wikipedia is also blocked
Faisal Chohan
also blocked completely.
Additionally, these service providers have adopted the same approach
as they blocked youtube last time.
Practically, they have crippled most of the internet access now. dead
slow or not opening at all.
Faisal
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Adnan
Faried Nawaz
Faisal Chohan
Also the indexed links on the Google are opening fine.
The current state is bizarre. We do not know how to filter the content, and keep the useful things running. The people from IT industry should take a lead in this situation.
Thanks
Faisal
_dm+
_dm+
+92-321-3264747
http://digitalogics.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/danish.mustafa
Engineer - IT Network Infrastructure and Security
Augere Pakistan
Shariq Khan
Amar
Faried Nawaz
> Try changing your DNS to Google Open DNS (IP 8.8.8.8). Worked for me. Some
> DNS Servers are not resolving wikipedia.org to correct IP address - although
> this is a very bad idea of blocking a website.
in and blocks access. Blocking the DNS servers is how Facebook is
currently inaccessible for me (my nameserver sends queries, but
receives no replies).
Rehan Allah Wala
Shahid Hussain
According to my point of view the decision of the Govt. to ban these websites in Pakistan was absolutely right, Because we are Muslims and we should condemn the stupidities of our enemies (Enemies of Islam), We should be ready to lose everything, even our lives in the name Our Beloved PROPHET MUHAMMAD (S.A.A.W). Can't we stop using three websites?
You said that Pakistan has the best IT infrastructure and at the same time you are saying that we will loose so much due to BAN on WIKIPEDIA, YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK, Do you feel that the IT development in Pakistan is only dependent on these three websites?
If Pakistan has best IT infrastructure and if we are so much technical in IT then why do we need to rely on these websites which are made by the enemies of Islam, Why don’t people like you take the initiative and make the websites like these which should be used by the people all over the world as a source of Knowledge.
Third thing there are more than 20 Billion websites in this world and life and IT development in Pakistan will never STOP after BAN on these three websites, If someone really want to work and get some information he can get it from at least any one website out of 20 Billion.
Business of few companies or few people might have hurt due to this ban. But I am sure that now people waste less time in offices by using face book and YouTube and their productivity must have increased.
Thanks & Regards,
Shahid Hussain.
From: re...@supertec.com
To: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com
Date: Sun, 30 May 2010 19:55:19 -0700
Subject: Claim to Fame of Pakistan
CC: pasha...@yahoogroups.com
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Hassan Shabbir
It is not as bad as we think it is.
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Find me,
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Aftab Siddiqui
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bmug...@gmail.com
I believe this will garner more audiences than Lost season 6.
--
Fawad Niazi
Faried Nawaz
> We are hearing "loss" to facebook as well as Pakistan...Can anybody
> share the figures of "loss" to Pakistan?
How likely are you to outsource development of your Facebook application
to a company in Pakistan?
Faried.
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(> (length "eclipse") (length "emacs")) => T
Ghulam Mustafa
and tunnels to get access then how come a technical resource can't
access via vpn?
Regards,
-m
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Sheikh Usman N.
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"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight with you, then you win"
-Gandhi
Ghulam Mustafa
sure, if anyone here can come up with figures of "loss" to Pakistan,
or at-least guess few of losses due to FB ban?
Regards,
-m
--
Adnan Zafar Khawaja
It was never a permanent boycott and the purpose of banning the whole site and not just the particular link was to register a protest. However, those of us who feel compelled to opt out of using FB for ever are free to do so. I respect their feelings.
Those who want to use FB to effectively voice their concerns to the world after the ban has been lifted, I respect their feelings too. But I really feel disappointed when people even after so much debate still don't understand why it was important to register to the world that we don't appreciate others flaunting our religious sentiments, even when it also violates FB's stated policy of respecting sentiments of all communities.
The ban got noticed but because so many of our own were happily reporting how they could circumvent the ban or were equating it with some sort of Tsunami of their own imagination, or were busy suggesting other alternatives of protest without realizing how that would also turn into a waste of effort, FB reported the ban as not being backed by the people of the country thus undermining the cause.
