archivesonlyjobhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/archives/onlyjobikiwiki2019-07-15T11:12:10Zemailselfdefense.fsf.org - an introduction to GPG for emailshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/link_2019-07-14/2019-07-15T11:10:54Z2019-07-13T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org">emailselfdefense.fsf.org</a> is a tutorial
about how to use GPG for email security.</p>
Great book: The Nuclear Expresshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/books-the_nuclear_express/2019-07-15T08:51:56Z2019-07-13T10:50:00Z
<p>Stranger than fiction, thrilling and informative insight into technology,
history, international relationships and politics of nuclear proliferation.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=isbn%3A9780760335024">ISBN:9780760335024</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/book-the_nuclear_expresss-cover_320.jpeg"><img class="img" height="484" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/book-the_nuclear_expresss-cover_320.jpeg" width="320" /></a></p>
privacytools.io - information, tools and services to protect your privacyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/link_2019-07-12/2019-07-15T11:12:10Z2019-07-11T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.privacytools.io/">privacytools.io</a> - your online catalogue
of free/ethical software and services.</p>
Great book: A secret countryhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/books-a_secret_country/2019-07-15T08:36:27Z2019-07-11T10:50:00Z
<p>You can not understand Australia without reading <em>"A secret country"</em>
by <em>John Pilger</em>.</p>
<p>I especially enjoyed chapter "The Coup" which you must read if you want
to know how Australian democracy was lost on 1975-11-11.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=isbn%3A0099815907">ISBN:0099815907</a></li>
<li><a href="http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-forgotten-coup-how-america-and-britain-crushed-the-government-of-their-ally-australia">The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://johnpilger.com">johnpilger.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger">John Pilger (wikipedia)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Whitlam">Gough Whitlam (wikipedia)</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/book_a-secret-country_cover_320.jpeg"><img class="img" height="501" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/book_a-secret-country_cover_320.jpeg" width="320" /></a></p>
Beware of filter bubblehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/beware_of_filter_bubble/2019-07-14T10:38:06Z2019-07-09T14:00:00Z
<p>Is there such thing as unethical search engine? Yes there is. Apparently
Google's search engine is biased if not politically then by your own search
history. This is known as <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble">filter bubble</a></em> and it makes people more
arrogant and more ignorant at the same time because they see less
"uncomfortable" information that contradict their beliefs. Whlist <em>filter
bubble</em> could be useful for shopping, it is detrimental to research,
education and critical thinking.</p>
<p>Eli Pariser's <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles">Beware online "filter bubbles"</a> TED talk is a good
introduction to the problem.</p>
<p>Fortunately there are alternative search engines.</p>
<h3><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/">DuckDuckGo</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/about">https://duckduckgo.com/about</a></li>
<li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/privacy">https://duckduckgo.com/privacy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://www.startpage.com/">Startpage.com</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.startpage.com/">https://www.startpage.com/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com</a></li>
</ul>
Beware of aluminium in antiperspirantshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/beware_aluminium_cosmetics/2019-07-14T10:22:23Z2019-07-08T14:00:00Z
<p>Antiperspirants with aluminium is a hazard to health as they contribute to
development of breast cancer: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5514401/">Use of Underarm Cosmetic Products in
Relation to Risk of Breast Cancer: A Case-Control Study</a></p>
Androind package of the day: Missed Notifications Reminderhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/android-pod_missed_notifications_reminder/2019-07-14T10:11:11Z2019-07-07T14:00:00Z
<p>Reminder about missed notifications is a missing Android feature.</p>
<p>How many times you have missed a text or notification only to find about it
when it is too late?</p>
<p><a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.app.missednotificationsreminder/">Missed Notifications Reminder</a> is a useful application to repeatedly
remind you about important unacknowledged notifications in any app of your
choice.</p>
Androind package of the day: Silencehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/android-pod_silence/2019-07-14T08:49:31Z2019-07-06T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/">Silence</a> is an application for encrypted SMS communication.</p>
<p>Unlike standard Android messanging app, <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/">Silence</a> can remind you about
unread messages for up to 10 times.</p>
<p>Higly recommended for anybody who values privacy of communication.</p>
Artist of the day: Vicente Romero Redondohttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/art_2019-07-06/2019-07-14T03:15:41Z2019-07-05T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://vicenteromero.wordpress.com/">Vicente Romero Redondo</a>. Stunningly beautiful water, light and people<br />
at <a href="https://maherartgallery.blogspot.com/2012/02/vicente-romero-redondo-1956-madrid.html">Maher Art Gallery</a> and <a href="https://galeriemichael.com/portfolio-items/vicente-romero-redondo/">Gallerie Michael</a>.</p>
Artist of the day: Ai Shahhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/art_2019-07-05/2019-07-14T03:08:05Z2019-07-04T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://aishahart.com/">Ai Shah's beautiful paintings of water</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lethbridgegallery.com/artist/ai-shah">Ai Shah's artworks at Lethbridge Gallery</a>.</p>
what to watch for educationhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/watch_2019-07-04/2019-07-10T09:32:21Z2019-07-03T14:00:00Z
<p>YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgH2vCx5TOgX5upobA1NO--PyE60CLlVa">Vaccines: Honesty vs. Policy. Suzanne Humphries, MD</a></p>
<p>Highly recommended. Also uploaded to <a href="https://open.tube/videos/watch/playlist/386c9b2e-1579-4d74-9f78-902d1c7ee266">OpenTube</a>.</p>
what to watch for entertainmenthttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/watch_2019-07-03/2019-07-14T08:49:31Z2019-07-02T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4">Awakenings (1990)</a></p>
<p><em>Robin Williams</em> and <em>Robert De Niro</em> in a deeply emotional movie.</p>
what to watch about measleshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/watch_2019-07-02/2019-07-04T02:02:17Z2019-07-01T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTZkf9183MY">What Is Going On With Measles? The Science and Politics of Eradicating Measles</a>
an excellent introduction to measles vaccination controversy.</p>
<p>Well-referenced <a href="https://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/May-2019/what-is-going-on-with-measles.aspx">transcript</a> is available. Definitely must-read.</p>
Androind package of the day: F-Droidhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/android-pod_f-droid/2019-07-01T06:13:25Z2019-06-30T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid/">F-Droid</a> is a very first package to install to your Android device.</p>
<p>Get it from <a href="https://f-droid.org/">f-droid.org</a> so you could
install ads-free, open source and ethical software without relying on
Google Play.</p>
what to watch for entertainmenthttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/watch_2019-06-30/2019-07-14T10:10:24Z2019-06-29T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8669-charlie-bartlett">Charlie Bartlett (2008)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2489-bleak-house">Bleak House (2005)</a></p>
What to watch: interview with 'The most dangerous man in America', whistleblower Daniel Ellsberghttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/watch_2019-06-29/2019-06-30T09:37:39Z2019-06-28T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz3SmFUHbJ0">Interview with "The most dangerous man in America", whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg</a></p>
<p>A short excerpt from this interview where Daniel Ellsberg answers to the
question "How security clearance changes a person?":</p>
<blockquote><p>First reaction will be amazement that all this information existed and
you'll feel like a fool that you didn't know about it before...
{...}</p>
<p>But after a little while you get used to it and you feel that everyone
else who doesn't have the clearances is a fool and you'll find that
you'll be speaking to people and saying "what would they be telling me if
they knew what I knew?" which by the way {...} might be true or
false {...} it was <em>just</em> highly secret it didn't have to be true.</p>
<p>"What would they do?" well that's too complicated so you'll stop
listening and all you'll be doing is you won't learn from anyone you'll
just think of what you want to tell them what you want them to believe
you'll become something like Circe's captives in the Odyssey who had a
potion that turned men into swine they couldn't communicate like men anymore.</p></blockquote>
<p>He explains how difficult it is to take people without clearance seriously.</p>
<p>IMHO this is remarkably similar to situation when one has to argue against
established policy.</p>
<p>My conclusion: <strong>secrecy poisons communication between people</strong>.</p>
<p>Daniel Ellsberg is my hero.</p>
Australia: a country of nominal democracyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/nominal_democracy_2019-06-18/2019-06-30T10:04:29Z2019-06-17T14:00:00Z
<p>In a recent pre-election campaign in NSW I've noticed systematic removal of
posters of a particular political party. Then it occured to me that in a
proper state of demcracy people would respect the rights of their neighbors
to be represented even when they disagree on political grounds.</p>
<p>In a <em>nominal democracy</em>, when winning at all costs is a goal, respect to
other political views is unnecessary even if such views are shared by many
because respect to the democracy itself is impaired.</p>
Real threat to creationismhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/at-threat_to_creationism/2018-11-17T03:11:56Z2018-11-14T00:55:00Z
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/at-threat_to_creationism/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
iiNet - don't want to stay with them any morehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/iiNet/2018-11-13T07:14:08Z2018-11-13T07:00:00Z
<p>Acquisition did not do iiNet any good.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/iiNet/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Awesome crowdfunding services with all the right ideashttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/funding/2018-11-13T07:30:21Z2018-11-12T05:00:00Z
<p>I have discovered an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberapay">excellent crowdfunding service with all the right
ideas</a>:
<a href="https://liberapay.com/">Liberapay</a>.</p>
<p>Another awesome system is very promising but still in trial:
<a href="https://snowdrift.coop/">Snowdrift.coop</a>.</p>
<p>Snowdrift team compiled an impressive <a href="https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfunding">comparison of known fundraising
services</a>.</p>
Betrayal of human racehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/at-betrayal_of_human_race/2018-11-13T04:47:54Z2018-11-12T00:55:00Z
<h2>Betrayal of human race</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions">Abrahamic religions</a>
creation of species is an exclusive work of god himself.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/at-betrayal_of_human_race/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Arena: comparing more languages (Perl6, Golang, Rust, Julia)http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Arena_Perl6_Golang_Rust_Julia/2018-11-13T00:39:08Z2018-11-11T00:55:00Z
<p>More interesting languages for <a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/">arena</a>, only briefly tested.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Arena_Perl6_Golang_Rust_Julia/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Concurrency in Perl (example)http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Perl_concurrency_example/2018-11-12T11:24:51Z2018-09-23T01:55:00Z
<p>Example how simple queue (channel) can be processed concurrently in Perl:</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Perl_concurrency_example/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Internet Filtering happened?http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/2018-11-11T06:49:03Z2018-07-10T14:00:00Z
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/archives/posts/internet_filtering">Back in 2010</a> we were campaigning against Conroy's internet filreting.<br />
Shortly after everybody felt victorious when initiative to filter Australian
internet <a href="https://thenextweb.com/au/2012/11/09/finally-australias-controversial-mandatory-isp-filtering-is-off-the-table/">did not fly</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/IMGP1166.JPG"><img class="img" height="553" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering_happened/IMGP1166.JPG" title="T-shirt" width="415" /></a></p>
<p>Yet somehow since 2016 we have some form of censorship not much different
from what has been proposed earlier:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-senate-passes-controversial-antipiracy-websiteblocking-laws-20150622-ghuorh.html">https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-senate-passes-controversial-antipiracy-websiteblocking-laws-20150622-ghuorh.html</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/small-australian-isp-refuses-to-bow-to-legal-threats-to-block-w/6955432">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/small-australian-isp-refuses-to-bow-to-legal-threats-to-block-w/6955432</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/australian-isps-will-be-forced-to-block-the-pirate-bay-and-other-torrent-sites/">https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/australian-isps-will-be-forced-to-block-the-pirate-bay-and-other-torrent-sites/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD498/2018/3818119/event/29434149/document/1194559">https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD498/2018/3818119/event/29434149/document/1194559</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Ultimately this means that Australian ISPs are not to be trusted to provide
reliable/trustworthy DNS servers and that struggle for free Internet should
continue perpetually...</p>
<hr />
<p>Here are some historical links to web sites opposing internet filtering:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://australiauncensored.blogspot.com/">AUSTRALIA UNCENSORED</a></li>
<li><a href="http://openinternet.com.au/">Open Internet</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/">discussing censorship and moral panic in Australia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed">Whirlpool about cleanfeed</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.netalarmed.com/">Netalarmed - parody</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Archived Links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20101109145510/http://www.banthisurl.com/">ban.this.url (Mark Newton's letters)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110202102811/http://chairmankrudd.com/">14 reasons why the filter is a bad idea</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120422134640/http://nocleanfeed.com:80/">No Clean Feed - Stop Internet Censorship in Australia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130703175849/http://libertus.net/">about censorship and free speech</a></li>
<li><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20140125015800/http://www.keepyourfilteroffourinternet.com/">An Australian Web Industry Association campaign: Saying No to Political Censorship in Australia (Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet)</a></li>
</ul>
How to wait for an open porthttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/how2_wait_for_an_port/2019-07-14T10:46:26Z2018-04-26T14:00:00Z
<p>Waiting for service is easy:</p>
<pre><code>## netcat version:
timeout 22 sh -c 'until nc -z $0 $1; do sleep 1; done' stackoverflow.com 443
## pure bash version:
timeout 22 bash -c 'until printf "" 2>>/dev/null >>/dev/tcp/$0/$1; do sleep 1; done' stackoverflow.com 443
</code></pre>
<p>Both commands exit as soon as connection is established, trying every
second for up to 22 seconds.</p>
<p>Note that thanks to <code>timeout</code> command exit code is <code>0</code> when port is
accessible otherwise <code>124</code> (if no connection established within given
time).</p>
<p>Answered <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/50055449/815781">here</a>.</p>
Squashing Gnumeric bugs in Debianhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/squashing_gnumeric_bugs/2015-03-28T03:26:33Z2013-07-06T01:33:00Z
<p>Sweet feeling of a job well done...<br />
<a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/gnumeric-70_bugs_squashed.png"><img class="img" height="277" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/squashing_gnumeric_bugs/640x277-gnumeric-70_bugs_squashed.png" width="640" /></a></p>
Please avoid Faktortelhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/no-faktortel/2013-05-07T03:19:14Z2013-05-05T09:04:00Z
<p>Four weeks ago Faktortel (Australian VoIP service provider) forced me to
shut down my <em>tor exit node</em>.</p>
<p>For several years I was donating bandwidth to <em>tor</em> network by
operating low-bandwidth <em>tor exit node</em>. During these years I got no
complaints whatsoever as my exit node was restricted to access only
small range of whitelisted ports while all access to common services
such as mail/SSH/VoIP were prohibited.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/no-faktortel/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Old man' storyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/war_story/2012-04-03T10:52:37Z2012-04-03T14:00:00Z
<p>Retelling the story I've been told by John Pascoe in 2009 as I remember it:</p>
<blockquote><p>My friend went to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam%5FWar">Vietnam War</a> and left me his tape
recorder to look after. One day a bell rang. I opened the door - it
was him. In excitement I yelled "How's Vietnam?!?" His face changed.
There was a pause, then he said "Can I just have my recorder back?".
Ever since we never spoke again.</p></blockquote>
<p>Rest in peace my friend, I miss you...</p>
A mind of its ownhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/books-a_mind_of_its_own/2012-04-03T10:57:04Z2012-04-01T10:50:00Z
<p>I like changing books, ones which make you a different person after you
read them. <a href="http://www.cordeliafine.com/a_mind_of_its_own.html">"A mind of its own"</a>
written by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordelia%5FFine">Cordelia Fine</a> is a book of that special kind.
It accurately debunks so many myths and predjudices that we're all share
so reading it makes you more sane than you've ever been,
but only if you're capable of understanding it without denying truth
about yourself.</p>
<p>Highly recommended.</p>
How to get a number of CPUs on GNU+Linuxhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/how2_get_number_of_CPUs_on_GNU+Linux/2012-04-01T12:57:34Z2012-03-31T11:03:00Z
<p>There is a straightforward way:</p>
<pre><code>grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo
</code></pre>
<p>But it is wrong because it is not always work.
More architectures will return correct number of CPUs using:</p>
<pre><code>ls /sys/devices/system/cpu/ | grep -c 'cpu[0-9]\+'
</code></pre>
<p>But perhaps the best would be to use the following command</p>
<pre><code>getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
</code></pre>
<p>to detect the number of available CPUs on GNU+Linux.</p>
<p><small>(Thanks to Aron Xu for the hints)</small></p>
Do the right thing with windows logo stickerhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/do_the_right_thing_with_windows_logo/2018-10-05T10:53:28Z2012-03-16T04:24:00Z
<p>If you still have "compatible with" or "designed for" stickers
with windows logo on your notebook, computer or monitor I have
an idea of the day for you:</p>
<p>Unstick it and put it on your garbage or shredder bin.
