"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.

I had two eBay auctions cancelled late last year because I was selling the recovery disks that came with two IBM Thinkpad laptops I didn't even own anymore. The thing that gets me is the disks would be pretty much useless to anyone that didn't own one of the laptop models the disks originally came with, so why cancel the auctions?