Michael's musings

Mon, 26 Jun 2006

Estimating software mis-licensing is hard

Editor, Communications of the ACM

Dear Editor,

Re: Bagchi et al. "Global software piracy ...", June 2006, pp. 70-75.

We are extremely concerned that a peer-reviewed magazine from an
apparently serious professional organization would permit the
publication of a report that predicated its research on data from a
single source that has a vested interest in magnifying apparent losses
due to activities they characterize as "piracy". For one critique, see
Business: BSA or just BS?; Software piracy, The Economist. London: May 21,
2005. Vol.375, Iss. 8427;  pg. 78.  We do not doubt that
there is unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials. However,
estimating its true level is difficult. Multiple approaches and sources
are needed, and the methods need to be fully open to review.

Yours,

Prof. John C Nash, nashjc@uottawa.ca
Dru Lavigne, dlavigne6@sympatico.ca
Russell McOrmond, russell@flora.ca
Charles MacDonald, cmacd@TelecomOttawa.net
Michael Richardson, mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Raymond Wood, au516@freenet.carleton.ca

Thu, 15 Jun 2006

Online reputations

Recently, a fellow asked about getting linux kernel work in Ontario. He's an ex-pat, moving back to Ontario from the UK, and wanted to know where to look.

Well, I asked a question:

make sure you have a web site, and some stable non-yahoo
email.

I consider a stable web presence, and some stable non-webmail email address to be a "you must be this tall" criteria when hiring.

It took me a moment to think of why this is.

Finally, I realized why I was asking, and said:

so, if I google that email, I'll find lots of intelligent questions, and even
more useful answers on mailing list archives?

This is the thing --- if you have only ever been a consumer of the Internet, googled archives, but never answered questions, etc. then it is very hard to find out much about you.

A company I worked for went through a number of VP's R&D. I googled each one. Nothing. Bumpkiss. Final one, I learnt had been on a canoe trip in the north-west territories. Never did his name show up anywhere else. Not in a press release, or a "speaking at", or in an online mailing list for afficiadoes of purple knitting needles.

It's hard for me to believe that someone has in fact used the Internet, truly used it, when they just didn't leave any trace.

Yet, many people keep throwing away their email accounts, getting new ones, and use their ISP provided crap email systems, and then change when they get a new ISP. How can you have an online identity that way?

And it isn't like aliases aren't all over. You can get one everywhere, and smart people either have their own domain, or they get an alias like pobox.com, or acm.org, etc. Gmail.com seems to be somewhat more clueful to me than msn/yahoo --- I think because gmail actively encourages use of POP and other internet standards for processing email.

You just can't read 100 non-spam emails a day with a web interface.

As an aisde, I love it when I get an email from some head hunter who wants my most recent resume --- yet, every copy of my resume has the URL of my resume in it. To me, that's so obvious a thing to have, that anyone technologist that doesn't have it... isn't really a technologist.

It's all about reputation.

Tue, 13 Jun 2006

Tim Lane on O-train

(used with permission)

Op Ed piece on LRT expansion - June 12, 2006

By Tim Lane

There seems to be a concerted effort to forget, or dismiss, what the existing diesel light rail O-Train has accomplished.

A fifteen minute service on an existing heavy rail line, that carries upwards of ten thousand passengers per day, on a single track.

A system that integrates O-Train & bus to give people a faster, more comfortable trip than by bus alone, to many destinations.

A system that is the ideal way to get to events at Dow's Lake (Tulip Festival, Winterlude, etc.).

A system that has won awards, although on at least one occasion, management didn't tell the train drivers about it. (Ask me about that one!)

A system that has had beneficial effects on the bus system, freeing up buses to be used elsewhere.

A system that has tremendous fuel savings, on a per- passenger basis, compared to buses.

A system that reduces air pollution, compared to buses.

A system that provides ENORMOUS savings on snow clearing, compared to roads.

The O-Train kept running flawlessly, during last December's snowstorm that immobilized hundreds of buses.

The David Gladstone Memorial Pathway, between Bayview Station & the Ottawa River Parkway recreational path system, would have allowed people out for a stroll or bike ride, to see how close the O-Train comes to the Prince of Wales bridge. Of course, some people in the City don't want the public to know that a simple, low cost solution to cross river traffic congestion is immediately available.