That would be the right place for those stickers to adequately
mark where Windows and other Microsoft junk should go.</p>
<p><a class="toggle" href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/archives/#posts-do-the-right-thing-with-windows-logo.drtwwls">[Poll]</a></p>
<div class="toggleable" id="posts-do-the-right-thing-with-windows-logo.drtwwls"></div>
<div class="poll"><form action="https://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/ikiwiki.cgi" method="POST">
<p>
I did that <img src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /> (100%)
</p><input name="do" type="hidden" value="poll" />
<input name="num" type="hidden" value="1" />
<input name="page" type="hidden" value="posts/do_the_right_thing_with_windows_logo" />
<input name="choice" type="hidden" value="I did that :)" />
<input type="submit" value="vote" />
<hr align="left" class="poll" width="100%" />
</form>
<form action="https://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/ikiwiki.cgi" method="POST">
<p>
Not yet <img src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/smileys/sad.png" alt=":(" /> (0%)
</p><input name="do" type="hidden" value="poll" />
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<input type="submit" value="vote" />
<hr align="left" class="poll" width="0%" />
</form>
<span>Total votes: 9</span>
</div>
<div class="toggleableend"></div>
Best presentation on Javascripthttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Best_presentation_on_Javascript/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-10-24T00:55:00Z
<p>Even if you are profound with your <strike>Javascript</strike> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript">ECMAScript</a> knowledge I bet this brilliant presentation will reveal something new to you.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.livestream.com/etsy/video?clipId=pla_1463e546-47ed-4a93-b59a-bd52b236e8b8">Code as Craft - Douglas Crockford</a></p>
<p>Enjoy.</p>
Reality or insight into our future?http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/reality_or_insight_into_our_future__63__/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-10-21T13:00:00Z
<h2>China: 2-year-old girl ran over by van, ignored by 18 passers by.</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://pkpolitics.com/discuss/topic/china-2-year-old-girl-ran-over-by-van-18-passersby-ignore-her">http://pkpolitics.com/discuss/topic/china-2-year-old-girl-ran-over-by-van-18-passersby-ignore-her</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.chinahush.com/2011/10/17/2-year-old-girl-run-over-by-car-twice-18-people-passed-by-and-ignored/">http://www.chinahush.com/2011/10/17/2-year-old-girl-run-over-by-car-twice-18-people-passed-by-and-ignored/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/videos/2-year-old-chinese-girl-ran-over-by-van-ignored-by-18-bystanders.html">http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/videos/2-year-old-chinese-girl-ran-over-by-van-ignored-by-18-bystanders.html</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Interestingly there are comments justifying what's happened and seeking excuses for indifferent witnesses like if there can be an excuse.<br />
This outrageous incident make me ask myself if we just had a chance to peek into future when human life cost less than nothing.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that's happened because of overpopulation.<br />
But <a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/How_long_your_life_style_can_continue__63__/">overpopulation is going to happen</a> and with overpopulation <em>value of life disappears</em>.
Human dignity cannot survive it. And then it might look just like this.</p>
Colorize for fun and comforthttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Colorize_for_fun_and_comfort/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-10-20T04:45:00Z
<p>Working with command line interface in shell can be fun is you learn some tricks.<br />
One of such tricks is using beautiful coloriser: <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/ccze/">ccze</a></p>
<p>It can colorise everything - try</p>
<pre><code>sudo tail -f /var/log/messages | ccze -A
dmesg | ccze -A | less -R
df -hT | ccze -A
ls -lh | ccze -A
watch -d --color 'df -h | ccze -A'
</code></pre>
<p>So much nicer! <img src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /></p>
How long your life style can continue?http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/How_long_your_life_style_can_continue__63__/2012-03-16T08:24:04Z2011-10-18T04:42:00Z
<p>Watch Dr. Albert Bartlett's brilliant explanation: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VpyoAXpA8">Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy.</a></p>
Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) Storyhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/Non_Disclosure_Agreement___40__NDA__41___story/2012-03-21T16:57:04Z2011-10-18T04:36:00Z
<p>Once in July 2011 in order to send me for training I've been given a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to sign.<br />
Among other things it had the following paragraph:</p>
<blockquote><p> <a class="toggle" href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/archives/#posts-Non-Disclosure-Agreement---40--NDA--41---story.NDApar">Inventions as Sole Property of [company-which-should-be-ashamed]</a></p></blockquote>
<div class="toggleable" id="posts-Non-Disclosure-Agreement---40--NDA--41---story.NDApar"></div>
<blockquote><p> Any inventions, discoveries, concepts or ideas, or expressions thereof, whether or not subject to patents, copyrights, trademarks or
service mark protection, and whether or not reduced to practice, conceived or developed by you in the course of your Placement or
within one (1) year following the end of such Placement which relate to or result from the actual or anticipated business, work, research
or investigation of [company-which-should-be-ashamed] or which are suggested by or result from any task assigned to or performed by you for
[company-which-should-be-ashamed] shall be the sole and exclusive property of [company-which-should-be-ashamed]. You hereby
assign to [company-which-should-be-ashamed] the entire right, title and interest to any such inventions, discoveries, concepts, ideas
or expressions thereof and you agree to perform, during or after your Placement, all acts deemed necessary or desirable by
[company-which-should-be-ashamed] to permit and assist it, at [company-which-should-be-ashamed]'s expense, in obtaining,
maintaining, defending and enforcing inventions, discoveries, concepts, ideas, or expressions thereof in any and all countries.
Such acts may include, but are not limited to execution of documents and assistance or cooperation in legal proceedings.
You hereby irrevocably designate and appoint [company-which-should-be-ashamed] and its duty authorised officers and agents, as your
agents and attorneys-in-fact to act for and on your behalf and instead of you, to execute any file and to do all other lawfully permitted acts
to further the above purposes with the same legal force and effect as if executed by yourself.</p></blockquote>
<div class="toggleableend"></div>
<p>So I refused to sign it. <br />
The following day my manager spoke to me and sad:</p>
<blockquote><p> <em>"Why do you make it so complicated? It's a normal practice and we routinely sign agreements like this. Please consider signing it and let me know tomorrow."</em></p></blockquote>
<p>I refused again and asked our company's lawyer for advice. <br />
To my surprise he disagreed with my manager and commented that it's not a good thing to sign such agreement and that it's not in company's interests.
Such agreements are way out of line.</p>
<p>As result the agreement was sent back and no employees were requested to sign it. <br />
It just gone - after I spoke to our lawyer they agreed that no NDA is required.</p>
<p>Generally signing any NDAs would be wrong.
See <a href="http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2009/11/10/project-management-three-reasons-why-not-to-sign-non-disclosure-agreements/">Three reasons why not to sign non disclosure agreements</a></p>
<p>Possible exception may be when NDA is actually to protect people's privacy. <br />
For example if you going to work at hospital's data centre it should be OK to promise (in writing)
that you're not going to disclose any patient's information. <br />
Those who unable to made such promise are better not to access sensitive information.</p>
Donationshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/donations/2012-03-21T16:09:22Z2011-03-23T00:14:00Z
<h3>Donating 2011-12</h3>
<ul>
<li>4 Debian-powered computers donated to local after school
and child care centres</li>
</ul>
<h3>Donating 2011-03</h3>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.firewaterfilm.com/">Fire Water film</a> - Documentary about public water fluoridation with industrial waste in Australia:<br />
<em>(this is a serious issue, your immediate help needed). Thanks for full interviews.</em></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://m0n0.ch/wall/">m0n0wall</a> - perhaps the best router ever made.<br />
*Thanks for new release.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://debian.org/">Debian</a> - The universal operating GNU/Linux system - a most important distribution of all.<br />
<em>Thanks for new release.</em></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a> - Our hope for the free future of computing.<br />
<em>Thank you for your work and commitment.</em></p></li>
</ul>
<h3>Donating 2011-02</h3>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://m0n0.ch/wall/">m0n0wall</a> - perhaps the best router ever made.<br />
<em>Unlike pfSense (m0n0wall's derivative) m0n0wall is remarkably stable.</em></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.amule.org/">aMule</a> - peer to peer sharing <br />
<em>A rather special software, a client to largest planetary distributed file system. Unlike torrents (worthless without library of torrents), ed2k network has search functionality which helps to find rare files. With <code>ed2k_hash</code> command it is possible to generate hash of a file for later redownloading, disregarding of file name.</em></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://gcompris.net/">Gcompris</a> - Collection of educational games for young children.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.firewaterfilm.com/">Fire Water film</a> - Documentary about water fluoridation in Australia</p></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/donations/#more">[Read more...]</a></p>
Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, C, C++, Lua, tcl, javascript and Java comparisonhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/2012-03-21T16:25:48Z2011-03-08T10:35:00Z
<style type="text/css">
#arena table {
border-collapse:collapse;
border:solid 1px silver;
font-size:smaller;
}
#arena caption {
font-family: helvetica, sans-serif;
text-align:center; font-size:medium;
}
#arena table tr td:first-child { font-weight:bold; }
#arena table tr:hover { background-color:#fff; }
#arena table tr:hover td,
#arena table tr:hover th
{ background-color:#ddd; }
#arena td { min-width:5em; }
#arena th { height:2pt; }
#arena td pre { margin:0; }
#arena th:hover,
#arena td:hover { background-color:#f8f8f8 !important; }
#arena h2,
#arena h3 { background-color:#cdc; }
#arena dd { margin-bottom:1em; }
html\:abbr, abbr, acronym { cursor:help; border-bottom:1px dotted; }
abbr:hover, acronym:hover { border-bottom:1px dotted #C00; }
.cgrn{background-color:#AEA}
.cyel{background-color:#EEA}
.cred{background-color:#EAA}
#arena pre { background-color:#eee;
color:#000;
font-weight:normal;
font-style:normal;
overflow:auto;
max-height:25%;
border:1px dashed grey;
font-family:monospace;
font-size:smaller;
padding:3px;
}
</style>
<div id="arena">
<h3>Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, C, C++, Lua, tcl, javascript and Java benchmark/comparison.</h3>
<table align="right" id="index" style="background-color:#f8f8f8;">
<tr><td><ul>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#method">Method</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#speed">Speed comparison</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#speed">Memory usage comparison</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#codes">Source codes and files</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#lfeatures">Features comparison</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#notes">Notes (per language)</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#conclusion">Conclusion</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#faq">FAQ</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#credits">Credits</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#links">Links</a>
</li>
</ul></td></tr>
</table>
<p>Understanding difference(s) between programming languages is crucial.
If wrong language is chosen for a project it will take a lot of time and efforts to change the course
and re-implement the project or its part in different language.
Typically it takes years of efforts, misery and dissatisfaction for everyone:
yourself, your colleagues, your clients and your systems administrator(s).
Needless to mention it can be dangerous for business.<br />
Knowledge of how languages differ from each other is the key to making right decisions.
Environments may have different demands - for example what language will be the best choice for
<abbr title="Virtual Private Server">VPS</abbr> with limited RAM?
Sometimes it is not easy to answer questions like this, considering many false beliefs and rumors so common among developers.<br />
This testing is designed to demonstrate the difference between popular programming languages.<br />
I hope you consider results of this little research to be interesting.
</p>
<a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/arena/#more">[Read more...]</a></div>
Only free software workshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/only_free_software_works/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-03-02T23:08:00Z
<p>Everyone who needs web-site management system (sometimes called CMS -
content management system) wants the best product money can buy.
However no proprietary product can provide expected quality.</p>
<p>Some popular open source community developed
<abbr title="Web Content Management System">WCMS</abbr><sup>4</sup>
have dozens (if not hundreds) of active developers - a hard burden for budget
(and this is without marketing expenses).</p>
<p>Indeed if you look at Drupal<sup>1,2</sup>, it has about 6000 developers'
accounts (of course, not all of them are active but at any given moment
at least some of them are working: assuming only 1% of all developers
are active it would be 60 people - something not every company can easily
afford).;</p>
<p><strike>hundreds</strike> Thousands of plugins and themes;</p>
<p>Large community with more than ten thousands web sites, including some
famous/popular web sites.</p>
<p>Outnumbered by developers proprietary product lag behind in anything -
security, stability, functionality, number of extension modules, themes,
number of users etc.</p>
<p>And the gap is only increasing because if you develop proprietary software,
you're alone, you have to do everything on your own.</p>
<p>Meanwhile open source developers enjoy collaboration when they can
occasionally submit a bug report and let someone else to fix it.</p>
<p>Commercial software developers are more concerned about sales and marketing
while open source developers more dedicated to product itself.</p>
<p>Individuals involved in the development of proprietary software are
typically frustrated from understanding that skills they exercise on
daily basis are specific to the only product and the only company -
therefore their professional value decreasing because that kind of
knowledge will be worthless at any position in any other company.</p>
<p>Open development is more effective, trustworthy and ethical than proprietary.
Awareness of public code availability influence towards clean and maintainable
design. Never-to-be-published code is lacking such motivation.</p>
<p>Open source fits consumer's needs better - for example unwanted "features"
artificially restricting functionality are common for proprietary software
but do not exist in open source. No annoying periodic (re)activation,
licenses for number of users/connections etc.</p>
<p>For companies who had a misfortune of buying proprietary software it's a
disaster. Due to its nature, proprietary software comes with long list
or risks bundled:</p>
<ul>
<li>Retire of senior developer(s) may lead to loss of quality and slow down of product development.
This happen naturally over time or accidentally due to many reasons.</li>
<li>Lack of profit may lead to abandoning or selling off the project.</li>
<li>Shift of priorities in developing company - resources spent for a
particular project may be dedicated to something else,
if business expects more profit there.</li>
<li>Change of business plans may lead to changes in product which can make
product not suitable for your needs.</li>
<li>Pricing / support charges may become unaffordable.</li>
</ul>
<p>Not only proprietary development is vulnerable but companies themselves are
subject of serious risks, namely:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bankrupcy.</li>
<li>Acquisition. No company is safe.
Even big companies like Sun Microsystems can be bought.</li>
</ul>
<p>When such things happen product's destiny is uncertain and your investment
likely to be gone. And this is a very real risk - in the past many companies
have gone together with their products and users was abandoned;</p>
<p>Most open source projects if worth living, eventually will be picked up even
if original developer/supporting company is gone. This is rarely (if ever)
happening to proprietary software.</p>
<p>Surviving of open source project doesn't depend that much from what impose a
very real danger to proprietary software.</p>
<p>Have you heard about <i>Planned Obsolescence</i><sup>3</sup>?
Most (if not all) proprietary software designed to become obsolete.
Unless intentionally designed for obsolescence they're doomed to become
obsolete, sooner or later.</p>
<p>Apart from risks there are drawbacks common to proprietary software like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Limited support. Business model of many companies provide product
support only during limited time. It means you will be abandoned
unless you buy updated product again. And it is not so unusual
when pretty much the same product they try to sell again some time later.</li>
<li>Remote (re)activation. Many proprietary products have time bombs rendering
product worthless unless license renewed regularly. In such case client's
business held hostage not just by vendor but also to number of circumstances
like connectivity etc.</li>
<li>Poor quality. When product release influenced by business plan, model
"release now, fix later" became quite common for proprietary software.</li>
</ul>
<p>All of the above badly affect proprietary products.</p>
<p>Can you afford being depended from one and only one vendor?</p>
<p>Basically there are no guarantees that your vendor will be in market somewhat
two years later. Average lifespan of a company is not impressive so perhaps
probability of you vendor's disappearance is higher than you would like.</p>
<p>To the contrast none of described problems affecting open source projects.
With free software you have freedom to choose whom to buy support from.
Typically you can have commercial support from local company of your choice,
not just from single vendor.
After all if for some reason you no longer happy with you vendor you can
choose one who worth your support therefore encouraging good work.
With proprietary product you won't have much of a choice.</p>
<p>Freedom is important and has a real business value.
Too many proprietary developers work on projects they neither need nor love.