This makes me feel LOST as to find that most of us are LOST for a cause or a purpose to achieve anything as a nation like having our disdain noticed when our Islamic sentiments are hurt.
It's a pity we wasted a good opportunity. However, now that FB is back let's make use of this forum to become united and act in coherence if needed once again.
Thanks,
Adnan
Faried Nawaz
> We truly are lost... can't even unite behind a time bound - almost harmless
> - protest effectively, fearing God knows what and mocking at it as if we
> were given birth in the pits of low self-esteem.
What kind of protest is it, to turn away and silence your own voice --
especially when you're a minority (~ 0.5%).
Faried Nawaz
> Developers always get a way around, if normal users can use proxies
> and tunnels to get access then how come a technical resource can't
> access via vpn?
So, you don't have a problem with outsourcing to developers who can't
legally access Facebook? You'd prefer it to outsourcing to developers
who face no such hurdle? No business qualms here?
Wasim Baig
Ghulam Mustafa <mustafa.pk@gmail.com> writes:
> Developers always get a way around, if normal users can use proxies
> and tunnels to get access then how come a technical resource can't
> access via vpn?
So, you don't have a problem with outsourcing to developers who can't
legally access Facebook? You'd prefer it to outsourcing to developers
who face no such hurdle? No business qualms here?
wasim h. baig | principal consultant | convergence pk | +92 30 0850 8070 | peace be upon you ...
Sheikh Usman N.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight with you, then you win"
-Gandhi
Sheikh Usman N.
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-Gandhi
Ghulam Mustafa
anything then it's illegal even if you are accessing it for
development purposes.
On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Wasim Baig <wa...@convergence.pk> wrote:
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 18:23, Faried Nawaz <not...@b.org.pk> wrote:
>>
>> Ghulam Mustafa <musta...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > Developers always get a way around, if normal users can use proxies
>> > and tunnels to get access then how come a technical resource can't
>> > access via vpn?
>>
>> So, you don't have a problem with outsourcing to developers who can't
>> legally access Facebook? You'd prefer it to outsourcing to developers
>> who face no such hurdle? No business qualms here?
>
> Not to mention "illegally" accessing Facebook through VPNs or proxies opens
> you up to contempt of court and liable to land you in jail ......
> --
> wasim h. baig | principal consultant | convergence pk | +92 30 0850 8070 |
> peace be upon you ...
>
Fawad Niazi
mail: mustafa.pk@gmail.com
web: cyrenity.wordpress.com
misbaha...@googlemail.com
> see how it makes a good business case to depend so much on Facebook to earn
> money. Seems stupid to me.
I have been watching the work & direction of Pakistani IT industry &
really its on the wrong track.
A better & stronger business case will be to make 'softwares' for the
technical industry, pursuing those software tools which have huge ROI.
Make software tools for telecom, make software tools for Mechanical
industry, make simulation tools for Civil engineer, make software
tools that help diagnose a patient. Make software tools that challenge
the power of Matlab. Make ERP solutions that challenge Oracle. Oracle,
TEMS, Matlab all are designed by human beings.
Stop making those 'cheapo' open source applications for facebook/linux/
Google etc, its not worth the effort. You get penny for the huge
effort. Facebook & Google are using your brains to enrich themselves.
Make products, not projects.
Being an optimization consultant, I really hate 'misdirected energy &
efforts'. Focus energy on high revenue tools.
Ok, let me set the motivation. Check this calculation.
In Pakistan, there are around 10 AFP (Automatic Frequency Planning)
Tool license. Each license costs 60,000 US$. The license is only valid
for a year, after that renewal needs to be done. The existing tools
admit a lot of area for improvement.
Now, if any team of Pakistani engineer who prepares a software may be
30% better than this, they can own a beautiful house in Clifton & a
BMW.
