[LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities

Wed Jun 7 18:01:18 PDT 2006

I coach baseball and am involved for another couple weeks. Sheesh, I didn't 
sign up for 5-6 days a week for little league (6-8 yr. olds). It's crazy how 
time consuming (or vacation time consuming) coaching little kids can be. 
Sheesh, and the coaches that just want to win the minor B championship. 
There ought to be a law! I don't think a lot of those poor kids will 
continue next year.

I'd love to find a way to crack the old boy network here and move into the 
21st Century while it's still young! Trouble is, bandwidth here is double 
what you pay on the mainland (real bandwidth), and equipment costs and taxes 
will kill you. Maybe not you, but I am not really sure what your 
relationship is with Wayport ... I'd be interested in hearing some of your 
war stories though.

As far as the "we're different" thing, it is totally irksome, but I guess 
after fighting it for so long you learn to live with it. It really is like 
living in a third world country at times.

MD
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Thompson" <jim at netgate.com>
To: "LUAU" <luau at lists.hosef.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 8:36 AM
Subject: Re: [LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities

>
> On Jun 7, 2006, at 6:05 AM, Maddog wrote:
>
>> 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've only been here 2 years, but I still find this "its different  here, 
> give up" thing irksome.
>
>> 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.
>
> Similar things happen on the mainland.
>
>> 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.
>
> Kawamoto has been in trouble before.  Rod Haraga is in-trouble too,  but 
> then, the current national administration is looting the treasury  and I 
> don't hear many complaining about >that<, either.
>
>> 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.
>
> I'm 'free' starting Friday for about two weeks (though I've got a  quick 
> back-n-forth trip to LA in there.)
>
>>
>> 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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