charging so much for a 'point release', yet XP was just a 'point release' above 2000. It's not Apple's fault that Microsoft takes so long to upgrade. SP2 has been the largest free update Microsoft has ever done. SP1 wasn't anywhere near as big, nor have been any of 2000 or NT's service packs. Microsoft's 'Service Packs' are more analogous to Apple's x.x.1 releases, which Apple releases significantly more often than Microsoft.
For example, have you heard of a single Mac that has been broken in to or compromised due to a security vulnerability inherent to OS X? No. Yet Apple releases security updates soon after they are discovered to patch holes nobody ever knew about. With Windows, I've seen computers infected with 3 year old viruses, even though the computer is only 1 year old!
The original Blu-Ray spec required a caddy (similar in idea to DVD-RAM.) However, it has been changed, and now it no longer has a caddy as a required part of the spec. (I believe it's optional now.)
My local Apple Store has them in stock. I'll send one to you for cost+shipping+$50, if you're that desparate. (Hey, I only need to sell three this way to pay for my own!)
I run a small on-site computer support business, doing exactly what you mention. Currently I have three employees. We charge $75 per hour.
I will say that people are willing to pay more for a 'real business' to come out, than for 'Joe Bob in the classifieds'. Before this became a serious full-time thing, I did it as a side job charging $35 an hour. At the low rate, people didn't take you seriously. They knew you were just a fly-by-night operation. At the higer rate (and with real business cards, a dedicated business phone number, and a small ad in the Yellow Pages,) they know you're a serious business, and are more willing to go with you.
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I didn't buy my car thinking I would save money. I knew that I would end up spending more in the long run. (Okay, if I keep it for 150,000 miles, by my calculations, I will come out ahead in comparison the Hyundai Elantra I would have bought instead.) I bought my car knowing it is significantly better for the environment.
Try comparing the Prius to a vehicle of the same basic size and carrying capacity. The Prius' battery pack weighs only 100 pounds, and because it doesn't have a transmission it the conventional sense, it actually weighs LESS than it would if it were a conventional car.
A better comparison would be the Honda Civic to the Honda Civic Hybrid, or the Accord to the Accord Hybrid. Each of which is less than 250 pounds more than it's non-hybrid counterpart. The Ford Escape Hybrid is only 500 pounds more than the non-Hybrid; but it has a special transmission not available on the non-hybrid, and double-size battery pack compared to other hybrids.
Earth to anonymous dumbass, it's flamebait troll if you make an obviously loaded statement like "...and actually been able to pass a semi on the interstate."
I don't call everyone I disagree with a troll. I have disagreed with quite a few comments in this thread, yet I don't consider the poster a troll, or consider their post flamebait.
Ironically, I've found that in my Prius, I get better mileage if I accelerate QUICKLY, to use the gas engine quickly, then let off the pedal to settle in to electric driving. (This is true up to 40 mph, over 40, you have to use the gas engine; but it still seems to be better if I accelerate quickly.) Either that, or accelerate so slowly that it stays in electric mode, but then I feel like an old grandma on Sunday.
The first method uses gas for acceleration, then battery for 'cruising'; the second uses battery for acceleration, which usually gets it pretty low if I get it up to 40 solely on electric, then efficient gas for cruising. (At about 40, with the gas engine running, I get 50-60 MPG.)
If you want, I'll send you my spreadsheet detailing the mileage I have gotten every single day since I bought my Prius. I average 48 mpg.
Yes, from a pure economic perspective, hybrids aren't good choices. But, if you care about the environment, or on reducing dependence on fossil fuels, they're the way to go.
Well, the first Priuses (Prii?) are now 6 years old (released in 1999 in Japan.) There are documented Prii that have well over 100,000 miles, and are only suffering a minor decrease in mileage (due to the batteries not holding as much charge, so it relies on the gas enigne more; the second generation 2004+ Prius should improve on this.) There are very few reported cases of battery failure, and those appear to be flukes (as often as random combustion engine failures in normal cars.) Even then, it has been discovered that the batteries are not as expensive as originally thought to replace.
