Oct 30, 2010
Athens Digital Week 2010
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The cacua project (John "maddog" Hall)
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- Number one reason for pursuing FOSS is creating jobs (though the other
benefits ar enice also)
- Everyone cares about children
- 80% of the people in south america live in a n urban environment
=> internet is not so far away -- maybe only 50 feet away
- "digital inclusion" in Blazilian, "digital divide" in US
- And he's a business man:
- Gviing a 7yr old a laptop has a ten year payback
- Retraining an adult by giving him a laptop is only a 2 year laptop
- Goals
- Create milliaons of new, private sector high-tech jobs in Latin
America, many millions more worldwide
- High-tech, well-paid, LOCAL jobs
- Make computers easier to use
- Make computers more environmentally friendly
- Decrease cellular wireless contention (interesting...)
- Create gratis WiFi bubble over urban areas
- Create low-cost or gratis SuperComputing capability
- Using sustainable, privaet sector funding ("that's the Republican
inside of me coming out . . . because money coming form the
government is not sustainable")
- Creating millions of new jobs for system administrators and entrepreneurs
- enable systems adiminstrators to start own business
- Business plans
- Marketing materials
- Training/ Certification/Guild
- Vertical Markets:
- Show people how to borrow money to finace a new business
- Not having a boss
- Provide courses, training, apprenticeships, and get licensed
- Making computers easier to use
- People waste a lot of time with current technology (losing files,
computers being slow because of viruses, and because most people
hate computers)
- 1,250,000,000 desktop comptuers x 15 minutes lost per day @ $5 =
$6,250,000,000 a day _because software dosen't work the way it's
supposed to_
- ^ also equivalent of 9 out of 300 people not showing up to work
without notice
=> let's make one of those people a systems administrator!
- and magically the other 8 people would show up
- Thin Client/Server Computing: Timesharing
- Always had experts around you, either to help or to install programs
etc... but then Bill Gates put mainframes on the desktop, yet no one
was _trained_ to use those. Support is now very far away.
- So:
- High-avalibility servers in basement of tall buildings in
community centers of clusters of bulidings
- Thin clients connected to server with high-speed networking (1gbit/sec or
higher), with no programs/files stored there
- FAT client/Mac OSX support, but will be charged for it
- 30% of software in the US is pirated, in Vietnam, 96%
=> charge people money to have MS Windows/Mac OSX (to be
legal)
- Sysadmin duties
- Maintain server software (monitor usage/integrity, updates, virus
elimination, SPAM, backups)
- Teach classes and give support to end users
- Negatiate and sell software to end users
- Vertical Markets
- Small/Medium Business in large office bulidings, typically no
sysadimn (this group produces 90% of the wealth in the US))
- produce 90% of the wealth in the US
- 86% of the people in the US work for these small companies
- Usually cannot afford a sysadmin... but they could SHARE one
- Also, apartments, hospitality services (hotels), and Point Of Sale
terminals (cash registers)
- These are all the vertical markets that could be treated
- Specifically: Apartments
- TV over the internet (more accessible)
- telephone calls through VoIP
- security with webcams
- could all be done in one router, instead of separate units that are
expensive, and use a lot of energy
- Hospitality
- Different units for reservations, room allocation, accounting, ERB,
website, POS
- Could have one unit, to do these and more
- Could do all of this with envirnomentally- friendly computing
- Power consumption is huge
- Bad chemicals
- "If you threw away every computer in the world today you'd create a
mountain higher than the Swiss Alps"
- Long life, "always on" thin client
- multi-funciotn (with virtualization)
- USB3.0/eSATA
- 60GHz Wireless Ethernet, bc up to 7gbit/sec within 30 feet away (and
powered through internet)
- backhaul/heatbeat/power
- "Femtocel" GSM modem (OpenBTS) because not enough bandwidth, which
changes signal from your phone and changes it to TCP/IP
- OTA Digital TV (cheap, and can use spare channels for downloading
porn)
- All boxes have no moving parts (quiet, no fans, up to 70*C with
proper chips) -> long lifetime 9-10 years
- What happens when I need more CPU power? That's what the server
for
- example of Invenio, who sells phones in Africa
- Sells low power chargeable internet/phone systems
- can be powere by solar panel or by bicycle, and people always choose
bicycle
- easily replaced
- cheaper
- *provide job for person to pedal bicycle*
- Computers are useless when they are off, so we should always keep them on
- "Good for security" to have no data stored on thin client
- Servers
- Industry standard - low power
- HA with redundant disks, multiple (10) gbit cabling to thin clients
- Three sizes, small one is just two thin lients (12 V... because
everything in the world actually runs on 12V)
- "12V is where God intended electricity to be" :)
- "baby bear" (small version) could be run off of anything,
stored in a cabin
- Networking
- Aggregation of telephone feeds, not "1.5Mbits/sec/apartment",
instead 300Mbits/sec/apartment house
- Actually doesn't hurt business, because you only have to sell to one
person, lowers support cost
- Reduced latency over traditional "wireless mesh"
- Free wifie througout urban areas
- People can use your internet, you can use their internet
- This model already works (British telecom, Beijing)
- Privacy and stability: everything vrtualized and ecrypted
- Start punishing people who are actually trying to do bad things, not
the ISPs
- Flexible resources, data can optionall ybe stored on server, cloud,
etc
- already possible through virtualization
- Large servers in basements are used for extra CPU power. Depending on
location, servers can be idle (university servers on a weekend, for
example), but because these are hooked together with high speed internet,
servers can borrow CPU power from other servers
- Thin clients will have open circuit design (currently univ in Brazil is
creating the box)
- Box will have to be certified
- Manufacturing is "grunt work", so design is carried out by
university, and manufacturing is outsourced to other small companies
in Brazil
- If you want to do this in Greece, sure yo ucan do it, and
you can alter the circuit board as you wish
- Example for numbers of servers/clients
- Brasil: 192 million Brasilians, 80% in urban environment, 2 thin
clients per person (home and work/school), plus POS terminals
=> 400 million
- avg 300 thin clients per server (1.3 million HA servers, 2.6 million
"CPUs"
- How much will this cost?
- thin client, ~200 USD, but made back within about 3 years
- Pay for high quality, long-life equipment over time (start small and
expand as needed)
- cost will decline over time
- Digital inclusion
- cheap wifi wireless devices allow aaccess to internet
- "gratis" and "cloud" computing
- Train unemployed to be SA/Es
- single parents
- physically challenged
- Takes people off welfare and makes them taxpayers
- How does SA/E affford to buy business
- Create an underwriting program to guarantee no risk (for each loan
contributes a little to the underwriting fund, so load is equally
shared)
- SA/E salary will be 1800 base, for support for 300 thin clientsx$6 per thin
client per month
- Could make more money by side jobs (web programming etc)
- Job should not be too hard, and a lot of tools could be automated (web admin
tools, etc)
- Also will be given training
- Through a guild program (apprenticeship)
- How do you become a Caua entrepreneur
- Learn FOSS systems administration, get certified, licensed (by
government, ge letters of intent from potential customers to gie to
bank, get underwritten loan
- "The harder you work, the more money you make" ("sorry socialist people out
there")
- Timeline
- Immediate start
- Next year, starting courses etc
- Project board consists primarily of Brasilians
- www.projectcaua.org
- "Do not undertake a project unless it is manifested in importance and almost
impossible"