& mind you plz, the people who are selling this AFP tool are not
making it FOSS. They are not crazy. An open source is a commodity. Its
the most difficult business to run.Joel Spolsky says that people
render their code at Sourceforge simply because they cant sell it. A
good software will always sell at a reasonable price. Opensource is
only for prototypes. Aircom, Actix,Ericsson they dont even tell the
underlying algorithm & assumptions they made to come upon those
results. & still it sells for 60,000 US$ each!
I had to mention my hatred towards the FOSS again because, I have been
closely monitoring the 'ideas' filed for ICT RnD Fund. The ideas serve
nothing to the telecom industry of Pakistan, & since its the telecom
companies who are paying for this ICT RnD Fund, I must protest on
thier behalf. The ideas filed donot fulfill the ICT RnD 'basic
criteria' at all. I still remember the talk of CEO of ICT RnD with
Jehan Ara (shown at cokestudio) & he did a wonderful job by mentioning
that the purpose of ICT RnD Fund was to develop a culture of
generating wealth using knowledge. But the ideas filed are worthless
as far as commercial aspect is concerned. No one even in local telecom
will ever buy those. All the money leeched by the Islamabad based
institutes is being misused. Yes, when they have 'nothing' to show as
a benefit to the telecom industry, they say 'we will make it open
source'. That's ridiculous. Its not worth the huge money their
university took for the project. The output serves nothing to the
telecom industry of pakistan.
Aamir did a nice work by mentioning in Propakistani that there is
'not a single project from the telecom industry of Pakistan' filed in
the ICT Rnd Project. But let me tell you the reason too. This is
because, when the proposal is sent to them, they took as many as 8
months just for review & they still want the 'good ideas' to be open
sourced at the end of the project. Will the telecom guys ever want
their hard work to be made open source????? Especially when they know
that making it open source will benefit the big guns, Aircom, Actix,
Ericsson, & also because opening its code means compromising 100 times
more money than what ICT RnD gives in the form of 'grants'.
On May 31, 6:13 pm, "Sheikh Usman N." <usman.nad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Adnan,
>
> In this country, we've now a new breed of intellectuals developed in the
> past 10 years who are blind to the flip side realities of free media. Its
> unfortunate that people cannot understand it, and they put business
> interests before any sort of 'principles'. I think if we look at the online
> polls, generally public has welcomed the ban. Facebook is not contributing
> anything value-added to the internet users in our country anyway. Protest
> against ban on facebook tells us that we're creatures of habit.
>
> Someone raised a point here about Facebook application development, and the
> loss due to it to local IT industry. I don't think it has dented to a very
> big extent because of proxies, VPNs and everything. But still if a good
> percentage of our IT industry has gotten hurt because of this, then it means
> there's something wrong in the sense of direction in our industry. I don't
> see how it makes a good business case to depend so much on Facebook to earn
> money. Seems stupid to me.
>
> Best Regards,
> Sheikh Usman.
>
> >>> Don't Remember Me ? Visithttp://www.Rehan.com<http://www.rehan.com/>
> >>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >>> "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then
> >>> you win."
> >>> By Gandhi.
>
Nadir Nasir
I am amazed how almost everyone forgets about the fact that in all this Facebook is a TOOL. FACEBOOK DID NOT make this event all it did was the hypocritical statement about not removing the contents. Kindly do a little research on the facts on who started this event and how it was executed before we start to debate about Facebook on TGP.
If a knife is used to cut mangoes for kids then it can also be used to cut kids. It does not mean that the knife is evil... IT IS A TOOL and a tool can be used for good and bad both.
As far as the ban is concerned the govt did right to listen to a short sighted and rather hasty nation who demand a ban of a tool without proper knowledge of facts. Because if they didn't, people would come on streets and protest burn tyres and buses etc, a strike of a day or two has more loss than a stupid boycott of a website.
I can not seem to understand that how does blocking Facebook and other sites prove any point and or harm the person (Molly Norris) or anyone who made the art? Besides just one point that we Pakistani's do speak up... I believe that this is not even the right, as we have come up with a stupid and childish image of making emotional / hasty decisions.
