Dell could simply adjust the Ubuntu PC prices to compensate for the missing bloatware revenue. Of course, they probably would sell even fewer that way. But with Dell's just-in-time supply chain, it really shouldn't matter whether any particular models sell well because there's no inventory buildup or waste to worry about.

As for Dell's claim of reducing complexity... it's a single link on the side of the page! At the risk of sounding cliche, I think it's more reasonable to assume that there is some supplier exclusivity contract in play from Microsoft.

Most owners care about their business, and use cost-cutting to strengthen the business. But publicly-owned companies are not run by the owners. They're run by managers who may or may not have the best interests of the business in mind. It's called the Principal-agent problem. Publicly-owned companies are more easily corrupted because the owners (stockholders) are not the ones tending to the daily matters of the business.

If that was sarcasm and I missed it, I apologize. Either way, the truth is that cost savings do not roll downhill. Any tax savings realized by corporations goes to officer salaries.

Even if management is ethical, they still won't create jobs; without an increase in consumer demand, the ethical thing to do is distribute the savings as dividends.

So far we have mostly managed to ignore the morons calling for the death of PulseAudio, hopefully that will continue as well.

Pulse is new code, not a rewrite of anything. Yes, ESD was a sound server too, but the similarity ends there.

Many of PulseAudio's problems are caused by "iffy" stuff in ALSA drivers, and the ALSA folks are working to fix the bugs Pulse exposes. Many more are caused by distro people making questionable decisions on how to set it up (see Ubuntu/rtkit).

I'm sure glad that PA isn't going anywhere, despite all the uninformed hate flying around.

Budgets are outlined more than one year ahead of time, so that people can actually plan for the future. They aren't usually set in stone, because as circumstances change it may be necessary to adjust them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, or that changing them won't cause issues for the department. Giving a smaller than expected increase in budget IS a budget cut, because until that moment plans have been made with the higher number in mind: a change to that number will require cuts to payroll, purchasing, operational costs, or any of the other expenses that the program must pay. If you can imagine attempting to operate a business on a budget that you cannot predict more than 12 months in advance, you might just get an idea why it's necessary to make those kinds of assumptions.

Get it?

Oh, and inflation makes each dollar worth a little bit less than it was before. If you have a budget that doesn't go up from one year to the next, it is effectively going down whether the numbers actually say so or not.

Thanks for playing.