I'm typing this on my PII 400 MHz at work right now, and I really can't complain that this system is too slow. I write device drivers so the toughest thing my machine has to deal with is compiling software under Visual C++. For the other OS's I work with I cross compile on a Sparc system, so it does all the work. My computer runs Office Apps and our source control software just fine.
I just got an email from my boss last week saying that he's going to be upgrading some of the computers in our department. The only reason I'd really want an upgrade at this point is that I could really use another computer to test my drivers with, and this PII would do nicely.
In most states here employees don't work under a contract.
Divine is giving their employees the choice of taking a pay cut or losing their jobs. It's not a good choice to have to make, but it's either that or fire people. At least this way the employees get to make the choice. It looks loke Divine is overextended and needs to cut costs if they want to stay in business. You always hope that management can find a way to stay profitable without slashing jobs or pay cuts, but it's not always possible to predict you're market well enough to avoid this.
You don't own the software. It's licensed to you under the GPL through copyright law. The GPL is less restrictive than some software licenses and more restrictive than others, but the software is licensed to you not transferred to you. You just own the media.
Microsoft is treated by the GPL, because the concept of quality, free software threatens them. They ignored the GPL until it became a common buzzword. There are a lot of pointy haired bosses out there that don't understand what GPL is, but they know it's free, and there's a increasing number of examples of quality software packages that are GPLed. Microsoft's marketing people see the need to address this. The problem is that the details of the benefits and consequences of the GPL are pretty hard to explain to pointy haired bosses. By the time MS dumbes down their point of view, and the marketing trolls are done spinning things, it pretty much comes out as "GPL will destroy you, run away!"
I was incorrect when I said that Microsoft sells software. They license it to people. Neither Microsoft or Red Hat sells OSs. Microsoft has the rights to sell a license of their software to people because they own the copyrights, or licensed them from other developers. Red Hat doesn't have any particular rights to the software they distribute. They can charge you wantever they want for their distribution, but they aren't selling you Linux. When you buy the distribution you don't own Linux.
Why is this distinction important? Because there's no laws agains me taking a red hat distribution, writing it to a CD, and selling it myself for less than what Red Hat is selling it for. Since I'm not paying people to develop any software or even compile and test a distribution, I can do it cheaper than Red Hat can. Red Hat could put together the perfect distribution full of the best patches and the best GPLed software. They could test and verify it works with hundreds of different computers. They could spend millions advertising it as the best Linux distribution ever created. As soon as they sell the first copy and deliver the source code, there's nothing keeping the person who bought that first copy from giving it away to every person in the world, and there's nothing Red Hat can do to directly recoup their development expenses past what they sold that one copy for. In reality, if they price their distribution reasonably they'll likly sell a reasonable number of coppies, but they aren't selling the rights to use that software. They're just selling you a bunch of CDs with some stuff they have no control over on it.
You are correct that they can charge whatever they want for the distribution, but they have no actuall rights to the software itself, and have no way to keep someone else from makeing a copy of that distribution and selling it themselves. They have no way to maintain a revenue stream from sales of the software. They can only add value above what someone else can offer by offering non-gpled products such as training and support.
Acutally Microsoft doesn't sell Windows. The liscense it in a limited way to people. Since Microsoft licenses other people's software for use in Windows, Microsoft probably can't just outright sell Windows either, my statement that micorsoft makes it's money selling windows was where this started going wrong.
Linux vendors can charge whatever they like for their distributions, but they don't own the software and can't keep others from copying or recareating it from the source code, and then selling the same thing.
Control is an important issue for Microsoft, but I'll add another word. Revenue. Where does Microsoft make it's money if the software is free?
The usual answer I hear is services and support. I just don't see how they can support their product development on that kind of business model. Red Hat barely makes money, and they do very, very little software development themselves. Someone has to develop the software, and those people need to make a living. Linux distributions do demonstrate that some exellent software can be developed by utilizing a lot of donated labor, but how many of those people who are donating that labor are making their money writing software for another company. Could GPLed software become the norm? Or is it doing so well because the commercial software market is booming, and developers can afford to donate their time?