I ask these three root questions to everyone because if you see, the owner of this event and the ones who actually conducted the event are not talked about and the artwork is still there.
1. What is the sharaii punishment for blasphemy? Is Molly Norris and or the people who participated, prosecuted already?
2. Have you tried to destroy or erase the artwork yourself with your own hands?
3. If the answer of the above two questions are "No" then what are we doing and what we should be doing?
Note that the lady who started to event hosted her website on a dot com domain, if boycott and ban is the answer we should be boycotting ICANN who registered the domain name, hence blocking the ENTIRE INTERNET. But who is to reach ICANN. I believe we are cowards and can't do anything, so we try to make target the easiest and most popular thing in our approach. I call this "Gham ghalat kar rahay hein"
I am not speaking for facebook or any other website. I am speaking for the benefit of this country and trying to point out the face that our decisions are illiterate and I personally feel that on a collective scale we all sound something like a "tribe" in zamana-e-jahiliyat.
On 31 May 2010 21:21, "Ghulam Mustafa" <mustafa.pk@gmail.com> wrote:
this is what exactly i was typing right now :), when court has banned
anything then it's illegal even if you are accessing it for
development purposes.
On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Wasim Baig <wa...@convergence.pk> wrote:
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at...
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cK
measurement, signaling monitoring & many other tools, things that
eventually cost operators millions of dollars on yearly basis, as for
the ICT R&D fund, the projects it funds are way out of scope for the
2G networks we have, 3 of my friends were eventually hired in 2 such
projects & all they do is play CS or DOTA on branded laptops all day
long, among some traces of "research"
On Jun 1, 12:34 pm, "misbahabdul...@googlemail.com"
> > >> We have lost our textile industry to policy
>
> > >> We have lost our industry to Electricity
>
> > >> I hope we will not loose our sanity, May this BAN Be taken away soon,
> > >> unless we are wanting to be known as people who had everything, but lost."
>
> > >> I believe this will garner more audiences than Lost season 6.
>
> > >> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Rehan Allah Wala <re...@supertec.com>wrote:
>
> > >>> They say when Changez Khan Attacked a country in old ages, The first
> > >>> thing he was doing was burning the LIBRARIRES.
>
> > >>> Thus Taking away the KNOWLEDGE away from the people.
>
> > >>> The IT Sector was the only sector is one of our claim to faim of
> > >>> Pakistan, with the cheapest long distance, cheapest broadband, most easy and
> > >>> effective qos, great quality of work from IT companies.
>
> > >>> I think we will NOT be able to keep this CLAIM TO FAIM For long, as
> > >>> someone is attacking our source of knowledge.
>
> > >>> Youtube.com - The ULTIMATE Source of Total Shared Knowledge out there.
>
> > >>> Wikipedia - The Knowledge of all there is today.
>
> > >>> Facebook - The power to collaborate and share knowledge with people what
> > >>> is out there, and where we create and get inspired future knowledge.
>
> > >>> We have lost our textile industry to policy
>
> > >>> We have lost our industry to Electricity
>
> > >>> I hope we will not loose our sanity, May this BAN Be taken away soon,
> > >>> unless we are wanting to be known as people who had everything, but lost.
>
> > >>> Pakistan has one of the BEST IT Infrastructures in the world, let's not
> > >>> let it go to waste, over the incomplete knowledge of the tools and source of
> > >>> our knowledge.
>
> > >>> Let's use our hands to stop the evil, if we cant, lets write about it, if
> > >>> we can not do that also, at least think of it as wrong.
>
> > >>> God Bless Pakistan, God Bless Humans
>
> > >>> Rehan
>
> > >>> Rehan Ahmed AllahWala
> > >>> President & CEO - Super Technologies Inc.
>
>
> > >>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >>> "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then
> > >>> you win."
> > >>> By Gandhi.
