[$] The future for general-purpose computing

There can be no doubt that general-purpose computing has been a boon to theworld. The ability to run different kinds of programs, from varioussources, including bought from companies, written from scratch, and, well,built from source, is something that we take for granted on many-most-ofthe computing devices that we own.But that model seems to be increasingly disappearing in many kinds of devices,including personal computers, as a recent kerfluffle in the Apple worldhelps to demonstrate.