Control is a significant issue for Microsoft, but as the largest Software company in the world. Shaking up people's faith in their business model may even be more of a problem for them.
Let me be more explicit. With the GPL software is and must continue to be free. This means that software has no value, you can't make money off of it directly. This is saying that most everything that Microsoft has spent hundreds of billions developing in since it's creation is worthless. Sound like something worth starting a holy war over?
Remember, Microsoft is a publicly traded company. Even if their IP isn't any less valuable, the perception that it is less valuable can have serious impact on them. Many of their employees get a significant amount of their compensation in stock options. Every time their stock takes a hit it becomes significantly more costly for them to retain valuable employees.
Another good question is if software doesn't have value, how do you pay the developers? You can fund some development costs from support and training, but I can't think of any consumer product that's been successful on that business model. Some people write software for the joy of creating good software. Most of us write it because it's an enjoyable job that pays well. If you take away the paying well part, it's much harder to attract good employees to software fields. That means more competition between employeers, which means good programmers will cost even more.
Free software, when taken to the extreme pretty much destroys the current business model of most every software company out there. It's questionable if selling services and support to fund software development is a valid business model. It would require shifting a lot of costs from the many people who use the software on to a few that require the support and training. I'm sure there are niche markets where that's a valid model, but I'm skeptical that it can work for wide scale consumer software development.
They don't sell Linux. They charge for the distribution media and support. They legally can't sell Linux. They also developed very little of what goes into their Linux distributions. They are making money distributing other people's software and providing support. Red Hat, SuSE, etc are NOT software companies. They do very little product development, and have very little overhead because the software they support and distribute is free.
Microsoft is a Software company. They make their money selling software. They don't want to try selling support or hardware or some other product to fund their software development. They want to charge for the actuall product they sell rather than shift the cost of developing software on to some other product. That's why they don't like GPLed software. With GPL software you can't sell the software itself, the expenses of developing the software must be shifted elsewhere.
Great! It sounds like that might be the right computer for you. I wasn't suggesting that Apple shouldn't offer the iMac to consumers, I think they should offer both to consumers.
I've found that a decent comfortable chair and a desk that doesn't place the keyboard too high is what makes a computer comfortable to use for me. I think those would still be requirements with the new iMac as well. The monitor, for me, seems to be something that I have to get adjusted the way I want it once, then I can just leave it alone.
If they have the machines locked down, they probably also have the auditing software loaded. If they've kept good control of their computers, then they probably won't have much problem with an audit.
Education institutions don't want flat panels in labs with 3rd graders. And they don't want CD-RW drives. And they're short on cash, too.
A lot of home users don't want LCDs either, but they aren't given a choice. CD-RW drives aren't that expensive, that's why they're becomming standard on many PCs. They're being ommited on the low end eMacs because in many educational environments they don't want the students to have CD-RW drives.
Everyday consumers, however, do want flat panel displays, do want CD-RW/DVD drives, and usually do have more money to invest than a grade school - after all they're only buying one machine, not thirty.
I don't personally know anyone who has chosen to spend the extra money for a LCD display for a desktop computer at home, and most my friends have one or more computers at home. I don't know many families that have extra money laying around that they can spend on a nice pretty LCD display. Why should schools be buying computers when the company selling them is pricing the consumer version above their competition and requiring features on the consumer version that make them more expensive for those consumers.
Plus, as someone pointed out earlier, this neatly takes some demand off of them for the flat panels.
If Apple wants to reduce the demand on them for flat pannels, why don't they sell iMacs with CRTs to consumers, and let the consumers decide? I have a strange feeling it has something to do with higher profit margins on the new iMacs.
If you at all understand the above, then Apple's "new" product makes sense.
What makes sense is that Apple has realized that their marketing decisions (LCDs only) have priced them above the price the educational market is willing to spend. They can't afford to lose this market, so they are reacting by bringing back to old iMac at a price point that is more favorable to that market. Why can't they also make this more affordable computer available to consumers? Apple is marketing thier iMac as a household accessory. It's cool looking, you can do some neat stuff with it like burn a CD full of MP3s. The problem is that it's somewhat weak on bang for the buck. What does apple give users for the price premium you pay for thier computers? What reason do schools have to choose Apple's computers over other computers? Most importantly, what advantages will the students get? If there aren't some real advantages, schools shouldn't buy them.