>
> > >>> What is didx ?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIgGTGkTZns
>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Manage your subscription:
> > >>>http://groups.google.com/group/telecom-grid-pakistan
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>
> > >> --
> > >> Manage your subscription:
> > >>http://groups.google.com/group/telecom-grid-pakistan
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>
> > > --
> > > Manage your
>
>
> read more »
Jamal Shamsi
Hello
Am looking for a field strength meter aka RF meter - in Karachi market,
anyone please guide me with a model, avlblty, approx price, and source to
purchase from
Thank you
Jamal
Fouad Bajwa
happens across the ICT public sector. One core deficiency of our
nation is the lack of coordinated efforts.
Transparency International's recent interference in to the Ministry of
IT activities is an example of how bad the situation is. Certain
tenders that were publicly advertised have also been questioned
including the procurement and transparency procedures in place in its
various sub-organizations.
The state of our nation is virtue of the state of its people so there
actually isn't anyone to blame other than us. IF we had kept an eye
together and attempted to question fund allocations, none of this
would have been happening in the first place.
We are on the tip of the blade and its very sharp and slippery and I
don't see much happening in the short-term!
--
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
Internet Governance Advisor
ICT4D Social Practitioner & Researcher
Member Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF)
Member Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC)
My Blog: Internet's Governance: http://internetsgovernance.blogspot.com/
Follow my Tweets: http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa
MAG Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATVDW1tDZzA
Adnan Zafar Khawaja
Thanks,
Adnan
Majid Farid
I feel the circle starts a bit earlier. Pakistani students are more
pressed for a career due to family and financial situation then our
western counterpart where a kid is on his own after 18 years. Having
said that I have come across some excellent resources across Pakistan.
The innovation and entrepreneurship is based on a stable economy of
the country. A standard student whose parents have already spend
couple of lakhs on the education will not be able to sustain him for
another few year hoping is makes a technological breakthrough.
At the same time I think PTA has failed to ensure that operators
encourage innovations. Simple things that could not only save money
but give our younger graduates ideas to go beyond the typical
boundaries.
Our educational system isn't designed to provoke the entrepreneurial
ambitions in our students. Our universities lack quality research work
which in turns makes our student not think out of box. I am writing
this in general.
If today a gradute reading Misbah's email wants to develop a frequency
tool he wouldn't have the support from the VC to fund him for such a
project. He wouldn't have a mentor that he can go who can guide him as
to how to create the business case and approach different people. In
brief we are missing a TiE kind of organization.
I do understand that now things are changes but we are already way
back in this area. We have enormous talent in Pakistan what we have
failed to do over and over is to channel it in a correct way.
Mentorship + VC + Local Market support (if applicable the product/
service).
Call center is prime example. I know couple of young lads that have
develop dialer far more superior than the COTS on available today. Its
about creating that opportunity
I have worked extensively with Indian companies like Wipro and HCL
they aren't different then us. They grew through the local markets who
supported them initially and now they are where they are.
My two cents.
On Jun 3, 11:53 am, Adnan Zafar Khawaja <adnan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Excellent analysis and sound arguments from Misbah. Can we have a website or
> a page on facebook/ Paki.com highlighting initiatives that the telecom
> community can take in this direction. Let's all post ideas and information
> abt business potential all these ideas.
>
> Thanks,
> Adnan
>
>
>
> read more »
Fawad Niazi
Muhammed Nasrullah
In regards to the points made by Misbah:
- I completely agree that software should be made for the local technical industry. You've also looked down upon Facebook, Linux and Google API developers as being pathetic. My question is, have you ever developed for the local industry? I have. It is very frustrating. It is very expensive. It is a shot in the dark. The telecom companies are especially notorious. They will want the whole thing working, at telecom grade, ask for more changes and then say no to you. That doesn't mean we stop developing for them, it just means that freshgrads or developers have no chance with either the operators or the prime vendors/contracters. However, if they start small, they can gain enough experience, knowledge and expertise to grow to a level where they can serve larger telecom clients. And that small, baby-steps experience comes from low-hanging fruit available via small Facebook, Linux and Google API projects. You might not be an actual entrepreneur in Pakistan, but please show some empathy for struggling software developers.
