[LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities

[Maddog]

All that is fine but you missed one thing. On the mainland you have 
competition, this is Hawaii, home of the monopoly and groups that act as a 
monopoly.

I have been dealing with that for going on 10 years now. I only wish we 
would come out of our third world attitude and join the rest of the mainland 
in a truly free economy.

As far as the politicians, they "own" everything. Did you see the news this 
morning? Cal Kawamoto, the traffic cam senator, under investigation by the 
FBI and IRS. Nothing happens in this town unless you "know" (read $$$) 
someone.

Beer? I'd love too. I can tell you some stories about this place too. I 
don't know much about the Hotel ownershuip structure but I know plenty about 
the commercial real estate industry.

MD
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Thompson" <jim at netgate.com>
To: "LUAU" <luau at lists.hosef.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities


>
> On Jun 6, 2006, at 7:43 PM, Maddog wrote:
>
>>> And it will change.   I've been doing hotel WiFi in various  guises 
>>> since 1998.   Wayport had over 1,000 hotels when I left.    It will 
>>> change in Hawaii slower than elsewhere because there is  no business 
>>> requirement driving the hotels here.  Hawaii is a  resort  destination. 
>>> People come here to play.  That said, even  Disney's  hotels are going 
>>> free wireless.
>>
>> Good point.
>>
>> I would love to see it change here I just don't see the hotels  driving 
>> it. They are too bent on making a dollar off of it.
>
> Buy me beer sometime, and I'll tell you the tales.  Things like the  VP of 
> Marketing for Wyndham wanting to invent a way
> to project ads on the surface of water in your toilet bowl.   (My 
> response, "You want a heads-down display?" didn't win me any friends  that 
> day.)  Same guy wanted to charge a percentage of the contents  protected 
> by the in-room safe.
>
>> Maybe that's why we are the priciest resort destination. Anyway,  change 
>> will be slower than you or I ever imagined here IMHO.
>
> Actually, I'd bet that the first real downturn will bring a scad of  "free 
> wifi" from the hotels as they panic, especially in the lower- end chains. 
> The primary metric for hotel management is REVPAR,  (REVenue Per Available 
> Room), and the primary inputs to REVPAR are  occupancy and the rack rate. 
> As soon as a lack of Internet services  (and most people would rather 
> connect via WiFi) is perceived by hotel  management as a primary (or even 
> secondary) cause for a drop in  occupancy or having to discount the rack 
> rate (in order to fill the  rooms), it will be installed, and it will be 
> free-to-guest.   I saw  this happen first in the extended stay space, 
> where the guests would  preferentially book rooms where they had a T1 
> connected to in-room  Ethernet, and then would stay where it was "free to 
> guest" (bundled  into the price of the room).
>
> Then Wyndham started giving away IP networking if you were part of  their 
> affinity program in an effort to attract folks away from  Marriot and 
> Starwood.  It worked, so Marriot went free-to-guest in  those segments 
> where they had to compete (Courtyard, Residence Inn,  Spring Hill Suites, 
> Fairfield Inn and Towne Place Suites).  Wingate  and other chains followed 
> suit.  Hilton turned up their "Garden Inn"  chain (as free to guest). 
> Then LaQuinta (who had been refusing to  even pay attention to offering 
> Internet access) went and installed in  every hotel (chain-wide) and 
> turned it all on ... for free.   Why?   Because their hand was forced.
>
> Yes, you still pay in the higher-end brands, but most of the people  who 
> stay in these hotels aren't the kind who live-and-die by access  to their 
> email/Exchange and back-end (VPN-protected) applications.
>
> And, oh, btw, I managed to keep all of Wayport's airport  installations 
> (some of which cost nearly $500,000 to install) as  'free' for the longest 
> time.   It was easier to treat it as a  marketing expense than to make the 
> changes to the billing system to  accommodate how the airport authorities 
> wanted to 'split' the meager  fees.   And yes, we could see real results 
> in folks who used the  (free) WiFi at the airport in-turn preferentially 
> staying at Wayport  hotels.   Then we got the new Neanderthal CEO who 
> insisted that the  world would not "go free" or "go 802.11" (despite clear 
> evidence to  the contrary) and the rest is history.    His "big deal" now 
> is WiFi  in McDonalds, and that deal has several provisions which allow 
> McDonalds to turn it on 'for free' when they so desire.
>
>> I'd love to see a free model that could make it here, I guess I am  just 
>> too skeptical or cynical or something like that. Besides even  if the 
>> hotels come around, you have the politicians to deal with!
>
> The politicians don't own the hotels, so they have little say.
>
> Part of what makes dealing with hotels complex is that you have  several 
> parties to deal with.  You have people who own hotels  (REITs), people who 
> manage hotels (Benchmark, Interstate, Outrigger,  WestCoast), people who 
> brand hotels (Hilton, Marriott) and people who  build hotels.   Sometimes 
> one party will fill more than one role.   You've also got they guys in the 
> back-rooms of the REITs who are  literally playing "Monopoly" flipping 
> hotels in and out of the  portfolio.
>
> Moreover, it costs money to be able to charge money.   Shall I wax 
> eloquent about PMS interfaces, credit card charge-backs, and the size  of 
> the customer support department you need to be able to deal with  several 
> thousand locations?  Want to know how small those (and other)  issues get 
> when you >don't charge<?
>
> And yes, hotel managers are a capricious bunch.
>
> Just to keep the linux content 'up', Wayport used an on-property  (custom 
> debian distro) linux machine (we called it a 'nmd') at every  location, 
> and still does.   You put 1,000 PeeCees in the world in  wildly dispersed 
> locations, with every one responsible for carrying  money back to the 
> mothership and see how you start to look at the  problem.
>
> Then start to deal with 40 or more Windows boxes that you've *never  seen 
> before* attached to the hotel network every night, all with  their own 
> unique collection of spyware and viruses, and some of whom  are piloted by 
> ... well, lets just call them 'bad actors' who are out  to damage the 
> network, send spam, or download things that are  prohibited, which result 
> in subpoenas from various law enforcement  agencies (up to and including 
> the FBI).   (*)
>
> It turns out that having the source code, and being able to make  changes 
> to it (fixing bugs, changing behavior, etc), and then  distribute these 
> changes easily (and at no charge) is a "Good  Thing" (tm).
>
> Jim
>
> (*) Back to the subject, if you don't bill, you don't have to keep  the 
> information around to justify the billing, and, as a result, the  FBI (and 
> other LEAs) know to just not bother to ask.
>
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