Software made with love and respect to freedom is better.</p>
<p>Conclusion:</p>
<ul>
<li>Proprietary software bad for everybody: for product; for business
(both sides, vendor and clients) and for individuals involved.</li>
<li>Proprietary software has no long-term benefits over free and open source software.</li>
<li>Any possible short-term advantage of proprietary software diminished by risks and hidden costs.</li>
<li>If TCO (total cost of ownership) considered, proprietary software loose miserably.</li>
<li>Free Open source software is safer.</li>
<li>Open source software is better - it encourages quality.</li>
<li>Free software is an ethical choice which benefits everyone.</li>
<li>Freedom itself is a merit of value.</li>
</ul>
<p>Links:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal">Drupal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal home site</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned%5Fobsolescence">Planned obsolescence</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web%5Fcontent%5Fmanagement%5Fsystem">Web content management system</a></li>
<li><a href="http://engineindustries.com/blog/jason/how-many-websites-use-drupal-lets-estimate-number-part-one">How many websites use Drupal?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://engineindustries.com/blog/jason/which-open-source-cms-has-most-active-development-community-part-two">Which Open-Source CMS Has the Most Active Development Community?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/30/1752220/The-Hidden-Cost-of-Using-Microsoft-Software">The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/trabs/stockholm.html">The Digital Stockholm Syndrome</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.lugod.org/microsoft/">Reasons to Avoid Microsoft</a></li>
<li><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-The_Cost_of_Software_Monopoly:_How_Australian_Consumers_Lose/">cybersource-The Cost of Software Monopoly: How Australian Consumers Lose</a></li>
</ol>
How comes...http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/fluoride_how_comes/2012-03-17T00:42:02Z2011-03-02T13:00:00Z
<p><i>Austria, Belgium, China, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel,
Japan, Luxembourg, Neitherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland,
Sweden, Switzerland</i> are stopped or rejected "highly
beneficial practice" of water fluoridation, after considering pros and cons:</p>
<ul>
<li>[http://www.fluoridation.com/c-country.htm]</li>
<li>[http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/countries.pdf]</li>
</ul>
<p>Meanwhile in Australia:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Delivering medication using public water supplies become ethically acceptable...</p></li>
<li><p>Without consent...</p></li>
<li><p>Without assessment of fluoride level already accumulated in body...</p></li>
<li><p>Without assessment of individual sensitivity...</p></li>
<li><p>Without control over <em>dose</em>...</p></li>
<li><p>Without considering adverse effects...</p></li>
<li><p>With contaminated fluoride from industrial waste...</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://sapphireeyesproductions.blogspot.com/">Water Analysis for South Australia 2006...2010</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>Without safety assessment for health in general...</p></li>
<li><p>When nothing but theoretical benefits for teeth considered...</p></li>
<li><p>When fluoride is <u>confirmed</u> poison and neurotoxin...</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride%5Ftoxicity">Fluoride toxicity</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>Which cannot possibly be safe knowing its accumulative effect...</p></li>
<li><p>Without solid evidence for efficacy...</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/fluoridation.htm">http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/fluoridation.htm</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>While there are no known diseases linked to lack of fluoride.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>"<i>The margin of safety between the range of fluoride exposures typically
found in fluoridated communities and the range of exposures
associated with fluoride-related health problems (such as arthritis
& bone fracture) are poorly defined and, if existent, remarkably
narrow."</i></p>
<p><strong>Belgium</strong>:<i>"[it] is the fundamental position of the drinking water sector that it is
not its task to deliver medicinal treatment to people. This is the
sole responsibility of health services."</i></p>
<p><strong>Luxembourg</strong>:<i>"In our views, the drinking water isn't the suitable way for medicinal
treatment and that people needing an addition of fluoride can decide
by their own to use the most appropriate way."</i></p>
<p><strong>Germany</strong>:<i>"The argumentation of the Federal Ministry of Health against a general
permission of fluoridation of drinking water is the problematic
nature of compuls[ory] medication."</i></p>
<p><strong>France</strong>:<i>"Fluoride chemicals are not included in the list [of 'chemicals for drinking
water treatment']. This is due to ethical as well as medical
considerations."</i></p>
<p></p><h3 align="center">Public water fluoridation is a violation of medical ethics and human rights.
</h3>
My next mobile phonehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/my_next_phone/2012-04-01T12:21:51Z2011-03-02T13:00:00Z
<h3>Update 2011-12</h3>
<p>I left my sweet dreams about open source mobile phone for some time.</p>
<p>Since Nokia N900 was released I was its happy user (and I'm still
using it) but I came to conclusion that mobile phone is better not to
be a same device as mini-notebook or camera or anything fragile and
hungry for battery.</p>
<p>I end up buying tough Sonim XP3 to use it as phone only so I'm charging
it only once a week and have no worries about losing connectivity due to
lack of charge or wet weather or whatever.</p>
<hr />
<ul>
<li><strike>Apple iPhone</strike>? You must be kidding.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g">5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strike>Windows Phone 7</strike>? Come on, Microsoft incompatible with ethics.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/windows-phone-gpl-ban">Windows Phone 7 and Xbox ban GPL software</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/219935/another_huge_reason_to_avoid_microsofts_windows_phone.html">http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/219935/another_huge_reason_to_avoid_microsofts_windows_phone.html</a></li>
<li><a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft">Criticism of Microsoft</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strike>Android</strike>? No, thanks.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2008/fall/mobile">Is the Google phone free as in FreeRunner?</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Perhaps <strike>Nokia</strike>'s Maemo? Probably not, after <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12427680">their alliance with Microsoft</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p><b><a href="http://www.pulster.de/engl/index.html">Openmoko FreeRunner</a> - yes, that's the one.</b></p>
<p>Read more at <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Openmoko">Wikipedia</a> and their <a href="http://openmoko.org">home page</a>.</p>
Nice documentarieshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/documentaries_2011-02-24/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-23T13:00:00Z
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0">The Story of Bottled Water</a><br /></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM">The Story of Stuff</a><br /></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HnW6Mm5sUI">Pyramids of Waste aka The Lightbulb Conspiracy</a></li>
</ul>
fluoride out of our waterhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/fluoride_out_of_our_water/2012-03-16T23:20:00Z2011-02-22T13:00:00Z
<p>In Australia government adds fluoride to public water supplies to treat tooth decay in humans.
However this practice is ineffective, unethical and dangerous. It should stop.</p>
<ul>
<li>Fluoride should never be added to water because
<ul>
<li>Safety and effectiveness haven't been properly assessed.</li>
<li>It is wrong and unethical to medicate the whole population.</li>
<li>Medicating population without consent is tyranny.</li>
<li>Administrating medication is not the government's job - we have medical institutions for this.</li>
<li><i>If</i> fluoride is good for teeth why drink it? We already have enough fluoride in toothpastes.</li>
<li>Ingesting fluoride makes as much sense as drinking shampoo because it's good for hair.</li>
<li>It pollutes the environment.</li>
<li>It contributes to long term fluoride overdose.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Fluoridation of public water supplies violates core principles of pharmacology making impossible
<ul>
<li>to deliver the right dose</li>
<li>to right patient</li>
<li>at the right time</li>
<li>if appropriate</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Water fluoridation fails to
<ul>
<li>Assess individual sensitivity.</li>
<li>Consider existing level of fluoride accumulated in body.</li>
<li>Control the dose.</li>
<li>Understand long-term health consequences.</li>
<li>Assess the risks.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Ingesting fluoridated water is damaging for health because
<ul>
<li>Fluoride is a confirmed neurotoxin.</li>
<li>Flouride accumulates in body.</li>
<li>Fluoride affects whole body, not just teeth.</li>
<li>Therefore it cannot possibly be harmless.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Fluoride added to water is not pharmaceutical quality
<ul>
<li>essentially it is untreated industrial waste.</li>
<li>contaminated with other toxic substances.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country#Australia">In May 2009 there was an accident in Queensland when 20 times more fluoride was released to water than allowable limit</a> - no compensations and no guarantees against future accidents.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.thehealthvine.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=83">Worst Fluoride Dosing Accident in Australian History</a></li>
<li><a href="http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/814177/fluoride-affected-owed-apology-bligh">Fluoride-affected to get apology</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pine-rivers-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/government-guilty-after-fluoride-overdose/">Government guilty after fluoride overdose</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pine-rivers-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/health-fears-over-fluoride-overdose-prevail/">Health fears over fluoride overdose prevail</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/queensland-fluoride-contamination-information-wrong-for-second-time/story-e6frfkvr-1225714623364#ixzz1EkZNUeLS">Queensland fluoride contamination information wrong for second time</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Water fluoridation is crime against humanity.
Politicians who let this happen should be shamed and prosecuted either for malicious intent or negligence leading to damage of public health and environment.</p>
<ul>
<li>Learn more
<ul>
<li>Watch free <a href="http://www.firewaterfilm.com/">Fire Water film</a> (and donate if you can)</li>
<li>Watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRNVMduMy4A">interview with Christopher Bryson</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy">Wikipedia: Water fluoridation controversy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride_toxicity">Wikipedia: Fluoride toxicity</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.fluoridefreemurray.org/">Fluoride Free Murray</a></li>
<li><a href="http://sapphireeyesproductions.blogspot.com/">Fluoridated Water Analysis for SA</a></li>
<li><a href="http://home.vicnet.net.au/~fluoride/">Australian Fluoridation News</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nofluoride.com/">Citizens for Safe Drinking Water</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fluoridealert.org/">Fluoride Action Network</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.fluoridealert.org/limeback.htm">Why I am now officially opposed to adding fluoride to drinking water</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fluoridealert.org/absurdity.htm">The Absurdities of Water Fluoridation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-facts.htm">10 Facts about Fluoride</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-statement.htm">Fluoride: A Statement of Concern</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Spread the word.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/onlyjob/Anti-Fluoride_flyer.pdf">Flyer "Get fluoride out of our water!"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.jaymahcreationsaustralia.com/This%20is%20in.pdf">Flyer "poison in your water"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.qawf.org/documents/FLUORIDE_FACTS_FLYER.pdf">Fluoride facts flyer</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Demand political action.</li>
</ul>
<p></p><h3 align="center">Public water fluoridation is a violation of medical ethics and human rights.
</h3>
NSW shame and disgracehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/NSW_shame_and_disgrace/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-19T13:00:00Z
<p>Do you know Sydney's Cityrail uses Microsoft Windows in their terminals?</p>
<p>Do you know public schools in NSW are loaded with Microsoft Windows and Office?</p>
<p>Do you know NSW Health and Australian Defence largely rely on Microsoft's products and technologies?</p>
<p>Local councils too?</p>
<p><em>How disgusting!</em></p>
<p>The whole state literally depend on one company!</p>
<p>Who gave NSW government green light to <strike>spend</strike> waste millions for licenses only?</p>
<p>How can we let one unethical foreign company to have that much power and influence over us?</p>
<p>Does anyone considered tremendous TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)?</p>
<p>How the heck this happened?</p>
<p>Who should be held responsible?</p>
<p>Is that possible without bribing?</p>
<p><strong>This has to stop. Microsoft should be banned from schools and public service.
There is no place for proprietary software there.</strong></p>
<p>Links:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.techworld.com.au/article/376509/nsw_ambulance_computers_coming_back_online/">NSW ambulance computers coming back online [2011.02.14]</a></li>
<li><b><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html">Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software</a></b></li>
</ul>
Two worldshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/two_worlds/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-19T13:00:00Z
<p>Imagine proprietary world where:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>You're have to buy every software, e-book or video you might want...</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with all restrictions you can imagine:
you only can run/read/watch it on 'certified' device only; due limited time;
without rights to copy even for backup purposes;
with restrictions on how many times you can run/read/watch etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with contract obliging you to make regular payments in order
to keep software operational or keep book/video which is already in your
possession, readable/viewable.</p></li>
<li><p>Bundled with license for use which you have to renew on monthly or
fortnightly basis to not loose functionality.</p></li>
<li><p>With passport to prove yourself a legitimate user, protect you from
prosecution and grant you rights for support in case software/book/video
doesn't work properly.</p></li>
<li><p>With ethics stripped from you - no more lending software/book/video
to friends - it is outlawed and heavy fines apply.</p></li>
<li><p>With your rights and privacy sacrificed to unjust powers of police
and corporations spying on how you use your software/books/videos.
When at any given moment of time without probable cause you may be
asked to prove that software/books/videos you have in your possession
you legitimately bought or pay heavy fines and face a lawsuit.</p></li>
<li><p>When you right to use software/book/video may be revoked at any time
without explanation.</p></li>
<li><p>When functionality of software/book/video severely limited or full of
unwanted features: book you cannot print or perhaps even copy text from
it (quote); software will not work after upgrade of your computer
(bound to hardware) without license renew; when you cannot install
software of your choice without approval; and you can watch your video
but not if you take it abroad (DVD region restrictions)</p></li>
<li><p>When "features" should be bought/licensed separately.</p></li>
<li><p>When you forced to 'upgrade' because newly purchased software/book/video
do not work.</p></li>
<li><p>When upgrade is costly and likely bound you with obligations or necessity
to buy additional software.</p></li>
<li><p>When fears of fines and prosecution drives you decision to buy</p></li>
<li><p>Where your life have no other meanings apart from consuming or
selling</p></li>
<li><p>Where prices can be fixed at certain level to increase profit.</p></li>
<li><p>Where lock-in contracts are "normal"</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Some if not all these atrocities perhaps already familiar to you.</p>
<p>You can read more here: <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html">The Right to Read</a></p>
<hr />
<p>Now imagine the world where</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Software/books/videos are free</p></li>
<li><p>Completely free from any obligations</p></li>
<li><p>You can lend it, make copies or even sell for profit</p></li>
<li><p>You can choose whom to buy from</p></li>
<li><p>You're free to do whatever you want (no artificial restrictions): copy, study, lend, modify.</p></li>
<li><p>Where appreciation drives donations to authors.</p></li>
<li><p>Where you're not a puppet of someone's business plan.</p></li>
<li><p>Where community makes the difference.</p></li>
<li><p>Where you can support only those who deserve it.</p></li>
<li><p>Where freedom and transparency respected.</p></li>
<li><p>Where your life has meaning because your contribution is valuable</p></li>
<li><p>Where lock-in contracts condemned and despised.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This world is also reality.
There are free books, movies and software.</p>
<p>Both worlds indeed have poor/selfish consumers who don't give anything back.
However free world driven by doing-the-right-thing, a powerful force encouraging
appreciation.</p>
<p>Free world is fear-less - it's much harder to do wrong thing.</p>
<p>Both worlds are more or less today's reality.
You can choose which one to live.
By making choice you're shaping our future.
Your choice matters.
Which world is right for you?</p>
Ethical consuminghttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/ethical_consuming/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-14T13:00:00Z
<p>Every time you go shopping you have choice over variety of similar products.
And sometimes I believe you choose some of them not because they are
better quality or cheaper but because there is something special
about them - maybe product made of recycled/renewable material;
maybe it's plastic-free or perhaps because manufacturer promise
to donate some of the revenue to charity or research fund.</p>
<p>Simply by choosing what you buy your have tremendous ability
and opportunity to support those who deserve it.</p>
<p>Imagine it come to your attention that famous company use child labour
to manufacture their products. If knowing this you buy something from
such company you encourage this practice to continue. Therefore your
choice is more than convenience to buy what's best for you - it's
responsibility.</p>
<p>As consumer you have some rights - for example some products you can
return if it doesn't suit you or if its quality is not good enough.</p>
<p>However if you're not happy with movie you can't have your money back.
For some reason (I suspect this reason is profit) we expected to pay
for every movie we might want to watch.
Personally I had many disappointments when I didn't even watched the
whole movie because it wasn't good enough.
It is not fair that creators of good movies receive as much support
as those who make poor ones.
It would be nice to pay for only movies you like and it is equally
important not to support those who do something you don't like.</p>
<p>In this regards I think Internet and file sharing has a great potential
for ethical consumer to evaluate before buying. And in some cases
perhaps simply donate directly to authors as appreciation of they work,
if you don't want to pay for plastic and therefore encourage DVD
publishers to contribute to pollution.</p>
<p>Your money pollute. Every time you're buying something be aware that
sooner or later it goes to garbage. That's why it is important to buy
as little plastic as possible - bags and bottles included.
Can you expect improvements in the environment if you're not influencing
it?</p>
<p>Bottom line: everyone (yourself included) benefits from your money if
you spend it wisely. Supporting those who make right products in a
right way is important. It is also equally important to refuse giving
your money to wrong doers. You're not a passive consumer because
your choice matters.</p>
How to kill JBoss (without killing yourself)http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/how2_kill_JBoss/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-02-13T13:00:00Z
<p>If you want to restart JBoss (or Tomcat or Resin etc.)
regularly to prevent its unexpected degradation,
you might have temptation to insert to crontab something like:</p>
<pre>52 3 * * mon pgrep -d" " -f "jboss" | xargs kill; sleep 16; pgrep -d" " -f "jboss" | xargs kill -9; sleep 5; /restart/jbossstart #this doesn't work!
</pre>
<p>If you test it (as root) it will work, however when activated by
cron it will terminate jboss and itself - what a surprise.
First command</p>
<pre>pgrep -d" " -f "jboss" | xargs kill;</pre>
<p>will target all running JBoss processes and itself since cron
will run it as shell process which also has 'jboss' string.
Let's fix the script and make it bullet-proof.
First let's get list of processes we need to terminate,
separated by space, to use as argument for kill command:</p>
<pre>JBPIDS=$(pgrep -d" " -f "jboss");</pre>
<p>Then let's create background (parallel) process which will
start JBoss 48 seconds later.</p>
<pre>(sleep 48 && /restart/jbossstart &)
</pre>
<p>Then let's spawn another process which will kill remaining
processes 32 second later unless already terminated:</p>
<pre>(sleep 32 && kill -9 $JBPIDS &);</pre>
<p>And then politely ask processes to terminate:</p>
<pre>kill $JBPIDS</pre>
<p>So final working version will look like </p><pre>52 3 * * mon JBPIDS=$(pgrep -d" " -f "jboss"); (sleep 48 && /restart/jbossstart &); (sleep 32 && kill -9 $JBPIDS &); kill $JBPIDS
</pre>
<p>So now the question is <i>can you let the Java application
server run for the whole week and still trust it?</i></p>
SSL certificate for a web sitehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/SSL_certificates_for_web_site/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-01-26T13:00:00Z
<p>Sometime SSL certificate needed for a web site.</p>
<p>Some certificates you may get for free.</p>
<p>In the past StartCom provided free SSL certificates but recently their
policy has changed and free certificates available for personal use only.