So why not let the consumers decide if it's what they want or not rather than making it education only. Most people I know don't really want to pay extra for a LCD display, but Apple has decided to make it standard on the iMac. Why should schools use use Macs when Apple doesn't seem to want to make the computers affordable to their students. Apple seems to have decided that they can make better margins by appealing to those who want a flashy iMac with a LCD display that is asteticly pleasing. I'm sure that that is a valid niche market, but should schools be catering to a niche market, or what their students can afford, and will likely use outside of school?
Do you really think it'll be that hard for them to get a search warrent? How many students do you think they'll have to ask about the computer labs before they find one that says that people have loaded all kinds of software on the computers that isn't supposed to be on there.
It's almost impossible to keep students from loading software on University computers. There's bound to be some software on the computers that shouldn't be there. The idea of the licensing software is that it would find the software that the students load so that it can be removed, and if it continues to happen, the student found and convinced to stop loading software.
IS departments face an almost impossible task of keeping their computers free from unlawfully installed software, but there's things they can do to reduce it. Unfortunately, those efforts come at a cost, and the universities don't want to pay it, and also don't like outside people forcing such things on them.
Universities have a responsiblity to train students in way that they can not only *think*, but apply that knowledge in a practical way. This is less true at the graduate level, because by that point you should have already learned how to apply the knowledge, and you get an oppertunity to apply the knowledge through your thesis project.
Universities should be training students using software that is commonly used in their field. There's no good reason for the students to have to learn the theory with software that is significantly different than what they will use once they get a job, when they can learn both the theory and the application at once by using the right software in class.
That's a good point, but I've always thought the definition of an embedded system gets pretty vague. I've got a Motorola CPN5360 sitting in my office. It's an X86 Compact PCI single board computer. It can run Windos or Linux just fine off of a local 2.5" hard drive. Is it an embedded system? Does it become an embedded system if you strip down the OS and run it off of a flash disk? How about if I access it through a console running on the serial port? Or does it become an embedded system when I give it a specific purpose, such as running a CNC Laser, and stick it into a system with other hardware that help it perform that specific purpose. What makes and embeded system, packaging?
Modualar programming does not reduce dependencies between different applications. Modular programming allows you to reuse code, and reduces bugs by allowing the same, well tested code to be used in many places. However, since many different functions rely on those modules working presicely the way they they are expected to work, ripping them out and replacing them with another vendor's modules is risky.
How these modules work is probably somewhat documented, but there is a significant difference between documenting code so that someone who has access to the source code can understant it, and someone who is independent can understand it. Documentation of that level is an extremely difficult task. If you place too much burden on Microsoft to document things and make things removable, your going to significantly raise the cost of developing Windows. This will then be passed on to consumers. What are consumers going to gain for this increased cost? They get choices, but they're also likely to get even poorer stability out of these hacked together OSs.
No, it's still modular. Actually making something more modular often increces dependencies between modules. Think about it for a little bit. If you take functionality that is done many places and place it in a module that performs that function. You then end up with a lot of code that relies on that module.
I know of a number of companies using Embedded NT or Win 2k for network attached storage. I know of a local company that's using embedded Win 2k for a medical imaging product. When my wife had Lasik eye surgery, the computer running the laser was running NT (that one made me pretty nervous). Embedded NT/2k/XP aren't what I'd call real-time OSs, but they do get used.
Or in the case of aircraft.. a custom application.. NO OS USED
Most avionics envioronmet projects, at least once you get above small prop planes, involve processors running OSs. The most popluar one for the part of market that we deal with still seems to be VxWorks. I've also seen some LynxOS. Linux seems to be still gaining strength in this market, but more where real-time isn't as critical. QNX comes up when you're dealing with Canadian companies, but I haven't heard of it being used that much.
Re:Another example of the Big Business Sob Story..
on
Worst Buy
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· Score: 2
I'm not suggesting you subsidize anyone. If you don't like Best Buy, don't buy from them.