- Just because the ICT Fund is plundering the fund, does not mean FOSS is at fault. Just as Muslims who make bad followers of Islam doesn't make Islam a bad religion. OpenSource is the backbone of the modern web ecosystem. It saves you time, money and stops you from reinventing many wheels. If there was no OpenSource, there would be no facebook, no flickr, no nothing. If you take away FOSS, I guarantee you will shut down 80% of local
software industry. The mindset which goes behind the creation of FOSS is that of passion, workmanship, love of the art and scratching your itch. It would be naive to disregard FOSS in the manner done so here.
WS
-Nash
Majid Farid
will not sign a NDA about your idea.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/05/why-vcs-wont-sign-your-nda.php
I was working for IT incubator in Pakistan back 2001. We were pretty
much ahead of our time with regards to Pakistani market. Tried all the
major insitutes for a suitable million/billion dollar idea but weren't
able to get anything beyound software house, remote support etc and
closed down operations within an year of launch. I will upload a
presentation from that time on the TGP. Its bit old but still remains
valid/
Although we tied up with a legal company in Pakistan to develop
framework for an NDA for any potential entrepreneur it was still very
much legally possible to twist and turn the idea if VC wanted to do
that. Exactly why you need mentors from the industry to come and help
you from real life experience of startups.
/Majid
On Jun 4, 2:37 pm, Fawad Niazi <niazi.fa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @Majid...yes! all points are valid...but you in my opinion whats the missing
> A student who is imaginative and learned a lot, feels that he has great idea
> (Example is one thread on Telecom Grid when a person aclaimed that he has an
> excellent idea and was afraid to disclose) may speak to them. Ideas may be
> refined with the help of them or recommended to VC or ICT R&D Fund for
> further working in the name of the student.
>
> Unless untill we honour the genuine thinkers, we may not succeed. Idea in
> mind has no worth unless someone is there to protect and develop it into
> reality.
>
> My one cent
>
>
> read more »
misbaha...@googlemail.com
As far as FOSS is concerned, I will request you to go through the
comments of Eric Sink & Joel Spolsky on FOSS. I dont intend to
rephrase them, & I strongly insist that the only viable model for
Pakistani guys is what Eric Sink has set in the form of 'Micro ISV'.
No other model including FOSS will ever allow the Pakistani's to buy
BMW & live in Clifton.
You said, shut down 80% of local industry, I am willing to suggest to
shutdown the complete local software industry if it relies on FOSS.
FOSS is a crap created by hardware vendors to keep a check on software
prices, so that more & more hardware sells. Why cant I have a 'Free &
Open source Hardware'? Whats so holy about Apple that I cant open it
to change its battery? I am astonished that those who advocate FOSS
are those who never advocate lowering prices of Hardware products? Why
a laptop should sell at Rs 60,000 although there is nothing secret in
its technology anymore? Also plz mind that 'understanding a code
written by someone else' is times more difficult than writing your own
code. Its a myth that if I open the code, I am doing a huge service to
humanity. I simply dont have the SalesTeam it takes to sell a software
at a price competitve with closed codes.
Secondly, have you read the story of 'Ace Telecom'? Have you read the
success stories of Xceed Technologies? Have you ever met the
successful sales person Ali Jafri & Arif Rizvi? Unfortunately, I am
pressed for time, but let me skim through the matter.
1. Sales is a different stuff than developing a tool. If your tool was
solving a 'big problem' of some rich person or a vertical industry &
still you failed to sell it, IMHO the fault lies in your sales
team.... How much profit did you promise to share with your sales
team, for every license sold? Dont tell a lie plz.....
If developing a tool wasnt expensive, I would have been writing all
this in first place :)
2. Ace Telecom was/is not a software company. Its a managed Services
company that grabbed alot of projects of NSN worldwide>>>>> You can
win projects if you really have something good to sell. I am giving
Ace example because its a Paki company & their product 'Managed
Services' was not something 'unique'. Still they managed to win
projects. The reason they lost most of them also had nothing to do
with being a Paki company. They 'abused' their resources, good men
left them & thus Ace lost the contracts. I am cutting short a long
story.