StartCom has unnecessary complicated procedure for logging in to account
so it was never convenient enough.</p>
<p>Fortunately I found another company -
<a href="http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/free-ssl-certificate.html">Comodo</a>
which makes free certificates for any kind of sites.
Even though their free certificates valid for 90 days only they are still
may be useful but only once because they do not renew free certificates.</p>
<p>One unique certificate authority worth mentioning -
<a href="http://www.cacert.org/">CAcert</a>. They are really special -
100% free and non profit. Unfortunately most web browsers don't have their
root certificate so free SSL certificate from CAcert behaves pretty much
as self signed certificate. If you can, please donate to CAcert because
by supporting them you help to establish perhaps future's most useful and
open certificate authority.</p>
<p>So how to get a SSL certificate?</p>
<p>Step #1: Create a private key (KEY) and certificate signing request (CSR)</p>
<pre>#Create a RSA key:
openssl genrsa -out myserver.key 2048
#or create a password-protected RSA key:
openssl genrsa -des3 -out myserver.key 2048
#Generate a certificate signing request (CSR)
openssl req -new -key myserver.key -out myserver.csr
</pre>
<p>You will be prompted to enter your domain name and other information.
Common Name (CN) is a domain name of your site.
If you're requesting a wild card certificate, enter domain name with
asterisk (<em>) symbol i.e. </em>.myserver.net - however, wildcard certificates
may be costly or not available. Perhaps you might want certificate for
myserver.net and for www.myserver.net</p>
<p>To make multi-domain Certificate Signing Request:</p>
<pre>openssl req -new -key myserver.key -out myserver.csr -subj "/C=AU/ST=NSW/L=Sydney/O=MyCompany/CN=myserver.net/CN=www.myserver.net/emailAddress=myname@member.fsf.org"
</pre>
<p>or if you prefer interacive way,</p>
<pre># make an openSSL config file copy
cp /etc/ssl/openssl.conf myserver.openssl.conf
</pre>
<p>then edit myserver.openssl.conf and find string "commonName="
Below it add more lines like "0.commonName=Alt CN",
"1.commonName=Alt CN" and so on, as many as you need.</p>
<pre>#Generate a certificate signing request (CSR) using custom config file
openssl req -new -key myserver.key -out myserver.csr -config myserver.openssl.conf</pre>
<p>If renewing certificate you can use existing CRT file to generate CSR:</p>
<pre>openssl x509 -x509toreq -in myserver.crt -out myserver.csr -signkey myserver.key
</pre>
<p>Step #2: Submit certificate request (CSR) for signing.<br />
On this step you will need to provide evidence of domain ownership.
Before submitting it may be a good idea to check CSR file:</p>
<pre>openssl asn1parse -in myserver.csr
#or
openssl req -noout -text -in myserver.csr</pre>
<p>Alternatively you can sign it yourself (to get a self-signed certificate):</p>
<pre>openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in myserver.csr -signkey myserver.key -out myserver.crt
</pre>
<p>Please note that printed subject line may be used for non-interactive CSR generation as above.</p>
<p>You can decode certificate (optional, just to name sure all required CNs are there):</p>
<pre>openssl x509 -text -in myserver.crt
#or shorter output
openssl x509 -noout -in myserver.crt -issuer -subject -dates
</pre>
<p>Step #3: Prepare certificate</p>
<p>Your CA issued you with signed Web Server Certificate.
Now it has to be prepared for installation to web server.</p>
<p>If during Step #1 you created password-protected key file you might need
to make a passwordless key for web server, otherwise you will have to
enter password every time you start web server.
Probably you want web server to start in a non-interactive way:</p>
<pre>openssl rsa -in myserver.key -out myserver.key.nopassw
</pre>
<p>Site's certificate should be bundled with intermediate certificates which
CA may provide. Copy certificate file as myserver.pem and append all
intermediate certificates to .pem file</p>
<pre>cat myserver.crt ComodoUTNSGCCA.crt EssentialSSLCA_2.crt UTNAddTrustSGCCA.crt > myserver.pem
</pre>
<p>Resulting files may be used in <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nginx">nginx</a>:</p>
<pre> ssl_certificate myserver.pem;
ssl_certificate_key myserver.key.nopassw;
</pre>
<p>The end.</p>
MEMTEST explained (linux kernel)http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/MEMTEST_explained/2012-03-16T11:44:37Z2011-01-25T13:00:00Z
<h3>Update 2012-02</h3>
<p>In Debian official Linux kernel 3.2 comes with memtest feature enabled.</p>
<hr />
<p>Starting from version 2.6.26 Linux Kernel has an amazing but little
known feature - MEMTEST.
Let's explore what is it and what it is good for.</p>
<p>Memtest, if properly activated, will test RAM before allocation and
isolate corrupted memory region (till next restart).
In some sense it is similar to old badram patch but it works automatically.</p>
<p>Why we might need that feature?
Well, memory corruption is quite common.
Broken memory module eventually will corrupt data or (if you're lucky)
will cause instability in Operation System typically manifested as random errors.</p>
<p>Silent corruption of data may occur for years undetected.
It is hard to diagnose because some servers you cannot stop for 24 hours
to conduct a routine memory testing.
Even if testing possible and you suspect problems damage may already been done.</p>
<p>I have 1GiB memory module (which I took from old server) with just 1 byte
broken - a good test subject.</p>
<p>First I ran <a href="http://www.memtest.org/">memtest</a> with only this module installed:</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/memtest_badRAM.jpg"><img class="img" height="245" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/MEMTEST_explained/320x245-memtest_badRAM.jpg" width="319" /></a></p>
<p>Then I boot Debian GNU/Linux operating system and ran
<a href="http://www.mersenne.org/">mprime</a>
which identified error within 2 hours of testing:</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/memtest_badRAM_prime_failed.jpg"><img class="img" height="214" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/memtest_badRAM_prime_failed.jpg" width="800" /></a></p>
<p>OK, error reproduceable - let's see how mprime will perform with
MEMTEST activated in kernel.
First I built custom kernel (a Debian way).</p>
<pre>sudo aptitude install kernel-package zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev fakeroot linux-source-2.6.32
sudo adduser my_username src # this is to work in /usr/src as user
# it may be necessary to logoff and login again
cd /usr/src
tar xjvf linux-source-2.6.32.tar.bz2
cd linux-source-2.6.32
cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config
</pre>
<p>Edit .config to introduce 'CONFIG_MEMTEST=y' or run</p>
<pre>make menuconfig </pre>
<p>And choose "Processor type and features" --> "Memtest"</p>
<pre>fakeroot make-kpkg --append-to-version=-memtest --revision=2.6.32a --initrd kernel_headers kernel_image
sudo dpkg -i linux-*memtest*.deb</pre>
<p>Now before restarting with new kernel memtest feature has to be activated
by boot-time parameter in boot loader:</p>
<p>memtest (to run all test patterns) or</p>
<p>memtest=N (where N is number of test patterns to apply - 1...17 or 0 to disable)</p>
<p>As you may learn from reading file arch/x86/mm/memtest.c
extensive number of patterns to test every bit would be 16
so I introduced just 'memtest' to run all 17 tests.</p>
<p>(Being curious, first time I run mprime with memtest=4 but
error was still there which proves that small number of patterns
may not be enough to isolate problem)</p>
<p>So I edit file /etc/default/grub to have GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="memtest"
and run 'sudo update-grub'
(you may want to check regenerated /boot/grub/grub.cfg)</p>
<p>Then (after rebooting into memtest-enabled kernel) I saw evidence
of memtest activity in dmesg:</p>
<pre><code>[ 0.000000] early_memtest: # of tests: 17...
[ 0.000000] 0000008000 - 000009fc00 pattern 4c494e5558726c7a ...
[ 0.000000] early_memtest: wipe out test pattern from memory
</code></pre>
<p>I run mprime test <i>for a week</i> with no problems whatsoever.
This was fantastic, I knew that this will be a real protection from
RAM corruption to my storage system. But what if I take this testing
to the extreme by trying another memory module so badly damaged
that it has 1161 errors:</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/memtest_verybadRAM.jpg"><img class="img" height="240" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/MEMTEST_explained/320x240-memtest_verybadRAM.jpg" width="315" /></a></p>
<p>mprime running on normal kernel fails in less than half an hour with this RAM.
So I booted memtest-enabled kernel and it failed after 21 hours of testing.</p>
<p><a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/images/memtest_verybadRAM_memtest_prime_failed.jpg"><img class="img" height="295" src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/MEMTEST_explained/320x295-memtest_verybadRAM_memtest_prime_failed.jpg" width="319" /></a></p>
<p>This was unexpected - how could it happen if all damaged ram was isolated
with extensive 17-patterns testing of every bit?
I ran memtest again and it found 1162 errors, 1 more error than before.
Obviously another byte of memory degraded during 21 hours-long mprime testing.
Error wasn't isolated because memtest-enabled kernel tests memory before
allocation so apparently problematic region was already tested.
Anyway due to memtest prime ran more than 40 times longer until
it was affected by one error, not by massive 1161 errors.</p>
<p>I found this feature quite useful on computers processing important
data where data corruption is not an option, especially on file server.
You may not notice data/memory corruption but with memtest kernel
feature activated it will be much safer.
For over 8 months since this experiment I have memtest-enabled kernels
running on two desktops and one server - surprisingly I can't feel any
difference in performance between memtest and non-memtest kernels.</p>
<p>Unfortunately real-life usage of this feature is limited because kernel
has to be rebuilt.</p>
<h3>Conclusion:</h3>
<p>MEMTEST is great Linux kernel feature useful to minimise damage from
corrupted memory modules. With no noticeable overhead it may reduce
or eliminate data corruption and significantly improve stability and
robustness of mission critical systems.</p>
No more support for dyn.com and their everydns.net http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/no_support_4_dyn.com/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2011-01-21T13:00:00Z
<p>I was a proud supporter of once excellent free service EveryDNS.net
which was (unfortunately) bought by Dyn Inc. in January 2010.</p>
<p>In December 2010 Dyn Inc. decided to drop
<a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/WikiLeaks">Wikileaks</a>
from their DNS servers. This decision makes me regret about my donation.</p>
<p>Because explanation why they did it no longer available on their web sites
I asked Dyn Inc. to provide a statement regarding this incident.
They did not respond.</p>
<p>Technical excellence is not good enough without professional ethics.</p>
<p>Dropping 'inconvenient' clients simply if they don't like to host their
services any more should not be an option for an honest and decent service
provider.</p>
<p>Personally I will avoid using any of Dyn.com services in future and I urge
you to direct your support to those who deserve it.</p>
In Hollywood GNU/Linux revolution happened years ago (and you didn't notice*)http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/hollywood_gnu_linux_revolution/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2010-12-08T13:00:00Z
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20010602021053/www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2761566,00.html">Linux takes Hollywood by storm (May 2001)</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-825967.html?tag=nl">
HP, Linux snag DreamWorks deal (January 2002)</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-945310.html?tag=nl">
"Star Wars" effects studio shifts to Intel (July 2002)</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-983898.html">
Pixar switches from Sun to Intel (February 2003)</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p>*<small>Frankly, I missed it too...</small></p>
How to kill Interbasehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/how2_kill_Interbase/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2010-08-31T14:00:00Z
<p>Damn, bloody Interbase, it died again and they call me at night to restart it.
What were they thinking when they decided to use it?
Enough grief - we're moving to MySQL, but meanwhile I have to survive somehow...
So I decided to create a little script to detect problem and restart automatically.
It will be running every minute.
There are 'ibguard' process restarting 'ibserver' automatically if it dies
so I just need to terminate troubled application when it no longer works.</p>
<p>So the script was:</p>
<pre>* * * * * [ echo >/dev/tcp/rrdb01/3050 ] || ( date>>/opt/interbase/_sighup.log && bash -c 'pgrep -n -f "/opt/interbase/bin/ibserver -P gds_db" | xargs kill -s SIGHUP' )</pre>
<p>But it didn't work because Interbase stop responding while it still accept new TCP connections.
OK, another try:</p>
<pre>* * * * * echo exit\; | /opt/interbase/bin/isql -user sysdba -password guessguess /opt/interbase/saint.gdb >/dev/null || ( date>>/opt/interbase/_sighup.log && bash -c 'pgrep -n -f "/opt/interbase/bin/ibserver -P gds_db" | xargs kill -s SIGHUP' )</pre>
<p>this didn't work too because sometimes ibserver process do not respond to
TERM/SIGHUP signals. In this case 'ibguard' trying to start 'ibserver'
again and again eventually spawning dozens of them. Crap, now I need
to kill many of them, not just one and without mercy:</p>
<pre>* * * * * echo exit\; | /opt/interbase/bin/isql -user sysdba -password guessguess /opt/interbase/saint.gdb >/dev/null || ( date>>/opt/interbase/_sighup.log; killall -9 ibserver )</pre>
<p>And when I wrote this, one thought struck me - what if 'isql' return no
error code when it cannot connect? Am I spent too much time scripting
in bash to expect every single command to behave? Well 20 years (at least)
of development traditions mean nothing to Interbase developers - bloody
command returns no error code! Fortunately when something wrong it print
error to STDERR so with a little fun with redirections we can catch the
problem if it is reported while ignoring normal output:</p>
<pre>* * * * * [ $(echo exit\; | /opt/interbase/bin/isql -user sysdba -password guessguess /opt/interbase/saint.gdb 2>&1 >/dev/null | wc -l) -eq 0 ] || ( date>>/opt/interbase/_sighup.log; killall -9 ibserver )</pre>
<p>This worked perfectly a dozen times already. The only minor problem
I ignore for a moment is that for every restart there are 4 lines logged.
But I'm not going to spoil you research by telling you why... <img src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/smileys/smile4.png" alt=";)" /></p>
<p>(All this "fun" took place on CentOS 5.5 x86_64 / Interbase version LI-V7.5.1.80)</p>
Internet Filteringhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/internet_filtering/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2010-03-23T13:00:00Z
<p>Recently I read many articles on Australian Internet Filtering and
I have a feeling that its worthlessness is wildely misunderstood.
Let's say we need to filter some "inapropriate" pages from
one trillion URLs (this is a number of pages indexed by Google,
according to their blog record posted in July 2008<sup>1</sup>)
which is 1,000,000,000,000 pages. This number can be considered
as well-known Internet since those pages can be effectively found
and accessed. Let's assume 10,000 URLs can be revised on daily basis
so in the end of year it'll be 3,650,000 pages reviewed total which
is 0.0004% (rounded up) of all pages available.
This is filter's "effectiveness" and please note that Internet is
changing rapidly so this work has to be done all over including
revising malicious pages on block list.
If every 10th page goes to block list it will be 365,000 pages
per year and they has to be revised as well.
According to Google every day few billion pages are being added
to index<sup>1</sup> so please do the math to see how much faster
internet is growing comparing with review speed.</p>
<p>However proposed filtering is not entirely worthless.
I believe it can be particulary good for filtering political opposition
since that kind of resources are easier to find because their sources
are usually well-known.
I know many people say "it is unlikely that politicians want to do this",
but let me ask you, how do you know it? It doesn't matter if you believe
politicians are mean or stupid, sometimes they do silly things and this
filtering proposal itself is good enough example.</p>
<p>If someone aims a gun on freedom you don't need to wait for shooting to
begin because the threat alone is bad enough. I believe if this censorship
instrument will be introduced sooner or later it will be used improperly.
What do you think filtering it's being used for in most if not all countries
famous for their mandatory internet censorship?</p>
<p>Even worse, this thing will negatively impact Australia's international prestige.
Nobody proud of having mandatory censorship - it's a shame and embarrasment.
We can only feel more isolated. Internet filtering will always be suspected of misuse.</p>
<p>From implementation point of view, how poweful filtering servers should be to check
every URL requested in real time against list of all (tens of thousands?)
blacklisted sites without noticeable delay?
What will happen if those servers are down?
No internet or just no filtering?</p>
<p>From moral side, what's the benefit pretending that violence and sex crimes
do not exist? What government claims to protect our children from is not even
scope of their interest.</p>
<p>Do you know that in USSR newspapers tend not to report disasters to
not worry people.
Even when Chernobyl tragedy happen it hasn't been reported in media
on time. Many people died because of ignorance and misinformation.