They were not given refunds, Best Buy still has most of the people's money that have not called their credit card companies and requested a "denial of payment" to that transaction from Best Buy.
I saw that it looked liked people didn't see their refunds show up instantly on their credit cards, but that may simply be an issue with how the credit card companies process refunds.
Look at the receipts posted on the Hypothermia's web page. Those people paid for thier cards when they got them. I don't think they'd be doing that if they hadn't gotten their refunds. If Best Buy actually canceled the orders and didn't refund the money, there'd be a lot more legal allegations flying around, and they be in serious trouble with the credit card companies as well.
That may very well be true in the case of the guy the one manager had arrested. If it is true, then in that case, that manager should be in serious trouble.
I strongly doubt that racisim was the issue in most of the cases. It's more likely some of the managers decided to honor the price to keep some customres happy, then the policy came down from higher up in Best Buy not to honor the price.
Re:Another example of the Big Business Sob Story..
on
Worst Buy
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· Score: 2
Back to the situational morality. I guess it's apparently ok in your mind if a big company gets screwed. What if this was a small family owned business that sells on the web? A mistake like this could easily wipe out their business, throwing them into bankruptcy and wiping out their life savings. Would if bo ok in that situation too?
Even when Best Buy gets screwed, the losses are passed on to other people. Retail stores aren't doing that well in the current economy. To absorb this loss along with the weak sales they may raise prices on other items some, but that doesn't work well in a bad economy. That means they're likely to lay people off, or just not hire people to fill positions as people leave. This means normal, average people don't have jobs. Maybe they don't have to lay people off. Maybe things are better than I think and they can just reduce their dividends to their shareholders. Of course those shareholders include a lot of retirement plans, so it's taking money from people's parents and gradnparents who are relying on the money to get them through their later years. The situational morality crap only justifies itself if you don't think about it too hard.
There's no way VisionTek can manufacture those cards for that price. Where is this "consumer pricing and wholesale discount disclosure D2-5386S11?" From Hypothermia's web site it doesn't even look like Best Buy has responded to the AG yet. Why would they be releasing the wholesale price? I'd be happy to check the public record if you'd like to point me in the right direction, but until I see some proof, I don't believe that number is even close to credible.
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I'm typing this on my PII 400 MHz at work right now, and I really can't complain that this system is too slow. I write device drivers so the toughest thing my machine has to deal with is compiling software under Visual C++. For the other OS's I work with I cross compile on a Sparc system, so it does all the work. My computer runs Office Apps and our source control software just fine.
I just got an email from my boss last week saying that he's going to be upgrading some of the computers in our department. The only reason I'd really want an upgrade at this point is that I could really use another computer to test my drivers with, and this PII would do nicely.
In most states here employees don't work under a contract.
Divine is giving their employees the choice of taking a pay cut or losing their jobs. It's not a good choice to have to make, but it's either that or fire people. At least this way the employees get to make the choice. It looks loke Divine is overextended and needs to cut costs if they want to stay in business. You always hope that management can find a way to stay profitable without slashing jobs or pay cuts, but it's not always possible to predict you're market well enough to avoid this.
You don't own the software. It's licensed to you under the GPL through copyright law. The GPL is less restrictive than some software licenses and more restrictive than others, but the software is licensed to you not transferred to you. You just own the media.
Microsoft is treated by the GPL, because the concept of quality, free software threatens them. They ignored the GPL until it became a common buzzword. There are a lot of pointy haired bosses out there that don't understand what GPL is, but they know it's free, and there's a increasing number of examples of quality software packages that are GPLed. Microsoft's marketing people see the need to address this. The problem is that the details of the benefits and consequences of the GPL are pretty hard to explain to pointy haired bosses. By the time MS dumbes down their point of view, and the marketing trolls are done spinning things, it pretty much comes out as "GPL will destroy you, run away!"
I was incorrect when I said that Microsoft sells software. They license it to people. Neither Microsoft or Red Hat sells OSs. Microsoft has the rights to sell a license of their software to people because they own the copyrights, or licensed them from other developers. Red Hat doesn't have any particular rights to the software they distribute. They can charge you wantever they want for their distribution, but they aren't selling you Linux. When you buy the distribution you don't own Linux.