Have you really compared the two? I drove a friend's Metro once, and was scared it was going to fall apart on the freeway. (Admittedly, his was in very poor repair.) The Prius is a MUCH larger vehicle. if you want pure mileage, compare the Metro to Honda's Insight. And the Prius is a hatchback with fold-down seats, MUCH more space than a Metro.
Yes, a Metro is a good vehicle for people who just want to commute on the highway, that's what it was made for. But if you want a real family car, the Prius is mcuh better.
Hell, you could compare the Prius to a Volkswagen New Beetle/Golf/Jetta TDI, or some really old '40s-era Toyotas. It's easy to get 50 mpg, by sacrificing a lot. The point of the Prius is that it was designed to be a no-sacrifices environmentally-friendly car.
Well, I shouldn't feed the flamebait troll, but here goes....
First, I haven't seen $2.00 a gallon gas in over a year. It's $2.50 here. And I don't expect it to drop BELOW $2.50 in the next 100,000 miles, more like rise above $3.00. But, let's say $2.50.
Second, you actually overestimate the Prius. As the article submitter mentioned, the Prius only averages about 48. (Most cars don't actually get their EPA estimate, but the EPA test is skewed to make the Prius even higher than it should be comparitively.) Let's go ahead and use the EPA estimate of the Saturn's 35, though. Just to be generous. (So I'm using EPA for the Saturn, but real world for the Prius, just to make the Prius look worse.)
2857.14 gallons at $2.50 = $7142.85; 2083.33 gallons at $2.50 = $5208.33, net savings: $1934.52.
The base price of a Prius is $21,000. The base price of an ION is $12,000. $9000 difference. (Oh, by the way, the Prius is a midsize, the ION is a compact; A/C, and CD are standard on a Prius, it'll cost you $1300 to add them to an ION.) So, to get an ION equivalent to the Prius, we've spent $1300, plus the $1934.52 more we'll pay in gas, now we're only $3234.52 away. Take that from the price difference, and the Prius really only costs $5765.47 more. Let's see, you get more headroom, legroom, hip room, shoulder room, front and rear, more cargo space, better 0-60, better 1/4 mile, plus you're saving the environment.... I think it's worth it.
Oh, and if we compare it to the more similarly sized L300, it's not even close. (The L300 starts $1000 over the Prius.)
(Oh, and I've never had any issues passing a semi in my Prius. The Prius has a measured top speed above 103 (that's where the limiter kicks in,) and thanks to it's unique variable transmission and electric motor, has a lot more torque than most cars, available at any time.)
The Prius battery pack weighs 100 pounds. Because it has a VERY simple transmission in comparison to your average automatic tranny, it balances out to probably a net zero.
Toyota has a PDF (Sorry, I can't find the link, email me if you want a copy, I've got it on my HD somewhere,) that says that the Prius does, indeed, create more pollutants to create, but because it's built to be 100% recyclable (including the batteries,) and it has so significantly lower operating emissions, it balances out. (Ah, found my local copy, thanks 10.4 Spotlight!) So the PDF says it breaks even at 20,000 km, and after only 100,000 km, you have generated 7.5 tons less CO2 than a 'similar size' conventional car. (Their environmental comparisons are based on the car being recycled/thrown away after 100,000 km, there are many reports of Prii lasting well over 100,000 miles.)
There are many dealerships that do not add a markup. If the one near you does, just say "Sorry, but I refuse to pay your luxury tax. You have lost any future business from me." and go somewhere else.