3. What, you tried to sell to the telecom companies 'without the whole
thing working'???? Were you trying to sell Beta? or worse, Alpha?
Pardon me, even only if your User Interface werent sexy, forget to
sell anything. You should be expecting to get US$60,000 for a tool
'not completely working.
Finally, I insist, if anyone's product, software or hardware, is
solving 'a big problem' of anyone who can pay, it will indeed see
sales. Just do the basics right. Make it easy to use, give a month's
free trail, make the product bug free, make your Customer Services
superb, dont hire a lady for your marketing team (unless she uses her
brain to market) & finally, dont sell below market price. That's it.
Never sell something with bugs, never try to sell Beta, be prepared to
give huge money to your Sales team, may be 40% of net profit. Treat
you developing team with extreme respect, give them best working
environments, hire the best people without any biase on gender,
religion etc.
Assalamoalekum,
MisbahUddin Abdullah
On Jun 5, 12:39 am, Muhammed Nasrullah <nasrul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> AoA,
>
> In regards to the points made by Misbah:
>
> API developers as being pathetic. My question is, have you ever developed
> for the local industry? I have. It is very frustrating. It is very
> expensive. It is a shot in the dark. The telecom companies are especially
> notorious. They will want the whole thing working, at telecom grade, ask for
> more changes and then say no to you. That doesn't mean we stop developing
> for them, it just means that freshgrads or developers have no chance with
> either the operators or the prime vendors/contracters. However, if they
> start small, they can gain enough experience, knowledge and expertise to
> grow to a level where they can serve larger telecom clients. And that small,
> baby-steps experience comes from low-hanging fruit available via small
> Facebook, Linux and Google API projects. You might not be an actual
> entrepreneur in Pakistan, but please show some empathy for struggling
> software developers.
>
> Islam a bad religion. OpenSource is the backbone of the modern web
> ecosystem. It saves you time, money and stops you from reinventing many
> wheels. If there was no OpenSource, there would be no facebook, no flickr,
> no nothing. If you take away FOSS, I guarantee you will shut down 80% of
> local software industry. The mindset which goes behind the creation of FOSS
> is that of passion, workmanship, love of the art and scratching your itch.
> It would be naive to disregard FOSS in the manner done so here.
>
> Certainly, we should dream big, we should aim high; but in order to get
> there, new developers need to take small projects and then do big ones. And
> they can do more by standing on top of FOSS
>
> WS
> -Nash
>
>
> read more »
Ashiq Anjum
Hi Misbah,
I should appreciate your enthusiasm for a controlled software license regime but I can not agree with you
about your views on open source software. "FOSS is a crap created by hardware vendors" does not carry
enough substance and needs to be corrected.
I managed to find an inspiring talk from Richard Stallman that he delivered in Geneva in 2007.
Stallman left his professorial position at MIT and started the Free Software movement. I was
fortunate to be in the audience and you can scroll down the page to open the video
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1038707
Money may not be the only motive to produce some interesting and novel software. Some brilliant
ideas are never submitted for a patent and are released as open source. Most funding agencies are now
making it compulsory to release the software as open source. The public money should go for the public
benefit. The EGEE project consumed almost 100 Million Euros and the whole software has been
release as open source. Most of the academic projects in top notch universities are released as
open source and this is increasingly becoming a practice now.
People can still earn money even if a piece of software is distributed free of cost, for example MySQL, JBOSS etc.
Free Software is more beneficial to developing nations and this is best way to unlock technology and
knowledge and make it available to have nots that can not afford to buy propriety solutions. Small and
medium scale enterprises are other beneficiaries of open source.
I agree that there should be ways to ensure return on investments but it may not be fair to attack
something that is useful for the society.
Cheers
AA
-----Original Message-----
From: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com on behalf of misbaha...@googlemail.com
Sent: Sun 6/6/2010 6:47 PM
To: Telecom Grid Pakistan
Subject: Re: Claim to Fame of Pakistan
Faried Nawaz
> You said, shut down 80% of local industry, I am willing to suggest to
> shutdown the complete local software industry if it relies on FOSS.