Why is this distinction important? Because there's no laws agains me taking a red hat distribution, writing it to a CD, and selling it myself for less than what Red Hat is selling it for. Since I'm not paying people to develop any software or even compile and test a distribution, I can do it cheaper than Red Hat can. Red Hat could put together the perfect distribution full of the best patches and the best GPLed software. They could test and verify it works with hundreds of different computers. They could spend millions advertising it as the best Linux distribution ever created. As soon as they sell the first copy and deliver the source code, there's nothing keeping the person who bought that first copy from giving it away to every person in the world, and there's nothing Red Hat can do to directly recoup their development expenses past what they sold that one copy for. In reality, if they price their distribution reasonably they'll likly sell a reasonable number of coppies, but they aren't selling the rights to use that software. They're just selling you a bunch of CDs with some stuff they have no control over on it.
You are correct that they can charge whatever they want for the distribution, but they have no actuall rights to the software itself, and have no way to keep someone else from makeing a copy of that distribution and selling it themselves. They have no way to maintain a revenue stream from sales of the software. They can only add value above what someone else can offer by offering non-gpled products such as training and support.
Acutally Microsoft doesn't sell Windows. The liscense it in a limited way to people. Since Microsoft licenses other people's software for use in Windows, Microsoft probably can't just outright sell Windows either, my statement that micorsoft makes it's money selling windows was where this started going wrong.
Linux vendors can charge whatever they like for their distributions, but they don't own the software and can't keep others from copying or recareating it from the source code, and then selling the same thing.
In one word: Control.
Control is an important issue for Microsoft, but I'll add another word. Revenue. Where does Microsoft make it's money if the software is free?
The usual answer I hear is services and support. I just don't see how they can support their product development on that kind of business model. Red Hat barely makes money, and they do very, very little software development themselves. Someone has to develop the software, and those people need to make a living. Linux distributions do demonstrate that some exellent software can be developed by utilizing a lot of donated labor, but how many of those people who are donating that labor are making their money writing software for another company. Could GPLed software become the norm? Or is it doing so well because the commercial software market is booming, and developers can afford to donate their time?
Control is a significant issue for Microsoft, but as the largest Software company in the world. Shaking up people's faith in their business model may even be more of a problem for them.
Let me be more explicit. With the GPL software is and must continue to be free. This means that software has no value, you can't make money off of it directly. This is saying that most everything that Microsoft has spent hundreds of billions developing in since it's creation is worthless. Sound like something worth starting a holy war over?
Remember, Microsoft is a publicly traded company. Even if their IP isn't any less valuable, the perception that it is less valuable can have serious impact on them. Many of their employees get a significant amount of their compensation in stock options. Every time their stock takes a hit it becomes significantly more costly for them to retain valuable employees.
Another good question is if software doesn't have value, how do you pay the developers? You can fund some development costs from support and training, but I can't think of any consumer product that's been successful on that business model. Some people write software for the joy of creating good software. Most of us write it because it's an enjoyable job that pays well. If you take away the paying well part, it's much harder to attract good employees to software fields. That means more competition between employeers, which means good programmers will cost even more.
Free software, when taken to the extreme pretty much destroys the current business model of most every software company out there. It's questionable if selling services and support to fund software development is a valid business model. It would require shifting a lot of costs from the many people who use the software on to a few that require the support and training. I'm sure there are niche markets where that's a valid model, but I'm skeptical that it can work for wide scale consumer software development.
They don't sell Linux. They charge for the distribution media and support. They legally can't sell Linux. They also developed very little of what goes into their Linux distributions. They are making money distributing other people's software and providing support. Red Hat, SuSE, etc are NOT software companies. They do very little product development, and have very little overhead because the software they support and distribute is free.
Microsoft is a Software company. They make their money selling software. They don't want to try selling support or hardware or some other product to fund their software development. They want to charge for the actuall product they sell rather than shift the cost of developing software on to some other product. That's why they don't like GPLed software. With GPL software you can't sell the software itself, the expenses of developing the software must be shifted elsewhere.
Great! It sounds like that might be the right computer for you. I wasn't suggesting that Apple shouldn't offer the iMac to consumers, I think they should offer both to consumers.