Call all the Toyota dealers near you, even 200-300 miles away, I can almost guarantee that you'll find one in stock, at MSRP. (I only had to wait 2 days for mine. And it wasn't even 'ordering', it was calling all the dealers on Saturday, getting on their 'lists', and getting a call back on Monday saying they had 2 in stock that met my requirements (Blue, Tan, or Green, 2004 Packages 7 or 9, which are now called 5 and 6.) I drove a Blue package 7 Prius off the lot a mere 2 days after starting my search. (I could have had a top-of-the-line package 9, but it was in 'Tideland Pearl', which I mistakenly thought was green, it's more of an olive drab. So I picked the lesser-package 7 in blue, because I actually liked that color, and the extra features weren't important enough for me to want to wait.)
hehe.. In many dealerships, there are no waiting lists any more; nor do you have to pay extra. The trick is to hunt around, sometimes this means calling dealerships 200 miles away or more. But if you're persistent, you CAN get a Prius today, for MSRP. (There are even reports of people paying UNDER MSRP.)
That's why I said "his parts." If he revoked his permission for just the parts he has written, Linux would fall apart. (I don't have to completely dismantle my car for it to stop working, all I have to do is remove the sparkplugs.)
No, it doesn't, and no, it doesn't.
The GPL contains no provisions whatsoever stating that the licensee has a permanent license. Like any other license, it can be revoked at any time. One of the writers of the GPL even sees this as a major impediment to the GPL.
Copyright law says the copyright holder has final say, unless he has specifically granted someone else some permissions. The GPL does this; but again, the GPL doesn't say it can't be revoked. The copyright holder doesn't have to RESERVE rights, he has to GRANT them. It's a 'positive' system, not a 'negative'. I don't have to tell you what you CAN'T do with my stuff, I just have to tell you what you CAN do. And the GPL doesn't say your license lasts forever.
It *SHOULD*, but it doesn't by itself. You need third-party DVD decoders (hardware or software,) to do the job. Obviously, most OEMs (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc,) include this with the computer; but if you upgrade your existing PC from Win 98/Me to XP, you will no longer be able to play DVDs. (98/Me software DVD decoders don't work in XP. You need an XP-compatible version. And DVD decoders can't be downloaded for free (even as updates,) because of DVDCCA rules.)
Because the terms of the license agreement for the OEM version is that the OEM supports it. (For example, when you buy a Dell computer, you have to call Dell for support on Windows problems, *NOT* Microsoft.)
Yes, MS will be happy to charge you for tech support with ANY version of Windows, OEM or not; but the whole point of OEM is that it gets Microsoft out of providing tech support. That's why it's cheaper, because the OEM is supposed to provide that support. (Likewise, Microsoft's license for OEM copies says that it has to be sold by an OEM with a qualifying piece of hardware. The fact that lots of places sell it 'bare' is technically against Microsoft's license agreement with the seller.)
Not to mention, for most of the OEM versions, you specifically CAN'T have a previous version. OEM copies refuse to 'upgrade', and can only do a clean install. (I haven't verified this for XP, but I know it was true for 95-Me.) And if you're trying to 'upgrade' from Me to XP, not being able to use the actual 'upgrade' option is a bit of a limiter for the non-Geeks out there.
Thank you for the confirmation of my argument. Too bad /. mods are so biased that any anti-GPL argument gets modded down to -1, even when it has valid arguments...
:-)
Larry's book is where I got my argument, I just couldn't REMEMBER that's where I got it, otherwise I would have referenced it.
Yes, indeed, my point was that Linus is the copyright holder, and unless you have signed a contract with the copyright holder granting you specific legal rights, you are bound by the copyright holder's whims in regards to the license.
AOL is a great example. An AOL employee released a piece of software under the GPL, which AOL then revoked. That was AOL's right as copyright holder. (The employee thought he was the copyright holder, he was wrong. His employment contract with AOL gave AOL the copyright.) I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the software, I do remember it was by the authors of WinAMP, after AOL acquired them. (I'm pretty sure the software ended up being re-written free of AOL's influence, because I remember it was a fairly major piece of anti-establishment software, P2P, I believe.)