This is an example how censorship can protect people from reality.</p>
<p>Just by protesting against this ludicrous idea we can not only save
ourselves from embarrasment but also save some budget money.
Any use of those money will be better then this little "protection"
because if 0.0004% of your body covered by clothes you are still very naked.</p>
<hr />
<p>With deep respect to <a href="http://www.efa.org.au/">EFA</a>.
Please support their <a href="http://openinternet.com.au/">anti-filtering campaign</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>[1] <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html">
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html</a></p>
Ms exchange: big mistakehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/ms_exchange_big_mistake/2012-03-17T00:44:53Z2010-03-18T13:00:00Z
<p>Almost anywhere I work I see the same mistake: MS Exchange.
You might ask why I think so and I can tell about my experience with
deploying it in 2 offices and administrating it for nearly two years.
During this time I never had a feeling of comfort or satisfaction,
but enough frustration of working with product having so many flaws
and yet so expensive. I know no benefits of using it and over the
years I advised against it.</p>
<p>However the mistake is not the product itself but lack of proper
considerations. If you ever thought of going along with some solution
for years have you asked yourself the following questions?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Is this product the only one on market?</p></li>
<li><p>Do we really want most expensive solution?</p></li>
<li><p>Can we tell if the product is the best for us?</p></li>
<li><p>Is this product easy in use?</p></li>
<li><p>Can it be maintained easily?</p></li>
<li><p>Is the cost of upgrade acceptable?</p></li>
<li><p>Can we perform the upgrade easily?</p></li>
<li><p>Do we consider an alternatives?</p></li>
<li><p>Do we have second opinion on this?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps for MS Exchange the answer for all these questions would be no,
so in my opinion most businesses do not have proof that this product
should be used.</p>
<p>I never heard of anyone involved with Exchange administration who was
happy and proud of having Exchange or who was satisfied with it.</p>
<p>How can we excuse delusional belief that next version of wrong product
might be better? With Exchange I think it has never happen before.</p>
<p>So the mistake is that business do not consider alternatives seriously.
In the year 2010 there are plenty of choice and absolutely no excuse for
chosing the worst possible product even if it is notorious for being that
popular and troublesome at the same time.</p>
<p>And also for popular products why not consider how many people happy with
it rather than how many people using it? The difference may be huge.</p>
Debian on 'poor' distributionshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/debian_on_poor_distributions/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2009-10-25T13:00:00Z
<p>Once developers came to me asking for help tracking unknown disk activity on
CentOS 5.2 - based development server. (Disk activity was there for
~20 minutes so everybody noticed a slowdown)</p>
<p>I thought it wouldn't be difficult using</p>
<pre>iotop</pre>
<p>command however it is not available from native repositories.</p>
<p>Then I tried</p>
<pre>dstat -M topbio</pre>
<p>and got</p><pre>Module topbio failed to load.(Kernel has no I/O accounting, use at least 2.6.20)
None of the stats you selected are available.</pre>
That's right - recent release of CentOS 5.2 came with kernel (2.6.18)
too old for using file IO monitoring. Of course no newer kernels available in repository.
(If I'm not mistaken latest kernel at the moment of CentOS 5.2 release was 2.6.30.)
<p>Too bad I have to work mostly with CentOS and RedHat instead of <a href="http://debian.org" target="_blank">Debian</a>. <img src="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/smileys/sad.png" alt=":(" /></p>
<p>The problem with CentOS and also with RedHat is not only that they
are being released with outdated software packages but also with their
release model. While targeted for servers and corporate environment it
is surprisingly common to see a production RedHat server not being
updated for several years because it is completely worthless trying
to update it within its release and too risky trying to upgrade the
whole box. Software in their repositories quickly becoming obsolete
and installing something is a pain because it's</p>
<ul>
<li>either too old or not in repository.</li>
<li>package need dependency which are not in repository
(if you're lucky enough to get a package)</li>
<li>build environment is out of date so you cannot compile without
installing an update and of course dependency required not in repository</li>
</ul>
<p>That's it, the server has been configured once and forever ignoring all the security risks etc.</p>
<p>It is not completely hopeless though.
<a href="http://capricorn.woot.net/~jdrew/debian-chroot.html" target="_blank">
One guy figured out how to install software into Debian chroot on Red Hat.</a>
Brilliant! Largest software repository in the world now can be used to improve hopeless servers.
No more problems installing. Thanks so much for the idea!</p>
<p>His original instructions as of 2003 can be improved a little:</p>
<p>First we need to get current deboorstrap from
<a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/debootstrap" target="_blank">
http://packages.debian.org/testing/debootstrap</a></p>
<p>Then extract (first archive then application):</p>
<pre>ar x debootstrap_1.0.20_all.deb data.tar.gz
tar -td data.tar.gz ##(optional, to list archive content)
sudo tar zxvf data.tar.gz -C / #That's a bit rude way to install.</pre>
<p>We should have use <a href="http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/alien/" target="_blank">alien</a>
(which unfortunately not in native repository) to convert package from .deb to .rpm
or get ready to use .rpm package somewhere.
But for this purpose it might be acceptable and this is the easiest way.</p>
<p>Now we're going to create a Debian squeeze (current testing release) chroot in /opt/debian32 from Australian mirror.</p>
<p>Note: CentOS <i>sudo</i> has a notorious problem not appending proper PATHs for root commands.
To overcome it we either need to specify missing PATHs for every <i>sudo</i> command either
run the following commands as <u>root</u>.</p>
<pre>sudo PATH=$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin /usr/sbin/debootstrap --arch=i386 squeeze /opt/debian32 http://mirror.optus.net/debian</pre>
<p>(If being run as <u>root</u> 'sudo PATH=$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin ' part may be omitted)</p>
<p>Next logical stage might be a configuring mount points for chroot.
Let's add the following lines to /etc/fstab.</p>
<pre>proc /opt/debian32/proc proc defaults 0 0
/tmp /opt/debian32/tmp none bind 0 0</pre>
<p>We can mount new mount points without reboot with</p>
<pre>sudo mount -a</pre>
<p>Lats thing to do is to find default locale on host system by</p>
<pre>locale | grep LANG</pre>
<p>and then create the same locale in Debian chroot:</p>
<pre>apt-get install locales
dpkg-reconfigure locales #if necessary</pre>
<p>That's it - feel free to dive into Debian (chroot) and use your favourite
applications easily even if it is too hard or impossible to install them
on <strike>poor</strike> host distributions.</p>
iptables/ipsethttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/iptables-ipset/2012-04-07T08:17:10Z2009-10-23T13:00:00Z
<h3>Update 2012-03</h3>
<p>Original article written in 2009 describe ipset v.2 which unfortunately do not
work with up-to-date Linux kernels.</p>
<p>For some time ipset v.6 was provided by package 'xtables-addons' in Debian
until 2012-02-18 when ipset was finally separated to standalone package.</p>
<p>ipset6 utility have slightly different syntax:</p>
<table class="stdtable">
<tr>
<th>ipset4</th>
<th>ipset6</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
ipset --create net2blk nethash
</td>
<td>
ipset create net2blk hash:net
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
ipset --add net2blk <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIDR%5Fnotation">CIDR notation</a>>
</td>
<td>
ipset add net2blk <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIDR%5Fnotation">CIDR notation</a>>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Due to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic%5FKernel%5FModule%5FSupport">Dynamic Kernel Module Support</a> installation of ipset become much easier.</p>
<hr />
<p>Here is a little introduction how to use <i><a href="http://ipset.netfilter.org/" target="_blank">ipset</a></i>.
I hope this might be interesting or useful.</p>
<p>The idea of <i>ipset</i> is to consolidate multiple similar iptables rules
into one where you're can block (or allow) a set of IP addresses (or
ports) like we can assign file system permissions on group level
rather than on per user level. It also have a huge performance benefit
if you have hundreds of rules because ipset using bitmasks for matching.</p>
<p>It is easier to manage one rule for multiple addresses rather than multiple rules for each and every address.</p>
<p>In Debian ipset can be easily installed by</p>
<pre>apt-get install ipset ipset-source && m-a a-i ipset</pre>
<p>(<i>ipset</i> loads its kernel module automatically so "modprobe ipset" is not needed)</p>
<p>Then as root we can create a new set of networks named 'nets2blk'</p>
<pre><code>ipset -N nets2blk nethash
</code></pre>
<p>or</p>
<pre><code>ipset -N nets2blk iptreemap
</code></pre>
<p>Then (as root) let's load 'nets2blk' with list of networks in CIDR
notation from file. In this example I'm using file with one subnet
per line like</p>
<pre><code>3.0.0.0/8
4.0.0.0/12
</code></pre>
<pre>while read ln; do ipset -A nets2blk $ln; done < CIDR.list</pre>
<p>Or same using sudo:</p>
<pre>sudo bash -c "while read ln; do ipset -A nets2blk \$ln; done < CIDR.list"</pre>
<p>Now when we have ipset prepared we can create one firewall rule for
thousands of networks:</p>
<pre>sudo iptables -A INPUT -m set --set nets2blk src -j DROP</pre>
How to get a list of mounted file systems in Linuxhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/how2_get_a_list_of_mounted_file_systems_in_Linux/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2009-10-20T13:00:00Z
<p>Once applying for a job I took a test for Linux knowledge.</p>
<p>I remember one question I didn't gave a correct answer for: "Where is the location of 'mtab' file?"</p>
<p>OK, that's a dumb question and really it could be better if it were something like
"How to get the list of currently mounted file systems?"</p>
<p>And the answer might be "run 'mount' command without arguments".
(Please note that 'mount' is shorter than 'cat /etc/mtab' and can be run as unprivileged user).</p>
<p>That is exactly what I've been doing until once I restarted my system into run level 1 (single) mode.
File system has to be checked and it have been mounted read-only.
I tried to edit something and realized that root file system is not writable
despite 'mount' says it's been mounted RW. (Without arguments 'mount' command just prints '/etc/mtab' to console)</p>
<p>So the only way to get reliable list of currently mounted file systems would be to print '/proc/mounts' file content.</p>
Victoria Education Kowtows to Microsoft. Yet Again.http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Victoria_Education_Kowtows_to_Microsoft_Yet_Again/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2007-10-24T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<h2>Victoria Education Kowtows to Microsoft. Yet Again.</h2>
<p>25th October, 2007</p>
<p>While the rest of the world increasingly looks to Linux and open source
software as the optimal choice for computing in schools, the Victorian
Department of Education is heading in the wrong direction by adopting
Windows Vista. In the process, the Department is killing platform
competition, shunning local software suppliers and depriving school
children of a wealth of fantastic educational software.</p>
<p>The Victorian Department of Education has again neglected the market,
side-stepped competition by open tender and signed yet another deal<sup>1</sup>
with Microsoft - excluding all other platform vendors, to deploy Windows
Vista - an operating system shunned by the rest of IT industry.</p>
<p>"This disregard for alternatives has gone on for long enough and has to
be stopped," said Cybersource CEO Con Zymaris, a long-time proponent of
Linux and open source software, the primary competitor to Microsoft. "We
call on the Department of Education to ensure that its tenders for
computer platform, office productivity and related desktop software are
truly open to the market, to give vendors besides Microsoft the
opportunity to submit bids."</p>
<p>"Amazingly, while the rest of the world is rejecting Vista, our
education departments are bending over backwards to adopt the
problematic platform," continued Zymaris. "Journalist after journalist,
industry analyst after analyst has seen fit to warn consumers and
business off Vista. In but one example, the influential Dutch Consumers’
Counsel has warned its constituents to avoid Vista, after receiving over
5000 complaints about Vista in only a single month. Vista is a quagmire
for most users, but Education Victoria are happy to be Microsoft's patsy
and waste Victorian taxpayer money in the process."</p>
<p>Rather than look to Vista, school districts across North America,
Europe, East Asia, India, South America and Africa, are moving away from
Windows to Linux. The Russian government is moving all schools across to
Linux in 2009<sup>2</sup>. There are hundreds of thousands of educational Linux
systems in Spain<sup>3</sup>.</p>
<p>"Linux and open source delivers a broader range of technologies to
schools and pupils, because one of the great advantages of Linux and
open source software is that schools can now afford all forms of
technical, graphical, educational and business apps - it's all free
software after all. This in turn leads to better educational outcomes.
Open source software also leads to positives for those local ICT
industries, as billions of dollars aren't sucked out of the coffers of
school districts, to pay for Microsoft licence fees," Zymaris said.</p>
<p>"The funny thing is, Microsoft would probably pay handsomely to ensure
that school children learn Microsoft products and not alternatives like
Linux and open source. Instead of using this fact to demand that
Microsoft covers the costs involved in deploying Microsoft's wares, the
Victorian Department of Education is actually paying $23 million in
Microsoft licence fees alone," continued Zymaris.</p>
<p>"By subverting the power of competitive markets, the Department of
Education is hurting local platform vendors. By keeping innovative
technology off school desks and by adopting Vista, they're wasting
taxpayer money. And by stubbornly refusing to seriously consider
alternative technologies such as Linux and open source, they are
shackling themselves to the Microsoft upgrade treadmill in perpetuity,"
concluded Zymaris.</p>
<p>References:<br />
1. <a href="http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1582266183;fp;16;fpid;1">http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1582266183;fp;16;fpid;1</a><br />
2. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7034828.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7034828.stm</a><br />
3. <a href="http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39118695,00.htm">http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39118695,00.htm</a>
</p>
Why the Unbundling Windows Sceptics are Wronghttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Why_the_Unbundling_Windows_Sceptics_are_Wrong/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2007-10-09T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<h2>Why the Unbundling Windows Sceptics are Wrong</h2>
<p>By: Con Zymaris <<a href="mailto:conz@cybersource.com.au">conz@cybersource.com.au</a>></p>
<p>Updated: 2007-10-10</p>
<p>Numerous industry
observers have long-called for the adoption of policies by
competition regulators which will spur competition in the personal
computer operating system platform market - a market which has had a
Microsoft choke-hold, gained through legally dubious business
practices, over the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Now aligned with
this group is an influential free-market think-tank, which has called
on the European Union (EU) to make good on its promise to foster
greater competition in personal computer platforms, in the aftermath
of the recent court ruling which yet again found Microsoft abusing
its monopoly power to diminish market forces. The think-tank, the
Globalisation Institute, has <a href="http://www.globalisation.eu/publications/unbundlingmicrosoftwindows.pdf">called
upon</a> the EU to demand that PC vendors stop the practice of
automatically bundling Microsoft operating systems with personal
computers.</p>
<p>In doing so, the
Globalisation Institute draws a distinction between open, free
markets, which exist for computer hardware and demonstrate phenomenal
innovation and price performance, and <i>laissez-faire</i> markets,
dominated by the corporate equivalent of Somali warlords –
specifically, operating system platforms.</p>
<p>In response,
others have replied with reasons they believe would prevent such an
approach from succeeding.</p>
<p>The following are
the key arguments they introduce against the unbundling of Microsoft
Windows from consumer PCs, along with an explanation as to why these
arguments from the 'unbundling sceptics' are invalid:</p>
<h3>Firstly, why should competition regulators even bother pursuing this?</h3>
<p>A few years ago, I ran through a
<a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-The_Cost_of_Software_Monopoly:_How_Australian_Consumers_Lose/">couple of scenarios</a></p>
<p>which showed that the reduced competition in the PC
platform software space cost consumers over <b>$10 billion per year</b>.
More recently, a <a href="http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/96581">court-case
in Europe</a> showed <b>an incredible 52%</b> of the price of a new
Acer laptop was constituted by the forced-bundling of Microsoft and
other Windows platform software. It is also obvious that none of this
additional expense for software would be necessary if Acer shipped
Linux instead, because all the functionality delivered by the bundled
software is available on Linux, at no cost. When you find that the
price of Microsoft's software tax is more than the price of the
computer hardware, you know it's time to act.</p>
<p>If nothing else seems to convince you that the personal computer
market needs a competition boost, then all you need to consider is
that one company, Microsoft, has had a 90-95% market share position
for perhaps 20 years. What other large, <i>hugely </i>lucrative and
business-critical markets do you know where one incumbent has that
size of market share for that length of time? It is the surest
indication that the free market has been waylaid and needs
assistance. It's time to set the wheels in motion to stop this
egregious aberration.</p>
<h3>Why should Windows users support this proposal?</h3>
<p>The mechanism for ensuring an open and free market for PC operating
systems outlined in this document will have far reaching benefits for
Windows users as well as the obvious benefits for Linux users. A
cursory review of the history of the computer industry shows that
consumers benefit most when there is strong competition in each
market segment. Windows users will benefit because:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Microsoft will become less complacent, due to increased Linux
competition.
</li>
<li>
Microsoft will become more responsive to customer needs, due to
increased Linux competition.
</li>
<li>
Microsoft will build better software, to compete with Linux.
</li>
<li>
Microsoft will build more secure software, to compete with Linux.