I've found that a decent comfortable chair and a desk that doesn't place the keyboard too high is what makes a computer comfortable to use for me. I think those would still be requirements with the new iMac as well. The monitor, for me, seems to be something that I have to get adjusted the way I want it once, then I can just leave it alone.
If they have the machines locked down, they probably also have the auditing software loaded. If they've kept good control of their computers, then they probably won't have much problem with an audit.
Education institutions don't want flat panels in labs with 3rd graders. And they don't want CD-RW drives. And they're short on cash, too.
A lot of home users don't want LCDs either, but they aren't given a choice. CD-RW drives aren't that expensive, that's why they're becomming standard on many PCs. They're being ommited on the low end eMacs because in many educational environments they don't want the students to have CD-RW drives.
Everyday consumers, however, do want flat panel displays, do want CD-RW/DVD drives, and usually do have more money to invest than a grade school - after all they're only buying one machine, not thirty.
I don't personally know anyone who has chosen to spend the extra money for a LCD display for a desktop computer at home, and most my friends have one or more computers at home. I don't know many families that have extra money laying around that they can spend on a nice pretty LCD display. Why should schools be buying computers when the company selling them is pricing the consumer version above their competition and requiring features on the consumer version that make them more expensive for those consumers.
Plus, as someone pointed out earlier, this neatly takes some demand off of them for the flat panels.
If Apple wants to reduce the demand on them for flat pannels, why don't they sell iMacs with CRTs to consumers, and let the consumers decide? I have a strange feeling it has something to do with higher profit margins on the new iMacs.
If you at all understand the above, then Apple's "new" product makes sense.
What makes sense is that Apple has realized that their marketing decisions (LCDs only) have priced them above the price the educational market is willing to spend. They can't afford to lose this market, so they are reacting by bringing back to old iMac at a price point that is more favorable to that market. Why can't they also make this more affordable computer available to consumers? Apple is marketing thier iMac as a household accessory. It's cool looking, you can do some neat stuff with it like burn a CD full of MP3s. The problem is that it's somewhat weak on bang for the buck. What does apple give users for the price premium you pay for thier computers? What reason do schools have to choose Apple's computers over other computers? Most importantly, what advantages will the students get? If there aren't some real advantages, schools shouldn't buy them.
So why not let the consumers decide if it's what they want or not rather than making it education only. Most people I know don't really want to pay extra for a LCD display, but Apple has decided to make it standard on the iMac. Why should schools use use Macs when Apple doesn't seem to want to make the computers affordable to their students. Apple seems to have decided that they can make better margins by appealing to those who want a flashy iMac with a LCD display that is asteticly pleasing. I'm sure that that is a valid niche market, but should schools be catering to a niche market, or what their students can afford, and will likely use outside of school?
Do you really think it'll be that hard for them to get a search warrent? How many students do you think they'll have to ask about the computer labs before they find one that says that people have loaded all kinds of software on the computers that isn't supposed to be on there.
It's almost impossible to keep students from loading software on University computers. There's bound to be some software on the computers that shouldn't be there. The idea of the licensing software is that it would find the software that the students load so that it can be removed, and if it continues to happen, the student found and convinced to stop loading software.
IS departments face an almost impossible task of keeping their computers free from unlawfully installed software, but there's things they can do to reduce it. Unfortunately, those efforts come at a cost, and the universities don't want to pay it, and also don't like outside people forcing such things on them.
Universities have a responsiblity to train students in way that they can not only *think*, but apply that knowledge in a practical way. This is less true at the graduate level, because by that point you should have already learned how to apply the knowledge, and you get an oppertunity to apply the knowledge through your thesis project.
Universities should be training students using software that is commonly used in their field. There's no good reason for the students to have to learn the theory with software that is significantly different than what they will use once they get a job, when they can learn both the theory and the application at once by using the right software in class.
