Avinash Meetoo: Blog

A few days ago, a student from the Faculty of Management of the University of Mauritius sent me an email with a list of questions on open-source software. She was going to participate in a debate competition but didn’t know a lot about OSS. She was going to support the motion that the Government of Mauritius should promote OSS. Naturally, I was keen to help.

I quickly replied to her (mostly mechanically) but today I realised that the questions and answers (even though imperfect and incomplete) would make a nice blog post. Here they are:

> The fact that the source code are available, is OSS insecure?

Linus’ Law states that “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone.”

This means that as the source code is publicly available, lots of people look at it and discover bugs (there are bugs in all software including open source software.) Better, as the bugs have been found, they are remedied rather quickly and, most of the time, by the same people who have found the bugs.

Compare this to proprietary software where only a few pairs of eyes can look at the source code and miss most of the bugs.

What do you mean by “professional bodies”? If you mean professionals, then you should understand that those reading the source code of open source software for fun ARE professionals (or else they won’t understand a thing.)

The only difference is that they don’t work for the company who had released the software.

Now, why would someone read the source code of a software if he/she is not being paid to do so? The only reasons I can think of are (i) for the fun of it and (ii) to make it better.

The argument can even be that those who are paid to write software generally do a worse job than those who do it for pleasure as money has never (and will never be) a strong enough motivation to do good.

Of course. Because of cost reduction, increase flexibility and increased reliability.

What is maintenance cost? Do you mean support?

I would say that supporting OSS requires people who are more knowledgeable (and, consequently, more expensive) because, simply said, OSS has more features and offers more flexibility.

Maintaining an airplane is more costly than maintaining a car but you need to do both as sometimes you really need the airplane

What do you mean?

CSS is not generally user-friendly. In fact, most software is not user-friendly as their user interaction (and not only user-interface) has been designed by programmers instead of interaction designers (read Alan Cooper’s, the father of Visual Basic, book for instance. It’s called The Inmates Are Running the Asylum)

So user-friendliness is a result of the user interaction having been designed by someone knowledgeable in that field. And you’ll find user-friendly software both in the CSS and OSS scene. And lots and lots of user-unfriendly software too.

No. Provided they have a brain and are open to new things. Those two should be essential pre-requisites for entering a university.

The general public already uses Firefox which is OSS. The reason why is that Firefox and OSS in general empowers people to do more complex things.

So I believe that this is the way to convince people to make the effort to learn a new tool (which a software basically is.) You have to tell them that they’ll become more powerful

Advantages: Cost-effective, Flexibility, Reliability, Great online community
Disadvantages: Higher-learning curve.

A few days later after having, hopefully, digested the answers, she asked me some additional questions. Here they are:

(1) Reliability: this is a direct consequence of the source code having been “audited” by thousands of people. Bugs are caught very quickly. And, more important, they are corrected very quickly too. Thereby an increase in reliability.

(2) Flexibility: this is a consequence of most OSS being done by people who think the UNIX-way. In the UNIX world, instead of building one tool which does everything (badly), people tend to build a multitude of small tools which individually are simple but which can be combined in a pipeline in multiple ways. Have a look at UNIX pipes for instance. Consequently, UNIX-derived operating systems like Linux are extremely flexible and, hence, powerful but only to those knowledgeable enough…

I don’t know for sure.

This is true for all software. Every year, a number of software are abandoned. In the commercial world, users are essentially doomed (as nothing can be done except migrating to another software.) In the OSS world, someone else (the end user himself maybe!) can continue development as the source code is available.

You just have to ask the programmers themselves! In the OSS world, they are readily accessible. And there are lots of websites that monitor this kind of thing (e.g. Sourceforge and Freshmeat)

In the OSS world, one can technically-speaking audit the whole source code because it is available for free. I don’t know how one can audit commercial software with closed source. So, in the commercial world, it’s actually impossible to say that one software does not infringe any intellectual property except if you believe the vendor (but that’s not auditing…) Read about the SCO debacle for more information.

That’s it. Nothing much.

A small update: I wrote an article on the Linux User Group of Mauritius website a few years ago. It was called 10 reasons why Linux is better than Windows for the Mauritian School IT Project. It is still relevant today.

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written by avinash

Everyone with half a brain want Barack Obama to become the President of the United States of America next week.

76 American Nobel Prize winners are convinced that

Senator Barack Obama is a visionary leader who can ensure the future of America’s traditional strengths in science and technology.

The New York Times editorialist writes:

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

The Economist also endorses Barack Obama:

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world.

The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence.

Even that bastion of capitalism, the Financial Times, wants Barack Obama to win:

A campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain’s has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

Nor should one disdain Mr Obama’s way with a crowd. Good presidents engage the country’s attention; great ones inspire. Mr McCain, on form, is an adequate speaker but no more. Mr Obama, on form, is as fine a political orator as the country has heard in decades.

The challenges facing the next president will be extraordinary. We hesitate to wish it on anyone, but we hope that Mr Obama gets the job.

Of course, there are still lots of people with less than half-a-brain in America and they can still theoretically tip the balance towards the Republicans.

Personally, I want Barack Obama to win for a very selfish reason. If he wins, he is bound to inspire countless of intelligent, honest and hard-working persons over the whole planet to get into politics in order to make the world better.

What I really want is for such Mauritians to get into local politics. Mauritius deserves more competent people.

Alé Barack!

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written by avinash

… but I can distinctly hear some Manchester United and Chelsea supporters condescendingly saying that this won’t last as they are the only ones to have the divine right to win the Premiership.