P.S. I love your analogies.. Great stuff.
Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well. If you are the sole copyright holder of a program, even if you have only ever released it under the GPL, you can revoke that license. The GPL does not preclude this. You can revoke all users license at any time, and even replace it with a non-free license, if you so desire.
For example, take a look at the 'acknowledgements.rtf' file in Mac OS X. Many different open-source projects are credited there. There are even two that specifically grant Apple a DIFFERENT license. CUPS, for one, is GPL. But they have granted Apple a non-GPL licensed version that means that Apple does *NOT* have to release their changes. This is a 'retro-active' license change. CUPS is/was GPL. CUPS decided later that they would give a different (and more restrictive, in one sense) license to someone else. This does not violate the GPL at all.
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder. He could declare those parts to be under a completely different, closed, license, and insist on a $100 per copy charge. And he would be legally entitled to it.
THIS is why the FSF promotes assigning free software copyrights to them. They have promised to never revoke or change the license, so someone can't decide later to change their mind and close-source something that's been assigned to them.
Except Apple's OSes aren't 'upgrade' versions. You can sell your old ones perfectly legally; I have sold my 10.1 and 10.2 discs on eBay for over $75 each when I upgraded; and I plan to do the same with my (soon-to-be) replaced 10.3 discs.
With XP, for those prices, you're paying for an 'upgrade' which means you had to have a legal copy of Win 98/Me/2000, and you aren't allowed to resell your old copy.
That combined with the family pack means I have spent less upgrading four Macs to Tiger than I spent installing two copies of XP. (One OEM, one upgrade. For which, the OEM is *NOT* eligible for any tech support whatsoever.)
People complain about Apple charging so much for a 'point release', yet XP was just a 'point release' above 2000. It's not Apple's fault that Microsoft takes so long to upgrade. SP2 has been the largest free update Microsoft has ever done. SP1 wasn't anywhere near as big, nor have been any of 2000 or NT's service packs. Microsoft's 'Service Packs' are more analogous to Apple's x.x.1 releases, which Apple releases significantly more often than Microsoft.
For example, have you heard of a single Mac that has been broken in to or compromised due to a security vulnerability inherent to OS X? No. Yet Apple releases security updates soon after they are discovered to patch holes nobody ever knew about. With Windows, I've seen computers infected with 3 year old viruses, even though the computer is only 1 year old!
So you're comparing Apple's 'crippleware' DVD player (which is crippled how?) to Microsoft nonexistant DVD player. That's good.
iMovie and Final Cut Pro would not have Blu-Ray support.
iDVD and DVD Studio Pro would.
(The original is like saying my car's engine will support 8-Tracks. The stereo is what determines support of media types, not the engine.)
The original Blu-Ray spec required a caddy (similar in idea to DVD-RAM.) However, it has been changed, and now it no longer has a caddy as a required part of the spec. (I believe it's optional now.)
Once the Etch-A-Sketch plug in is working on a TABLET Mac, I'll buy it.
It would be a scene straight out of Dilbert, only with a real computer...
My local Apple Store has them in stock. I'll send one to you for cost+shipping+$50, if you're that desparate. (Hey, I only need to sell three this way to pay for my own!)
I run a small on-site computer support business, doing exactly what you mention. Currently I have three employees. We charge $75 per hour.
I will say that people are willing to pay more for a 'real business' to come out, than for 'Joe Bob in the classifieds'. Before this became a serious full-time thing, I did it as a side job charging $35 an hour. At the low rate, people didn't take you seriously. They knew you were just a fly-by-night operation. At the higer rate (and with real business cards, a dedicated business phone number, and a small ad in the Yellow Pages,) they know you're a serious business, and are more willing to go with you.
For Linux or Mac, sure! But for removing viruses or spyware on Windows? Man, you couldn't pay me enough!
(Wait, that's not true, I do that for a living!)