So...no more Ericsson switches because they use open source Erlang?
No more Cisco devices with that evil, evil free Tcl?
I don't know what Joel Spolsky's said about open source software, but I
know where he's invested his money (and his developers' time):
Kiln isn't open sourced, but it builds on top of free software. So,
should I follow what Joel says, or what he does?
> FOSS is a crap created by hardware vendors to keep a check on software
> prices, so that more & more hardware sells.
Clearly you've never heard of the old saying "What Intel giveth,
Microsoft taketh away": http://bit.ly/b9xYmP
> Also plz mind that 'understanding a code written by someone else' is
> times more difficult than writing your own code.
On the other hand, understanding code written by someone else is much
easier than reverse-engineering a binary blob and then trying to
understand it.
(That sentence of yours calls into question your experience as a
developer, and whose code you've had to read.)
Lastly, the fatal flaw in your argument. This whole subthread started
off with you quoting Usman's sentence:
I don't see how it makes a good business case to depend so much on
Facebook to earn money.
All things being equal, if depending on one "vendor" (Facebook) to make
money is a bad idea, businesswise, then how it a good idea to depend on
any software you have no control over?
It's just like how educators and developers in the local market know
PHP, Java, and .Net because that's what nearly all local employers want.
People develop for Facebook because that's where the users are, and
that's where they *do* make money.
The cost of writing a successful Facebook app (or Open Social -- deploys
to Orkut, Myspace, a bunch of other sites) is something like
- 1 or 2 developers
- 1 or 2 artists (who might be the developers themselves)
- a server or two (most VPS start at $20/mo)
- payment method (moneybookers, 2co, whatever)
- an idea.
That's within the reach of many, many people. Kids in college can pool
their money and develop something useful over a few weekends. With
access to over 400 million potential users, a 0.01% conversion rate is
still 40k paying users who'll tolerate the occasional 'beta' feature or
bug, if the app is compelling enough.
And telecom companies? Well, the Apple App store, Nokia's Ovi, and
Android's Marketplace are in the news (and on rozee.pk!) because your
app can be on millions of devices *without* dealing with the barriers
telecom companies throw up in your way.
misbaha...@googlemail.com
You really didnt understand Joel's intent behind kiln, plz go through
his books.
There is no need to reverse engineer any blob, & no need to see others
code for your productivity. Just attend your university classes
well :p
I said earlier, dont make projects, make products. The most important
asset of a developer is his time, not all that you mentioned. I
calculate how many dollars the developer will earn per minute of his
office work :)
The rest of what you have written makes no head or tail. Apologies in
place.....
On Jun 7, 1:06 pm, Faried Nawaz <not...@b.org.pk> wrote:
Faried Nawaz
> I was talking about FOSS as a business model for Paki IT companies :p
Lots of companies that *use* free and open source software in the local
market, and many depend on open source to some degree or other. I don't
know any company that bases its business model around *giving away* open
source software, though. If there are any, they're certainly not in the
majority.
> There is no need to reverse engineer any blob, & no need to see others
> code for your productivity. Just attend your university classes
> well :p
Please help me understand this. I feel that if it's my job to write
software, I am better off looking at other people's code and learning
techniques that way, and maybe even reusing their code.
> I calculate how many dollars the developer will earn per minute of his
> office work :)
A lot of people write software on their own time, too. If they want to
contribute to free software, that's great. If they want to make money
instead, that's fine with me, too.
> The rest of what you have written makes no head or tail. Apologies in
> place.....
No worries, I didn't really expect you to stand up for your points.
Sheikh Usman N.
Please help me understand this. I feel that if it's my job to write
software, I am better off looking at other people's code and learning
techniques that way, and maybe even reusing their code.
> I calculate how many dollars the developer will earn per minute of hisA lot of people write software on their own time, too. If they want to
> office work :)
contribute to free software, that's great. If they want to make money
instead, that's fine with me, too.