That's a good point, but I've always thought the definition of an embedded system gets pretty vague. I've got a Motorola CPN5360 sitting in my office. It's an X86 Compact PCI single board computer. It can run Windos or Linux just fine off of a local 2.5" hard drive. Is it an embedded system? Does it become an embedded system if you strip down the OS and run it off of a flash disk? How about if I access it through a console running on the serial port? Or does it become an embedded system when I give it a specific purpose, such as running a CNC Laser, and stick it into a system with other hardware that help it perform that specific purpose. What makes and embeded system, packaging?
Modualar programming does not reduce dependencies between different applications. Modular programming allows you to reuse code, and reduces bugs by allowing the same, well tested code to be used in many places. However, since many different functions rely on those modules working presicely the way they they are expected to work, ripping them out and replacing them with another vendor's modules is risky.
How these modules work is probably somewhat documented, but there is a significant difference between documenting code so that someone who has access to the source code can understant it, and someone who is independent can understand it. Documentation of that level is an extremely difficult task. If you place too much burden on Microsoft to document things and make things removable, your going to significantly raise the cost of developing Windows. This will then be passed on to consumers. What are consumers going to gain for this increased cost? They get choices, but they're also likely to get even poorer stability out of these hacked together OSs.
No, it's still modular. Actually making something more modular often increces dependencies between modules. Think about it for a little bit. If you take functionality that is done many places and place it in a module that performs that function. You then end up with a lot of code that relies on that module.
I know of a number of companies using Embedded NT or Win 2k for network attached storage. I know of a local company that's using embedded Win 2k for a medical imaging product. When my wife had Lasik eye surgery, the computer running the laser was running NT (that one made me pretty nervous). Embedded NT/2k/XP aren't what I'd call real-time OSs, but they do get used.
Or in the case of aircraft.. a custom application.. NO OS USED
Most avionics envioronmet projects, at least once you get above small prop planes, involve processors running OSs. The most popluar one for the part of market that we deal with still seems to be VxWorks. I've also seen some LynxOS. Linux seems to be still gaining strength in this market, but more where real-time isn't as critical. QNX comes up when you're dealing with Canadian companies, but I haven't heard of it being used that much.
I'm not suggesting you subsidize anyone. If you don't like Best Buy, don't buy from them.
They were not given refunds, Best Buy still has most of the people's money that have not called their credit card companies and requested a "denial of payment" to that transaction from Best Buy.
I saw that it looked liked people didn't see their refunds show up instantly on their credit cards, but that may simply be an issue with how the credit card companies process refunds.
Look at the receipts posted on the Hypothermia's web page. Those people paid for thier cards when they got them. I don't think they'd be doing that if they hadn't gotten their refunds. If Best Buy actually canceled the orders and didn't refund the money, there'd be a lot more legal allegations flying around, and they be in serious trouble with the credit card companies as well.
That may very well be true in the case of the guy the one manager had arrested. If it is true, then in that case, that manager should be in serious trouble.
I strongly doubt that racisim was the issue in most of the cases. It's more likely some of the managers decided to honor the price to keep some customres happy, then the policy came down from higher up in Best Buy not to honor the price.
Back to the situational morality. I guess it's apparently ok in your mind if a big company gets screwed. What if this was a small family owned business that sells on the web? A mistake like this could easily wipe out their business, throwing them into bankruptcy and wiping out their life savings. Would if bo ok in that situation too?
Even when Best Buy gets screwed, the losses are passed on to other people. Retail stores aren't doing that well in the current economy. To absorb this loss along with the weak sales they may raise prices on other items some, but that doesn't work well in a bad economy. That means they're likely to lay people off, or just not hire people to fill positions as people leave. This means normal, average people don't have jobs. Maybe they don't have to lay people off. Maybe things are better than I think and they can just reduce their dividends to their shareholders. Of course those shareholders include a lot of retirement plans, so it's taking money from people's parents and gradnparents who are relying on the money to get them through their later years. The situational morality crap only justifies itself if you don't think about it too hard.
There's no way VisionTek can manufacture those cards for that price. Where is this "consumer pricing and wholesale discount disclosure D2-5386S11?" From Hypothermia's web site it doesn't even look like Best Buy has responded to the AG yet. Why would they be releasing the wholesale price? I'd be happy to check the public record if you'd like to point me in the right direction, but until I see some proof, I don't believe that number is even close to credible.