</li>
<li>
Microsoft will have to price its software to compete with Linux,
meaning lower prices for Windows users.
</li>
</ul>
<p>It should be an obvious truism to anyone, that the only way to keep
any vendor honest is for there to be another vendor breathing down
their necks, vying for their customers. To Microsoft, Linux is that
other vendor, and by letting it compete on a fair and level playing
field, Windows users will benefit substantially.</p>
<h3>You can go and buy an un-bundled PC today. Why</h3>
<p>should competition regulators push for all PCs to ship without
Windows by default?</p>
<p>Most, if not all
of the PCs you can buy without a pre-installed Microsoft operating
system, are from what are known as 'white-box' or no-name brand PC
makers. Generally, these are perfectly acceptable computers, but many
consumers, certainly most businesses, will shy away from buying them.
This then gives Microsoft a huge competitive boost in the market, as
pretty much most of the computers that consumers or businesses will
buy, they can only buy with a bundled Microsoft operating system
platform.</p>
<p>Secondly, by
limiting consumers who prefer not to run Windows to only those
computers which ship without an operating system, you are limiting
those consumers to a fraction of the potential range of computer
hardware otherwise available. This is less than fair. Most systems,
most options, most hardware innovations, are therefore not made
available to consumers who want unbundled PCs.</p>
<p>Yes, these
consumers <i>could</i> buy a PC with Windows and then wipe Windows,
but then that means they are paying, as we note above in the Acer
case, possibly hundreds of dollars/Euros, needlessly. And all this
does is benefit Microsoft, essentially establishing a 'tax' on a
product category - a category which sells over 100 million units
globally every year. This is a vast distortion of the principles of
an open marketplace.</p>
<h3>What about the Apple Mac? Shouldn't that also</h3>
<p>have the OS X operating system unbundled?</p>
<p>No, for two
reasons. Firstly, the Apple Mac is a product with hardware and
software from a single vendor. If Microsoft wanted to sell a Windows
PC that it itself made, then this also wouldn't be a problem. It
would substantially tick off Microsoft's hardware OEM partners, but
wouldn't be a problem from a competitiveness perspective. In fact, if
that happened, there would be a substantial acceleration of hardware
partners adopting alternative platforms, like Linux.</p>
<p>Secondly and more
crucially, the Apple Mac doesn't have 95% market share, and the
immense leverage that such market share delivers unto Microsoft. If
Microsoft Windows only had 5% of the market, then there would be no
pressure to unbundle it from consumer PCs. We wouldn't be having this
discussion in the first place.</p>
<h3>But Walt Mossberg said that desktop Linux still</h3>
<p>isn't ready for the average user.</p>
<p>The usability and
technology world doesn't revolve around Walt Mossberg. Mossberg may
have indicated that desktop Linux isn't for the average user, but
it's also possible to find <i>many</i> pundits who will say that
desktop Windows isn't for the average user either; that doesn't stop
most PC makers from bundling Windows with their PCs.</p>
<p>In the end, it's
all about what you're used to. Mossberg is used to Windows, so it
seems more 'normal' to him. In time, people will, due to the
increased uptake of Linux brought about by a liberated market, also
find that it too is 'normal'.</p>
<h3>But Dell (and others) aren't selling as many</h3>
<p>Linux boxes as they're selling Windows boxes. Doesn't that mean that
there's less market for desktop Linux?</p>
<p>Yes, for now. But
the market for alternatives to Windows will never be given a chance
unless competition regulators force that market to be open and free
to competition. The best and fastest way to do this is through
unbundling Windows from PCs. If consumers still want Windows, they'll
be free to elect to acquire it at the time they purchase their PC,
but this should be through conscious decision-making, not through
forced bundling.</p>
<h3>But Windows only constitutes a mere 10% of the</h3>
<p>price of a PC, right?</p>
<p>Incorrect. In
markets for lower-priced hardware, the cost of even the OEM (<i>ie</i>,
cheaper) version Windows has reached 35% of the price of a new
computer. What's more, each year, this percentage increases. 10 years
ago, the operating system
<a href="http://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-The_Cost_of_Software_Monopoly:_How_Australian_Consumers_Lose/">was only 5% of the price</a></p>
<p>of the PC. When additional software, in fact
the bare essentials for running a functional desktop, are shipped
with Windows, this figure for bundled software reaches to over 50% of
the total cost of a new PC, as evidenced by the Acer court case.</p>
<p>More importantly,
the existence of a bundled copy of Windows on each PC affords the
owner of the platform, <i>ie,</i> Microsoft, an incredible leverage
not permitted any other software competitor. In fact, it gives
Microsoft a beachhead through which it can sell office suites,
server-based products which hook into that desktop operating system
through proprietary means and dozens of other add-ons, in a manner
which amounts to an unfair advantage over those competitors.</p>
<p>Ensuring that
Windows is no longer the default operating system platform on all new
PCs, will help those who compete against Microsoft by providing a
market space opening to an alternative operating system platform, one
that Microsoft doesn't or can't own. This means that unbundling
Windows from PCs wont just open up the platform market, but all
application market segments that Microsoft now dominates as well.</p>
<h3>But there wont be any uptake of Linux unless</h3>
<p>there's a huge marketing effort</p>
<p>Incorrect. Linux
grows in much the same way as the Internet grew, through word of
mouth and general meme-transfer. The Internet, a technology developed
by the same army of geeks who are now making consumer Linux a
reality, has over 1 billion mainstream users. It gained those users
without a marketing department, without sales people or corporate
bosses. In time, Linux will do the same. Here's how.</p>
<p>If all PCs in
Europe are now offered to consumers with the option of a free Linux
desktop, then that will translate into a jump in desktop Linux
adoption. If even 10% of these consumers take up the Linux option,
that would translate into a doubling of desktop Linux users, in
effect, hastening the onset of an inflection point.</p>
<p>In turn, this
increase in users will spur more word of mouth, familiarity and
comfort. It's likely that in successive buying cycles, a higher and
higher percentage of new PC buys will opt for the cheaper Linux
option - a positive feedback loop in platform migration.</p>
<p>Obviously, these
consumers will be free to opt out of Linux, at any time, if they
decide to return to Windows. All they need to do is pay the OEM
licence fee to Microsoft. We'll cover how this works soon.</p>
<h3>Removing bundled Windows will make PCs cost more</h3>
<p>as hardware vendors wont get volume/OEM discounts</p>
<p>Incorrect. By
offering consumers a bootable copy of OEM Windows, manufacturers can
continue to make available the lower cost (<i>ie</i>, OEM) versions
of Windows. But consumers must still make that decision to pay for
using this add-on.</p>
<p>If you think this
puts Windows at a disadvantage, consider the following: Microsoft's
operating system competitors have had to do this for decades while
Microsoft stitched up deals with hardware vendors specifically
designed to exclude them from the market. The old approach was
unfair, this new approach puts every competitor on an equal footing.</p>
<h3>Wont unbundling add complexity?</h3>
<p>This notion can
be encapsulated with what <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/09/no_bundled_wind.html">one
pundit wrote</a> :</p>
<p>It would also add complexity for end users, counter to The
Institute's claims. People buy operating systems pre-installed with
bunch of different applications beyond what comes with the operating
system. Office productivity apps, security apps, you name it. An
uninstalled OS would force users to find and download or buy those
apps. That's an added and inconvenient step that would cost hours.</p>
<p>Obviously this
person has never seriously used Windows, or for that matter, Linux.</p>
<p>Unlike Linux,
Windows ships with an absolute paucity of high-function applications;
from word processing, through accounting software, from graphics
through drawing and technical tools, Linux beats Windows hands down
in every area of pre-installed application functionality. If PC
vendors shipped Linux on their PCs as a default OS that would be a
huge <i>reduction</i> in complexity for consumers, as they would have
access to thousands of high quality applications, either
pre-installed or a few package-installation clicks away.</p>
<h3>Consumers will not necessarily opt for the</h3>
<p>cheaper, ie Linux, desktop option.</p>
<p>Indeed. However,
unless there is a space opened in the market for competitors to try
and sell into, how will we ever find out? And yes, while more people
know Windows, there are tens of millions now who also know Linux.
Linux is fast approaching that first inflection-point. A move by
regulators to ensure that there is a breathing-space for competition
will likely see that inflection-point come sooner than later.</p>
<h3>But if we don't ship PCs with pre-installed</h3>
<p>Windows, wont there be rampant piracy?</p>
<p>Microsoft has
introduced a number of measures in recent versions of Windows which
are designed to stop piracy of Windows. In effect, they have provided
their own answer to this question.</p>
<h3>But the market has spoken and the market said</h3>
<p>'Windows desktops'. Why push this whole unbundling idea?</p>
<p>The market was
severely distorted due to the fact that for the better part of a
decade, Microsoft made deals with PC hardware vendors, specifically
designed to exclude competing operating systems. Such deals were
later shown to be illegal by the United States Federal Trade
Commission in the aftermath of its 1995 antitrust investigation of
Microsoft. This distortion was never rectified however, and
governments who value free and open markets must now act through
their competition regulators to bring about the kind of competition
which will benefit their constituent consumers in the medium-to-long
term.</p>
<h3>But there's no one to support Linux</h3>
<p>This is not
correct. There are thousands of large and small organisations
worldwide which provide support to Linux and free and open source
software. More importantly, if the consumer who buys the new PC
believes that there is no one who can support him in his purchase,
then that consumer is <i>more than free</i> to opt to install
Windows, acquire the Windows licence key from Microsoft and just use
Windows.</p>
<h3>How is it possible to provide for both consumers</h3>
<p>who demand Windows and also ensure a fair and open marketplace for
competing platforms?</p>
<p>That's the $64
billion question, isn't it? Here's how it can be done.</p>
<p>All hardware
manufacturers should ship personal computers with no pre-installed
operating system. They should include within the packaging of the
computer a media copy of the then current Microsoft Windows recovery
CD. They should also include a copy of one of the main Linux
distributions which are freely-redistributable at no charge.</p>
<p>Upon unpacking
the computer, the consumer must then make a choice of either:</p>
<ol type="a">
<li>loading
Windows from the Windows recovery media, then using the brochure
included with the recovery media to contact Microsoft and through
some form of financial transaction, acquire a licence to use
Windows, or
</li>
<li>load the
Linux operating system from the CD/DVD included, and use it as their
computer operating system.
</li>
</ol>
<p>Both the Windows
recovery and the Linux installation media must be shipped with the
new personal computer with a minimum of additional expense to the
consumer. Specifically, it is of critical importance that the
consumer receives the cost reduction advantages introduced by
removing the licence fee for the bundled OEM Windows.</p>
<p>In order for this
approach to work, Microsoft must agree to the free re-distribution of
the Windows recovery media by hardware vendors. If it does not, then
this will result in consumers only being given the 'out-of-the-box'
option of installing Linux. It is therefore in Microsoft's <i>absolute</i>
best interest to ensure that the Windows recovery media can be
re-distributed and that the loading of Windows on the new PC is as
fast and painless as possible. It otherwise risks more users
defecting to Linux. As the Windows recovery media will also need a
legitimate Windows licence obtained from Microsoft in order to
actually function, there should be no additional piracy risks for
Microsoft if they allow free re-distribution of the Windows recover
media.</p>
<h3>What about variations to this deployment method?</h3>
<p>I've provided
what I believe to be the <i>least disruptive</i> method of ensuring
an open and competitive platform market, but other options are
possible. Here are some:</p>
<ol>
<li>pre-installing
both operating systems, or
</li>
<li>including no
software media, but requiring the consumer to buy an operating
system at the point of purchase, or
</li>
<li>pay a
service fee to the retail vendor and have them perform the operating
system platform installation on request, or
</li>
<li>requiring
that the PC hardware vendor ship differently-installed computers,
using different Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) codes, allowing the
consumer to select whichever they prefer at purchase time.
</li>
</ol>
<p>Sure, these can
be considered. However, the method I outline above, that of including
two separate media packs and allowing the consumer to decide which
one to insert into the PC at initial boot time, has certain
implementation advantages. Specifically, these are that the consumer
buys the PC they want to buy, without the added confusion of having
to select a separate boxed product – everything they need will be
shipped with the PC they've just purchased. Additionally, the
retailers, resellers and e-tailers will not have to track or handle a
multitude of additional PC vendor product codes and SKUs – they
will merely have to know the one for each PC product, as they do
presently.</p>
<p>The onus
therefore falls on the PC vendors themselves to include media packs
for the version of Windows they would otherwise have installed/imaged
onto the PC product in question, <i>and</i>
a media pack for a quality Linux distribution, commensurate with the
market they're trying to sell into – one which has sufficient
driver support to allow most of the core components of the computer
(ie, video, audio, drives, network) to function correctly.
Furthermore, the hardware vendor need undertake this Linux
confirmation process once per product lifecycle, therefore, not a
particularly onerous or expensive task for them to undertake. Once
again, the main decision criteria for the distribution process
outlined in this proposal is that it would cause the smallest
additional overhead for the industry <i>and</i> the consumer.</p>
<h3>But there are so many Linux distributions!</h3>
<p>Yes, choice can be hard sometimes, but choice and competition is also
what drives both free markets and innovation. Each PC hardware vendor
must make a business decision as to which Linux distribution they are
happy to work with and just provide support for that distribution.
Obviously, they are most likely to include a distribution which a
majority of their target market will find useful and appealing, else
risk losing some market share to their competitors which would be
doing exactly that. Competition is good for Linux distributions too,
with the added bonus that open source code allows each distribution
to share in the gains made by its 'co-opetitive' brethren.</p>
<h3>But consumers are not tech savvy – they will</h3>
<p>not want to install an operating system</p>
<p>Correct. Which is
why it is up to both the Linux industry and Microsoft to develop
<i>maximally simple</i> installation processes for their respective
operating systems. In fact, there should be open and strong
competition between the two to create the simplest installation
process possible.</p>
<p>The end user
should be able to pop the installation/recovery media into the
optical drive, reboot the new PC and maybe 10-20 minutes later, once
the OS has been installed/imaged onto the PC's hard disk and the
media disk has been ejected, they can reboot the PC into their
selected operating system. Whichever of Microsoft or the Linux
distributors can build the simplest installation/disk-imaging
process, so will they have an advantage over the other for acquiring
(or keeping) users.</p>
<h3>But doesn't Linux lack in terms of driver</h3>
<p>support?</p>
<p>Depends on how
you measure this. It can be demonstrated that Linux has broader
driver support for older, more esoteric or legacy hardware than
Windows XP. Linux certainly has broader driver support than Windows
Vista. In general, Linux will support most/all of the major video,
sound, disk and network devices and many of the wireless cards and
web-cams. But yes, there are various consumer and business devices
for which Linux driver support is lacking.</p>
<p>This may mean
that <i>not every function</i> on <i>every PC</i> which ships with
the software installation packs noted above, will function completely
under Linux. It is therefore incumbent on the consumer to decide <i>if</i>
they want that specific function, say a wireless card, or inbuilt
web-cam, for their needs. And if they do, they can then opt to
install Windows and acquire the Windows licence key from Microsoft.
If, however, they decide that they <i>don't</i> need a functional
wireless card or web-cam for which a Linux driver is lacking, then
they can opt <i>not</i> to acquire Windows.</p>
<p>The
beauty of this approach is that by opening the market and making it
possible for consumers to <i>make a choice</i> about the operating
system they will use, we are likely to see a jump in Linux usage. We
are certainly not going to see a decrease from the monopoly market we
have now. This, in turn, will spur Linux driver support from those
recalcitrant component vendors. Which in turn will mean that in each
successive buying cycle, there will be less reason for consumers to
bypass Linux due to lacking driving support. Another virtuous cycle
indeed.</p>
<h3>Yes, great, but consumers still want Windows!</h3>
<p>Fine. They can then opt to install Windows and acquire the Windows
licence key from Microsoft. All they've lost is the maybe 10-20
minutes to install/image Windows onto the new PC's hard disk. In the
grand scheme of things, when you incorporate the time needed to
unpack the PC and cable it up, this isn't a big deal.</p>
<h3>Why operating systems must be unbundled from PCs</h3>
<p>Regardless of the
final mechanism used, competition regulators worldwide <i>must</i>
now take steps to increase the real competition for the consumer PC
market. Microsoft has not become the biggest monopoly in history
through competing on a level playing field. Only governments and
national competition regulators now have the power to redress this
gross imbalance. If governments <i>don't</i> do this now, then
perhaps <i>even they</i> wont have the means to do this later.</p>
<p><small><i>Permission is
granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document,
provided this permission notice is preserved on all copies.</i></small></p>
Governments Must Reject Gates' $3 Bid to Addict Next Billion PC Usershttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Governments_Must_Reject_Gates_Bid_to_Addict_Next_Billion_PC_Users/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2007-04-29T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<p>30th April, 2007</p>
<p>On April 19th, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corp., unveiled a plan
which seeks to enlist the help of developing nations in a
barely-concealed attempt to get the next billion PC users hooked onto
Microsoft software. Under the guise of trying to bridge the digital
divide, Microsoft will instead aim to extend its desktop monopoly by
using the same technique it's used for years through software piracy:
platform addiction. An addiction it will milk in future decades. An
addiction that governments should reject in favour of free and open
source software - the only way to truly bridge the digital divide.</p>
<p>"Microsoft's strategy of getting developing nations hooked on its
software was clearly outlined by Bill Gates almost a decade ago," said
Con Zymaris, CEO of long-standing open source firm Cybersource.</p>
<p>Specifically, Bill Gates, citing China as an example, said:</p>
<blockquote>
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but
people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though.
