This represents a clear pattern. AOL received more pushback than they expected, and would sort of let things stand for a while. Then they would threaten a different Gaim developer. Each time a new Gaim developer was threatened, we had to look at new legal support, to prevent a conflict of interest.
Gaim changes name to Pidgin
The team of developers and designers at 37 signals are extremely talented in what they do. They are beginning to love their message a little more than their users. Simplicity is great but not at the cost of value. Stop telling the world what they want and respond to what they need.
37signals: Our way or the highway
I'd like to predict that the current stacks of software by 10-15 years are going to be in a much worse legacy and more of a nightmare to maintain. You're going to have employment forever maintaining this stuff. C++, Java code, C# code, this stuff is very complicated and very brittle with all these class libraries and frameworks. We're digging ourselves in a really big hole and there will be a lifetime of opportunities for you people to maintain this stuff that you're creating.
Dave Thomas, "Who will Develop Software in 10 Years?"
How unusual is it for singleton classes to come into play? It happens far more frequently than we think about them, because all class methods are actually singleton methods of instances of Class.
A Ruby Metaprogramming Introduction