The reason I call it the "David Gladstone Memorial Pathway", is that he will probably die of old age before it ever gets built. (pace, David!)

Capital Railway (the O-Train) now has the federally mandated authority to run a rail passenger service into Quebec, which would obviously involve using the Prince of Wales bridge.

Doing this would be the simplest, most cost effective solution to downtown traffic problems.

It would allow many Gatineau residents, who, for example, work at Confederation Heights to ditch their car, and take a much faster transit service to work.

It would allow many OC Transpo and STO buses to stay on their respective sides of the river.

This would reduce bus congestion in the downtowns of both Hull and Ottawa.

It would allow many of these buses to be redeployed in various Gatineau and Ottawa neighbourhoods, thus improving bus frequency, without having to buy any new buses.

Now the Mayor seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting what the diesel O-Train has accomplished, and is convinced that any future LRT has to be the expensive kind.

He has forgotten that the #1 reason you bring in light rail, is TO REDUCE THE COST OF OPERATING YOUR TRANSIT SYSTEM!

The #2 reason, is to give your riders a FASTER, MORE RELIABLE TRIP, if terms of travel time, and schedule adherence.

The new North South LRT extension, looping through Riverside South before entering Barrhaven from the south east, will, at enormous cost, provide passengers with a slower trip from Barrhaven to downtown, than the express buses on Woodroffe Avenue.

The plans for the East West light rail lines, with proposals to run it down busy city streets, rather than the existing, mostly grade separated rail corridors, show that the purpose of LRT, now, is to enhance the value of developers properties.

The two real reasons for LRT, above, have been thrown out the window.

There is no way that the proposed Light Rail system will provide a fast, reliable trip. Nor will it reduce the cost to the taxpayer of providing transit, if the vehicles, subsidized by the hour, are taking forever to get people where they're going.

I believe that it is time to put a halt to these LRT expansion plans, until after the election next fall. That would give the public and the planners time to get some sanity back into our transit system.

Tim Lane

Sat, 10 Jun 2006

Getting cable service from cybersurf/3web

I have a 3MB/s bridged ethernet DSL service from http://www.travel-net.com/. They are mostly a good company, with some minor connectivity issues. Specifically traffic to/from Rogers Cable can be slow, and they have not reconnected to http://www.ottix.net/ yet.

One of the partners of http://www.xelerance.com/ lives on the edge of town, and is lucky to have Rogers Cable. We have VPN tunnels, etc. and it would be nice if we could get more bandwidth between us. Our Oakville office now has a Cogeco cable as well as DSL, with the tunnels running over that connection, and it seems to work well. Trust the cable cable company to be connected to itself, right?

I abhore Rogers. I hate them. As soon as GSM phones get portable numbers (come ON CRTC. Get a clue on this. There is no competition in mobile phones until there is number portability.), then I leave Fido/Rogers. So, I'm not signing up for Rogers Cable. (We use Starchoice satellite TV).

I contacted cybersurf/3web, the Calgary company that purchased igs.net, cyberus.ca, and the customer list of istop.com. They have a way to offer cable internet service. This is partly because, I'm told, they have an investment from Sprint, who also invested in Rogers. Rogers has been in trouble with the CRTC for not permitting third parties to offer service over their wires. They have given lots of stupid pseudo-technical excuses, which the CRTC, in their ineptitude have accepted. Still, permitting 3web to sell service over their wires makes them appear more compliant.

I had an initial install date of May 9. A guy from Spectrum Cable arrived to install things at around 5:15pm. He soon realized that there was no cable to the house, no demark, and that Rogers had disconnected the cable back in 2001, up at the pole. He didn't feel like putting his ladder up on my side of the fence, and didn't feel like getting on the roof of my neighbour's shed without their permission (they weren't home), so he packed up and went.

I contacted 3web, arranged for another install date, got a letter from my neighbour giving permission to access the pole by climbing on the shed. The new install date was May 16. Nobody showed.

I contacted 3web again. Days passed. I tried phoning --- their phone system was in a major loop. Can't call them.

I noticed that my credit card had been billed already. A bit of a problem, given that I have no service yet.

I am now in email contact with "Shannon", HD agent 1200, and she can't seem to understand that I want to give them my money.