Winning the Premiership is easy:

• Your team must be among the top four (sorry…) and
• It must win most of its matches especially those against the three others (as each match is then a six-pointer.)

This year, Liverpool is playing very badly against weaker opposition (outside the top four) and is winning. But more interestingly, Liverpool is also playing much better than its closest opponents when facing them (for instance, the second half against Manchester United was close to perfection and yesterday’s match against Chelsea was a lesson in nullifying opposite attacking players.)

It seems that Rafael Benitez is reproducing what he did in Spain a few years ago with Valencia: build a team (and not 11 individuals) capable of winning against its closest opponents (and this included Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain.)

Whether he’ll manage to make Liverpool win the Premiership is another story as there are about 30 matches left. Personally, I’m confident as I know there is no such thing a divine right to win the Premiership. We all know Chelsea bought that “divine” right with Russian petrodollars. So there isn’t anything divine involved.

Simply said, the best team will win.

Rendez-vous around May.

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written by avinash

 

 

I have never ever seen a politician as intelligent and witty as Barack Obama. I think that, should he be elected as President of the USA in three weeks, ripple effects will be seen everywhere and the whole world will (have to) change.

Our Mauritian politicians look so stupid and dull in contrast.

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written by avinash

As you all know, Daylight Saving Time is being implemented in Mauritius as from this Sunday 26 October 2008 at 02:00. The exact rules are

# Rule  NAME    FROM    TO      TYPE    IN      ON      AT      SAVE    LETTER/S
Rule Mauritius  2008    max     -       Oct     lastSun 2:00s   1:00    S
Rule Mauritius  2009    max     -       Mar     lastSun 2:00s   0       -

(obtained from the timezone database as used in GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, DJGPP, AIX, Mac OS X, OpenVMS, Oracle Database, Solaris, Tru64, and UnixWare — everything important except Windows in fact. Read this if you’re still using that bizarre OS. Thanks to Swadesh Bucktowar of DCDM Consulting for that.)

The rules mean that:

• On the last Sunday of October 2008 (the 26th) at exactly 02:00, we will save 1 hour (i.e. Mauritius Time will become GMT+5)
• On the last Sunday of March 2009 (the 29th) at exactly 02:00, we will stop having the 1 hour saving (i.e. Mauritian Time will become GMT+4)
• and this will repeat every year thereafter.

In more geekish words, here is what will happen:

Sat Oct 25 21:59:59 2008 UTC = Sun Oct 26 01:59:59 2008 MUT isdst=0
Sat Oct 25 22:00:00 2008 UTC = Sun Oct 26 03:00:00 2008 MUST isdst=1
Sat Mar 28 20:59:59 2009 UTC = Sun Mar 29 01:59:59 2009 MUST isdst=1
Sat Mar 28 21:00:00 2009 UTC = Sun Mar 29 01:00:00 2009 MUT isdst=0

Updated GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, DJGPP, AIX, Mac OS X, OpenVMS, Oracle Database, Solaris, Tru64, and UnixWare systems will automatically change to the Mauritian Daylight Saving Time on Sunday 26 October.

The important word here is updated. If your system has not been updated for ages, then don’t expect the time to change by itself. You’ll have to do it manually.

I can confirm as of today 17 October 2008 that the following fully updated Linux distributions will switch to Mauritian Daylight Saving Time correctly and automatically:

• Ubuntu 8.04 and derivatives like Kubuntu => use tzdata_2008h => OK.
• Ubuntu 7.10 and derivatives like Kubuntu => use tzdata_2008h => OK.
• Ubuntu 7.04 and derivatives like Kubuntu => use tzdata_2008h => OK.
• Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 Client or Server => use tzdata-2008f => OK.

On the other hand, the following Linux distributions use an old version of tzdata which knows nothing of the Mauritian’s Government decision and the date and time will have to be adjusted manually (or, better, by replacing the old timezone database by a more recent one):

• Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 => uses tzdata-2004e => BAD
• Redhat Enterprise Linux 3 => uses tzdata-2003c => BAD
• Redhat Enterprise Linux 2 AS => uses glibc-2.2.4 => BAD

(I’ve not checked for other distributions. Can someone please tell me about SuSE as I know this distribution is being used by some corporate users here?)

An important caveat

[Thank to David Marjolin for his important observation that the following won't be an issue this Sunday but will surely pose a problem in March 2009]

It’s nice to know that the time will automatically change on Sunday but what about transactions occurring at that time? For example, let’s say someone uses an ATM at 01:59:58 on Sunday and this is normally what should have happened (let’s assume that this is done in one transaction containing two SQL statements with a 4 seconds time interval between them):

01:59:58 => First SQL statement
02:00:02 => Second SQL statement

But now, with this Daylight Saving Time thing, this is what will happen:

01:59:58 => First SQL statement
03:00:02 => Second SQL statement

Hardly problematic. But what about March 2009? The same transaction will occur thus:

01:59:58 => First SQL statement
01:00:02 => Second SQL statement

We’ll go back in time!

Will this work? Well, one can argue that systems developed in the US or in Europe surely take this in account (by recording everything using GMT maybe.) But what about systems developed in Mauritius where this eventuality was not thought of? Maybe we’ll have to modify them. Or maybe the best thing to do, as pointed out by Swadesh when I talked to him today, is simply to disallow all transactions from 01:59:00 to the new 02:00:00 (i.e. for one hour) if this is possible, of course.

What do you think?

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written by avinash