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to
collect sometime in the next decade."<sup>1</sup>
</blockquote>
<p>"From this, we analyse the following strategy. Microsoft would allow
users in developing countries to use pirated software, which in turn
would lock those users into Microsoft's proprietary data formats,
proprietary protocols and proprietary Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs). Once so tithed to Microsoft, these users would find it almost
impossible to move to alternatives, thus providing a captive future
revenue stream," explained Zymaris. "And this new strategy is even more
insidious, as Microsoft is expecting governments to pay for the
hardware, thus paving the way for Microsoft to snare its next billion
addicts in a friction-free manner."</p>
<p>"What is equally apparent is that Microsoft would prefer to lose money
initially, to prevent competitors from capturing mindshare. Today, Linux
and open source software are Microsoft's biggest competitor. And Linux
and open source software are capturing huge mindshare in developing
nations, thus Microsoft's knee-jerk reaction in offering its
$3-meal-deal," Zymaris said. "Instead of accepting the Microsoft deal,
governments should push open source software, guaranteeing freedom
from vendor lock-in and future price hikes."</p>
<p>And where Microsoft offers a handful of cut-down applications in its
$3-meal-deal, open source supplies thousands of complete applications,
for no cost at all. Highly functional applications such as Scribus
(desktop publishing), Gimp, (photo editing), Blender3D (animation),
Inkscape (vector drawing), MySQL (database), Python (programming
environment), will help students in their creative endevours. Other
landmark applications such as Linux, OpenOffice.org (office suite) and
Firefox (web browser) will help all users.</p>
<p>"By helping to make users aware of open source alternatives, by
disseminating that software through CD give-aways and via subsidised,
low-cost PCs, governments will be reducing their reliance on proprietary
vendors and improve access to 21st century technology. It's the
only way to ensure that their citizens will be free to use quality
software, without constraints, in perpetuity," concluded Zymaris.</p>
<p>References:<br />
1. <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html">http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html</a>
</p>
Government Inaction on Competitive Software Tendering Wastes Millionshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Government_Inaction_on_Competitive_Software_Tendering_Wastes_Millions/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2007-04-19T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<h2>Government Inaction on Competitive Software Tendering Wastes Millions.</h2>
<p>Australia -- 20th April, 2007</p>
<p>It's time for all Australian state and federal agencies to bring
real, open and competitive tendering back into their software
acquisitions. Their lack of willingness to ensure competition in
the marketplace costs Australian taxpayers tens of millions of
dollars every year - a bad practice that must be halted.</p>
<p>"At present, almost no government agencies in Australia permit
open and competitive tendering for software platforms and
productivity applications," observed Con Zymaris, CEO of
long-standing ICT industry company Cybersource Pty. Ltd. "Instead,
these agencies hand the business, worth around a billion dollars
each refresh cycle, to Microsoft - no competitors are allowed to
make bids."</p>
<p>"We are astounded that government agencies, which have a fiduciary
responsibility to Australian taxpayers, should follow this
strategy," continued Zymaris. "We are even more amazed that no
voices have raised this issue in Parliament. It is an obviously
short-sighted strategy which merely serves to lock Australia's
public sector further into a Microsoft-only monetary sinkhole."</p>
<p>A recent example of this kind of 'no competition allowed'
deal-making was the Queensland Government's decision<sup>1</sup> to abort
any potential for competitive bids from alternative software
suppliers in its refresh of 100,000 PCs - no vendor besides
Microsoft was allowed to enter the bidding arena. This left many
other multinational vendors, like Sun, Novell and Red Hat, along
with numerous innovative Australian Linux companies, such as
Cybersource, with no chance of competing.</p>
<p>"By subverting the power of competitive markets, federal and state
agencies are hurting the local ICT industry. By keeping innovative
technology off government desks and by always returning to the
souring teat of Microsoft, they're hurting their own productivity.
And by stubbornly refusing to seriously consider alternative
technologies such as Linux and open source, they are shackling
themselves to the Microsoft upgrade treadmill in perpetuity, with
the cost meter set to spiral," concluded Zymaris.</p>
<p>
References:<br />
1. <a href="http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;504512889;fp;16;fpid;2">http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;504512889;fp;16;fpid;2</a>
</p>
Microsoft Acts Against Foreign Country's Best Interests, Yet Againhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Microsoft_Acts_Against_Foreign_Countrys_Best_Interests_Yet_Again/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2005-09-06T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<p>7th September, 2005</p>
<p>In a recent move which is both patronising and yet another instance of
acting against the best interests of a foreign country, Microsoft is
backing a proxy war against Linux and open source software adoption in
China.</p>
<p>"By using arguments that even the most ignorant IT professional would
recognise are bogus, the Microsoft-backed China Software Industry
Association (CSIA) is doing little more than insult the intelligence of
China's IT decision-makers<sup>1</sup>. This gaggle of tired anti-Linux falsities
were discredited years ago, yet are still trotted out as the only weapon
against Linux they have," said Con Zymaris, CEO of Cybersource, a
Linux business with fifteen years experience. "This attack is little
more than an incompetently executed anti-Linux hatchet job."</p>
<p>The reason for this sudden scaremongering? A projected 64% compound
annual growth rate<sup>2</sup> for Linux over the next 5 years - making it the
fastest-growing computer platform in China. Which is in turn, the
fastest growing computer market and thus, a dead serious threat to
Microsoft.</p>
<p>Against CSIA's message of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD), here are
the facts Microsoft don't want you to know:</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes, you can build profitable businesses around Linux, there are many
thousands of these around the world, ranging from giants like IBM to
sole-proprietor micro-businesses.</li>
<li>Most open source developers have not 'died', as the CSIA has stated,
nor have they moved on to other things. Most of the developers are
healthy, happy and still coding on open source projects. In fact,
there are over a million open source developers world-wide.</li>
<li>Linux and open source software are not 'locked in lawsuits over
copyright infringements' any more than Microsoft's proprietary
software - in fact, less so. The only major instance of a lawsuit
against Linux, the SCO vs. IBM case, withered when SCO could produce
not a single line of copyright infringement as evidence to the judge.</li>
<li>Software patents are not merely problems for Linux and open source,
but for all software. While Linux developers are yet to pay a single
dollar for patent infringement, Microsoft have paid out billions to
Eolas, Alacritech, IBM, Gateway, Novel, Sun and others just in the
last few years.</li>
<li>More importantly, U.S. software patents do not even apply in China,
making this a baseless FUD tactic.</li>
</ol>
<p>"The key question is why would the China Software Industry Association
choose now as the time to launch a major offensive against Linux? We
suggest the fact that Microsoft recently joined this organisation offers
an answer. It is obvious that Linux's huge success in China coupled with
the likelihood of massive growth for the coming decade, are seriously
threatening vested interests," continued Zymaris.</p>
<p>"In simple terms, Linux and open source software are the best means by
which countries like China can avoid sending billions of dollars
overseas to pay for software licences. It's the best way for the average
Chinese citizen to afford high-quality software, legally. It's the best
way for China to reduce copyright-infringement of proprietary software,
which causes it embarrassment. It's the best approach towards fostering
an indigenous software industry. Finally, it's the only way the Chinese
government can be certain that it controls its own software destiny and
security," continued Zymaris.</p>
<p>"We see that once again, as in Europe and South America, areas which
have similarly seen extraordinary Linux growth, Microsoft is meddling
against the best interests of foreign countries. Our suggestion to these
countries is simple: in almost all circumstances, Microsoft's best
interests are not your best interests. Every dollar Microsoft makes is a
dollar you lose. Your best option is Linux and open source software.
Make the right decision for your country," concluded Zymaris.</p>
<p>References:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/29/content_472979.htm">Anti-Linux FUD hatchet job</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.itfacts.biz/linux-revenues-to-grow-at-64-a-year-in-china/4465">Linux revenues to grow at 64% a year in China</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://english1.people.com.cn/200206/17/eng20020617_97986.shtml">Microsoft Joins China Software Industry Association</a></p></li>
</ol>
Cybersource to Microsoft: Get Real on Joint Research Effortshttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Cybersource_to_Microsoft--Get_Real_on_Joint_Research_Efforts/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2005-08-25T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<h3>Cybersource to Microsoft: Get Real on Joint Research Efforts</h3>
<p>Australia -- 26th August, 2005</p>
<p>Microsoft recently approached Open Source Development Labs, the home of
Linux, with an offer of co-operation on research. Unfortunately, the
kind of joint research that Microsoft proposed, namely more paid-for
analyst comparisons, is designed to extend the Linux vs. Windows war-of
-words, not help users of either platform. Cybersource has an alternate
suggestion: it's time for Microsoft to actually do what's best for its
own customers and the industry in general, by working towards making
Linux and Windows work better together.</p>
<p>"Most businesses will end up running a combination of proprietary and
open source software," said Cybersource CEO Con Zymaris. "By joining
with the open source industry and working towards reducing the
interoperability headaches between the two, Microsoft can help its own
customers as well as make it easier for users to select and move to the
platform best suited to them."</p>
<p>To date, most of the effort towards improving interoperability between
Linux & open source and Microsoft platforms, has been shouldered by
the open source community.</p>
<p>"Apache, PHP, MySQL, Perl, Sendmail, BIND, Python, Zope, PostgreSQL,
Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, FirebirdSQL and several thousand
other open source technologies have been ported to run on Windows. In
comparison, Microsoft has not made any effort to bring any of its major
technologies, such as Exchange, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer, IIS,
SQL Server, to Linux," continued Zymaris.</p>
<p>"When it comes to sharing data on disk or on a network, Linux's Network
File System (NFS), EXT2 and ReiserFS filesystems are open and documented
for interoperability, as are the Kerberos and OpenLDAP authentication
protocols. This is in sharp contrast to Microsoft's NTFS, SMB/CIFS and
Active Directory, which are encumbered through lack of technical
interoperation documentation or by legal firewalls."</p>
<p>"Just as importantly, open source developers provide full, unfettered
access to protocols, document standards and XML schemas. In return,
Microsoft keeps the information required to work with Word, Excel,
Access, Outlook and Exchange, secret. Even when Microsoft makes claims
towards interoperability, as with the recent Word XML schemas, they
nobble that effort by releasing information under a licence which
prevents implementation in common open source forms," continued Zymaris.</p>
<p>Cybersource suggests the following as actually useful joint-research
that Microsoft can co-operate with the open source community on:</p>
<ol>
<li>Publish (in an un-encumbered form) the information necessary for
third-party software to interoperate fully with Microsoft Office,
Exchange, Windows Media codecs etc.
</li>
<li>Stop the 'intellectual property' land-grab on XML schemas,
communication protocols and document formats. Interoperability
information should never be legally encumbered: that defeats the
purpose.
</li>
</ol>
<p>"In order for Linux and Windows to properly interoperate, we need to
establish a common 'language', with agreed syntax, forms and rules -
this is what schemas, protocols and document formats do. Microsoft has
thus-far done its best to subvert that common language with either
technical or legal obstructions, causing problems for users. It's time
to change tack and assist both Windows and Linux users by working
towards interoperability," Zymaris concluded.</p>
The Cost of Software Monopoly: How Australian Consumers Losehttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-The_Cost_of_Software_Monopoly:_How_Australian_Consumers_Lose/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2005-06-26T13:34:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<h3>A Whitepaper on the Negative Impact of Microsoft Desktop Monopoly on Australian Consumers</h3>
<p>Over the past decade, the
personal computer industry has seen a major reduction in competition
in the operating system platform market. A computer operating system
platform is the software which computer users learn to operate their
computer with, the software that independent software vendors develop
applications for and the software that third-party computer hardware
developers create compliant hardware for.</p>
<p>Competition in the desktop computer
operating system space is practically non-existent, with one platform
from a single supplier commanding a very high proportion (over 95%)
of the Australian market. This single platform from a sole vendor is
Microsoft Windows.</p>
<p>Cybersource believes that a sizeable
portion of this market share is due to the
fact that over many years, most consumers were never given the option
to acquire alternative operating system platforms. Instead, Microsoft
Windows was always bundled with most vendors' computer products,
whether consumers wanted that bundled product on not.</p>
<p>We have seen that the Australian
Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has acted in the
best interests of consumers to increase competition in such areas as
telecommunications. Cybersource wants to see similar actions
introduced in the computer operating system platform space.</p>
<p>In the software market, as in the telecommunications market, a
single, powerful and well-leveraged vendor can cause the reduction of
real competition and the corralling of almost all consumers into a
single monopolistic platform situation.
This causes significant reduction in choice, price competitiveness
and innovation. Cybersource calls upon the ACCC to rectify this
situation for the benefit of the local Information Technology
industry and of all Australian IT consumers.</p>
<h2>The Cost of Software Monopoly: How Australian Consumers Lose</h2>
<p><strong>Created:</strong> Steven D'Aprano, Arik Gershoni, Con Zymaris<br />
<strong>Contact:</strong> Con Zymaris<br />
<strong>Phone:</strong> +61 3 9621 2377<br />
<strong>Email:</strong> conz@cybersource.com.au<br />
Last updated: 2005-07-26<br />
<small>Reference Number: 203</small></p>
<p><em>Copyright notice: Cybersource grants you the following rights on this document:<br />
1. You are free to re-distribute it as widely as you wish, as long as it remains intact.<br />
2. You are also free to use within your works, small segments of the document under a fair-use
clause.</em></p>
<h3>Disclaimer</h3>
<p>Cybersource is not a legal service nor does it proclaim legal expertise. We are producing the
following documentation as a statement of position and opinion on the topic in question.</p>
<p><strong>The information contained herein represents Cybersource's initial commentary and analysis
and has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Positions taken are subject to
change as more information becomes available and further analysis is undertaken.
Cybersource disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of the
information. Cybersource shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the
information contained herein or for interpretations thereof.</strong></p>
<h3>Legalese</h3>
<p>All trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are duly acknowledged.</p>
<h3>Executive Summary</h3>
<p>Over the past decade, the personal computer industry has seen a major reduction in competition in
the operating system platform market. A computer operating system platform is the software which
computer users learn to operate their computer with, the software that independent software vendors
develop applications for and the software that third-party computer hardware developers create
compliant hardware for.</p>
<p>Competition in the desktop computer operating system space is practically non-existent, with one
platform from a single supplier commanding a very high proportion (over 95%) of the Australian
market. This single platform from a sole vendor is Microsoft Windows.</p>
<p>Cybersource believes that a sizeable portion of this market share is due to the fact that over many
years, most consumers were never given the option to acquire alternative operating system
platforms. Instead, Microsoft Windows was always bundled with most vendors' computer products,
whether consumers wanted that bundled product on not.</p>
<p>We have seen that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has acted in the
best interests of consumers to increase competition in such areas as telecommunications.
Cybersource wants to see similar actions introduced in the computer operating system platform
space.</p>
<p>In the software market, as in the telecommunications market, a single, powerful and well-leveraged
vendor can cause the reduction of real competition and the corralling of almost all consumers into a
single monopolistic platform situation. This causes significant reduction in choice, price
competitiveness and innovation. Cybersource calls upon the ACCC to rectify this situation for the
benefit of the local Information Technology industry and of all Australian IT consumers.</p>
<h4>Key Points</h4>
<ol>
<li><p>It is impossible or extremely difficult for consumers to
purchase a desktop PC or laptop from a tier-1 or tier-2 computer
manufacturer without also having to purchase an OEM copy of
Microsoft Windows operating system platform.</p></li>
<li><p>Cybersource believes that this greatly reduces choice for
consumers and competition for the industry. Such a reduction in
choice, and consequent reduction in competition, costs the
Australian economy hundreds of millions of dollars annually, through
paying one vendor needlessly high prices for monopolistic products.</p></li>
<li><p>The computer market is many ways similar to the
telecommunications market. When one vendor has over 95% of the
market, that vendor should be bound by a universal service
obligation to ensure that all consumers can access the content,
documents and data which reside on that vendor's platform.
Neglecting such an obligation hinders all consumers and third-party
developers not using that vendor's platform, further increasing
anti-competitive pressures.</p></li>
<li><p>Cybersource believes that such anti-competitive practices
should be stopped as soon as possible, through remedies introduced
by the ACCC, to secure both a broader competitive base and increased
options for consumers.
</p></li>
<li><p>The first remedy that Cybersource seeks from the ACCC is that
all tier-1 and tier-2 vendors should be required to offer their
desktop and laptop products without an operating system
pre-installed, that this choice be presented to consumers as broadly
as the products themselves are, and that the price difference
between the <i>with</i> and <i>without </i>operating
system options should also be clearly and broadly presented
at retail outlets, on vendor marketing literature and vendor
websites.</p></li>
<li><p>The second remedy that Cybersource seeks from the ACCC is
that Microsoft should be required to offer unfettered and
unencumbered access to all major content, document, data and
applications formats which could enable interchange and
interoperability between users of its platform and users of other
alternative platforms.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Background</h2>
<h3>1. Commodity Hardware: How Competitive Markets Work</h3>
<p>
The industry segment for personal desktop computers, small-to-medium scale servers and laptops is
one which sees extreme levels of competition. This is because there are thousands of component
manufacturers (makers of hard disks, CD-ROMs, memory, CPUs and various computer chips) and
hundreds of vendors (who compile complete computers from the various components), all vying for
the same market space.
</p>
<p>
During the past decade, computer hardware has seen performance and capacity improvements of
between 100-1000% and corresponding price reductions of 90%<sup>1</sup>
</p>
<p>
In 1994, the price of hardware for an average business desktop computer was around AU$4,000<sup>2</sup>. A
similarly positioned average business desktop computer priced today retails for around $800 or less.
</p>
<h3>2. How Monopoly Software Works: No Competition, Minimal Price and Feature
Improvements</h3>
<p>
In contrast, Microsoft's Windows and Office software franchises, which have around 95% of the
market for desktop operating systems and desktop office productivity suites in Australia<sup>3</sup>, have not
exhibited any serious functional feature improvement for most consumers. Most consumers use their
desktops, word processors and spreadsheets in much the same way now as they 10 years ago. Yet,
over the past decade, the retail price of Microsoft Windows, coupled with the price of Microsoft
Office, has doubled.<sup>4</sup> We therefore have a doubling in price for software and a eight-fold reduction in
price for hardware. One obviously faces stiff competition whilst the other does not. We can see this
even more clearly if we contrast the two scenarios as ratios:
</p>
<ul>
<li>In 1994, the computer hardware constituted 85% of the cost of the whole system. The
operating system (Microsoft DOS + Microsoft Windows) and desktop productivity
(Microsoft Office) software suite, in turn, constituted a mere 15%.
</li>
<li>
In 2004, the price of hardware for an average business desktop computer constituted 35% of
the cost of the whole system. The operating system (Microsoft Windows) and desktop
productivity suite (Microsoft Office) now constitute the great bulk of the cost, at 65%.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Most importantly, in 1994 the actual cost of physical production of the Microsoft Windows and
Microsoft Office products was considerably higher than the corresponding products in 2004. In the
earlier versions, the product included dozens of floppy disks containing the software for installation
and thousands of pages of printed manuals. The current versions include almost no printed manuals
and only one or two disks, therefore costing considerably less to produce and ship and thus resulting
in even higher margins for Microsoft.
</p>
<p>
During the same period that has seen the price of the monopoly software double, the cost of
supplying that software has fallen considerably. This is yet another sign of an non-competitive
market.
</p>
<hr align="left" style="width:22%;" />
<ol><small>
</small><li value="1">Source for PC pricing. Source: Dell advertisement. Australian Personal Computer Magazine. October 1993.</li>
<li value="2">Source for Software Pricing. Source: Harris Computer Superstore advertisement. Australian Personal Computer
Magazine. October 1993.</li>
<li value="3"><a href="http://replay.web.archive.org/20050829192512/http://www.procompetition.org/litigation/oracle.html">http://www.procompetition.org/litigation/oracle.html</a></li>
<li value="4">Source for 2004 prices Source: Harris Technology advertisement. Australian Personal Computer Magazine.
November 2004.</li>
</ol>
<h3>3. Users Forced to buy Microsoft Windows</h3>
<p>
In Australia, the personal computer hardware market is broken down into two main segments. The
white-box market, is essentially for low-cost, no-brand-name product, constitutes a minority of the
market. The remainder, by far the largest segment of the market, is contested by first- and second-
tier brand-name vendors such as IBM, HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, NEC, Fujitsu and
several others.
</p>
<p>
Almost all these brand-vendors vendors for almost all of their desktop personal computer and laptop
models, give the consumer no choice when purchasing as to whether that consumer also wants to
purchase Microsoft's Windows operating system. If the consumer wants the hardware, the consumer
must also pay for the software. There is no way for consumers to acquire the personal computer
hardware they need without also acquiring a copy of Microsoft Windows, which has an associated
Original Equipment Manufacturer licence cost.
</p>
<h3>4. Much Like Telstra, Microsoft Has Universal Service Obligations</h3>
<p>
In the telecommunication space, Telstra has certain obligations with respect to providing inter-
operability with competitors and universal service coverage. This helps both the consumer directly
by ensuring that all Australians have access to telephone systems with which they can communicate.
It also helps consumers indirectly, by ensuring that Telstra doesn't use its market position and
platform leverage to squeeze out competitors and overcharge the consumer.
</p>
<p>
The computer platform in many ways is similar to the telecommunications platform. When one
vendor has over 95% of the market, that vendor has enormous leverage and control over all other
vendors and over all consumers. It is therefore important that, as with the telecommunications space,
if one vendor has such a large percentage of the market, that vendor must be held to certain crucial
responsibilities with respect to the obligation of universal service coverage.
</p>
<p>
In much the same way that Optus and Vodaphone customers require the ability to receive phone calls
from Telstra customers without being forced to purchase a Telstra-specific phone, minority software
users need to have the ability to exchange documents and data with Microsoft users without being
forced to purchase Microsoft software.
</p>
<p>
Failure to enforce that universal service obligation severely inconveniences minority software users,
stifles competition, and tilts the playing field even further towards the monopoly platform.
</p>
<h3>5. The Cost to Australian Consumers</h3>
<p>
The process of hardware commoditisation has been relentless and greatly benefits Microsoft at the
expense of all the hardware vendors. Microsoft's platform and application software now costs many
times more than the hardware it runs on, leaving Microsoft the monopoly to enjoy its huge financial
and platform leverage advantages alone. As an example, Microsoft makes between 79% and 84%
gross margins on its major monopoly franchises of Windows and Office<sup>5</sup>. By comparison, vendors
like HP, IBM and Dell make margins of between 4% and 10 % on their main personal computer
product lines. Several large vendors run their PC business at a loss, or like IBM, have given up
completely in trying to make profit from it.
</p>
<p>
If we use these figures as an indication of what happens when one industry segment (i.e. platform
and productivity software) does encounter insufficient competition, we can estimate what the
increased cost is to Australian consumers. According to several sources, Microsoft generates $1
billion in sales within Australia every year. A very large part of this would come from its two most
lucrative products, Windows and Office; however, for sake of argument, we will suggest that only
half of that revenue comes from these two flagship products.
</p>
<p>
If Microsoft's products faced stiff competition, as happens in the PC hardware space, then its margins
(about 80%) would not be sustainable. It would instead be seeing average margins closer to the 10%
seen by commodity hardware vendors. If we subtract this variation in margins, we would find that
Microsoft's revenues, from Australian consumers, reduced by $200 million dollars every year.<sup>6
</sup></p>
<p>
At least $200 million is therefore the yearly cost of the Microsoft software monopoly to Australian
consumers, and equates to the amount of money returned to Australia each and every year if we were
able to introduce strong competition into the operating system platform and office productivity suite
markets.
</p>
<h3>6. Excuses the Vendors Raise and Why They Are Invalid</h3>
<p>
The computer hardware vendors in question, may raise the following objections as to why they
would not be able to unbundle the operating system from their computer personal computer desktop
and laptop products.
</p>
<p>
Reason #1: The vendors may claim that by not shipping these products with an operating system, it
will make it very difficult to offer users support.
Cybersource's response: Almost all of these vendors ship computer server hardware with no pre-
installed operating system at all, yet they have no problems offering support to users for those lines
of products.
</p>
<p>
Reason #2: Local representatives from the vendors in question, may claim that the decision to
bundle the Microsoft Windows operating system has been made from headquarters overseas, and
that as mere local functionaries, they cannot renege on such a decision.
</p>
<p>
Cybersource's response: Why should the consumer care where the decision has been made? If such a
decision can be shown to be detrimental to Australian consumers and reduces competition in the
Australian marketplace or contravenes Australia's competition laws, the ACCC should act.
</p>
<p>
Reason #3: Vendors may claim that by not forcing the bundling of Microsoft Windows with each
and every desktop personal computer or laptop they ship, they will be encouraging piracy, as their
customers will simply procure illegal copies of that operating system from elsewhere, to install on
the unbundled PCs.
</p>
<p>
Cybersource's response: Pre-supposing what consumers will do with the computer hardware and
forcing them to buy Microsoft Windows is anti-competitive in the extreme. We counter by way of a
simple analogy. Should we discourage supermarkets from selling plain bread, because shoppers
might steal butter from elsewhere? To discourage vendors from selling PCs with no operating system
because of the hypothetical loss of revenue to Microsoft goes against the spirit of the free market. It's
up to Microsoft to find better anti-piracy methods: it's not the role of the market to force every
consumer to purchase Microsoft products that they may not want, in order to protect Microsoft's
commercial interests.
</p>
<p>
Reason #4: The vendors may claim that they bundle Microsoft's Windows with each and every
desktop PC or laptop they ship because that is what the market wants.
Cybersource's response: Let's have these vendor offer software-unbundled versions of each and
every PC in the space, and we'll see exactly what the market wants. If the consumers wants to
purchase Microsoft Windows with a PC, they will be totally free to do so, at the same cost as before.
However, if some consumers want to acquire computers without Microsoft's Windows, they should
now, for the first time, be able to do so.
</p>
<p>
Reason #5: Microsoft may claim that it invests heavily in Research & Development (R &D), and so
has earned such immense.
</p>
<p>
Cybersource's response: Microsoft's R & D investments have nothing to do with the high pricing that
the firm can set. That's due to lack of competition. Additionally, if Microsoft really had made
considerable breakthrough's in its software technology, then perhaps it could have manufactured an
increase in performance and functional capacity which matched that made evident by the hardware
vendors – vendors who face severe competition every day of business.
</p>
<p>
Only strong competition provides the necessary driver which pushes the envelope for new features,
improved performance and enhanced facilities for consumers. In a free and fair market, vendors
spend on R&D in order to gain a competitive edge. Microsoft obviously needs do no such thing.
</p>
<hr align="left" style="width:22%;" />
<ol><small>
</small><li value="5">Source for Microsoft product percentages: <a href="http://replay.web.archive.org/20060822202945/http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/FY02/Q02_4_financials.xls">http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/FY02/Q02_4_financials.xls</a>
</li>
<li value="6">See Appendix for calculations.
</li>
</ol>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>
To level this tilted playing field, Cybersource seeks the following from the ACCC.
</p>
<h3>1. Unbundling of Microsoft Windows</h3>
<p>
Primarily, we request that all tier-1 and tier-2 PC vendors must offer to consumers the option of
purchasing each of their PC (desktop & laptop) products without any operating system.
Additionally, that the price for the operating system-less version of the product is correspondingly
reduced by the cost of that operating system. This last point is important. In order for this remedy to
be effective, PC prices must be reduced by the equivalent cost of the OEM copy of Microsoft
Windows. Additionally, the computer vendors must be required to advertise this option along with
the price difference in their marketing and sales literature, through resellers or direct sales. Providing
an option of a non-Windows install will not be effective unless the vendors widely publicise this
option.</p>
<h3>2. Enforcing Universal Service Obligations</h3>
<p>
Secondarily, Microsoft, owing to its monopoly status, must be understood to have increased
responsibilities to consumers. The ACCC should require that Microsoft make available on a
reasonable, non-discriminatory and unencumbered basis, all the core communication protocols,
data/document formats and application program interfaces necessary for third parties to create inter-
operable applications on alternate platforms.
</p>
<h2>#</h2>
<h2>About Cybersource</h2>
<p>
Cybersource is Australia's leading Linux and open source solutions company. In successful
continuous operation since May 1991, it is also one of the world's longest running specialists in this
realm.</p>
<h2>Appendix: Calculations</h2>
<p>
Microsoft admits to $1 billion revenue in Australia each year, and approximately an 80% profit
margin on the two flagship products, Windows and Office.</p>
<p>
We wish to calculate the cost saving to Australian consumers if the monopoly margins of these
products were reduced to levels more typical in the IT industry, 4% to 10%. For the sake of the
exercise, we assume Microsoft is able to sustain profit margins at the upper end of the range, namely
10%.</p>
<h3>Scenario 1:</h3>
<p>
We assume that <b>all</b> of Microsoft's Australia revenue is from the flagship products and their
monopoly pricing.
</p>
<p>
Microsoft's sales revenue is “costs plus 80% margin”:<br />
cost x 1.8 = <i>$1000 million</i>
</p>
<p>
If the profit margin is reduced from 80% to 10%, the predicted sales revenue (all else being equal)
will be:<br />
cost x 1.1 = $1000/1.8 x 1.1 million
= <i>$600 million</i> (in round figures)
</p>
<p>
Giving yearly cost savings to Australian consumers of <i>$400 million</i>.
</p>
<h3>Scenario 2:</h3>
<p>
We assume that only <b>half</b> of Microsoft's Australia revenue is from the flagship products and their
monopoly pricing.</p>
<p>Microsoft's sales revenue for these products is “costs plus 80% margin”:<br />
cost x 1.8 = <i>$500 million</i>
</p>
<p>
The other $500 million in revenue is assumed to be unchanged.
</p>
<p>
All else being equal, if the profit margin on these products is reduced from 80% to 10%, the
predicted sales revenue will be:<br />
cost x 1.1 = $500/1.8 x 1.1 million
= <i>$300 million</i> (in round figures)
</p>
<p>
Giving yearly cost savings to Australian consumers of <b>$200 million</b>.
</p>
<p>
Taking a broader perspective, we understand that Australia constitutes approximately 2% of the
global (and probably Microsoft's) marketplace. The yearly cost of Microsoft's monopoly is therefore
at least $10 billion.
</p>
Open Source for Educationhttp://raid6.com.au/~onlyjob/posts/cybersource-Open_Source_for_Education/2012-03-16T06:04:16Z2005-04-04T14:00:00Z
<p align="right"><small>Here published with kind permission by <a href="http://cyber.com.au">Cybersource Pty. Ltd.</a></small></p>
<p>Australia -- 5th April, 2005</p>
<p>Cybersource today launches a free information referral service which we
believe can help the state Departments of Education and the independent
schools save millions in software licence fees. We achieve this by providing
educators with the bargaining leverage that's needed to dramatically reduce
the prices paid for proprietary software.</p>
<p>"Educational software users are always short on budgets for IT," stated
Cybersource CEO, Con Zymaris. "Software licence costs are eating into an
increasing portion of those budgets. However, what many education
Departments don't realise is that they have substantial leverage when it
next comes time to negotiate with proprietary software vendors.'</p>
<p>The Cybersource Open Source in Education referral service consists of a
strategic analysis of the Department's existing platforms and applications
and a plan showing how open source software can cut the Department's
software licence expenses. We want to help each Department visualise how
they can use open source software to their benefit in negotiations with
vendors.</p>
<p>Our suggestion to Australia's education Departments is a simple one: you
control what software is placed in front of hundreds of thousands of
students and teachers. This gives you immense leverage when it comes to
negotiating with vendors - if you know how to use it.</p>
<p>"And Cybersource will show you how to use that leverage to full effect,"
continued Zymaris. "In many instances, it's not educators who should be
paying the vendors for selecting proprietary software - vendors should be
paying you for the privilege of indoctrinating your students with their
wares. And make no mistake about it, when prodded in the right way, vendors
will pay."</p>
<p>"Can you imagine how, as just one example, Microsoft would react if they
were told that 5 million students in various states, would now be learning
Linux and OpenOffice.org? If you were Microsoft, wouldn't you pay to ensure
that your products were preferentially placed in front of those students?
I'm sure they would. They know what damage to their mindshare would be
caused by millions of students entering industry with a comfortable
knowledge of Linux and other open source alternatives."</p>
<p>Zymaris went on to add, "Even if Microsoft demonstrates a willingness to
abandon their established mindshare any Department of Education that
utilises Cybersource's referral service is in a no-lose position; at any
point in the process they will have the option between two viable offerings:
OpenOffice.org and Linux on one hand and the offering from Microsoft."</p>
<p>"And as a number of large education Department licencing deals are coming up
for renewal, now is the time for Departments to start sharpening their
pencils, and Cybersource has just the sharpener for them," concluded
Zymaris.</p>