I have been searching for a domain name for a new service we were planning to launch. I shortlisted a few good ones which were available and went back to register them the next week. To my surprise, I found them not available. These are not common names - they are very specific to a niche service and I doubted that somebody else would have thought the of same names at the exact same time.
On googling, I found mentioned on various sites/forums that 'Network Solutions' and some other registrars engage in something called 'domain kiting', 'domain tasting' and 'front-running' where they basically block all domain names that were searched for and force you to pay more.
There is a work around to this -
http://instantdomainsearch.com/
http://www.saferwhois.com/
Hope this helps somebody.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Monday, June 16, 2008
Microsoft threatening to 'send people over' for audit
I just got a call from Microsoft asking me to purchase licenses for SqlServer and .NET
When I informed them that we were a Free Software development company and did NOT use Microsoft products, the lady - a Ms. Maninder (if I remember right) told me that 'that was not what she had in the database' and that I had to buy licenses. When I refused to do so on account that I did not need them, she threatened to 'send people over'.
Any person who takes the time out to go through our web-site will understand perfectly that we do not do any kind of Microsoft work. I am starting to think that we are being targeted because we are a FOSS company.
Now I am figuring out how to get legal help to fight this. I have no intention to allow any external people onto our premises.
When I informed them that we were a Free Software development company and did NOT use Microsoft products, the lady - a Ms. Maninder (if I remember right) told me that 'that was not what she had in the database' and that I had to buy licenses. When I refused to do so on account that I did not need them, she threatened to 'send people over'.
Any person who takes the time out to go through our web-site will understand perfectly that we do not do any kind of Microsoft work. I am starting to think that we are being targeted because we are a FOSS company.
Now I am figuring out how to get legal help to fight this. I have no intention to allow any external people onto our premises.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Abolishing Software Patents - Throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
There is a strong movement in the Free Software Community to abolish patents. Here is a perspective from a real, true blue *small guy*.
When I started my IT career with the then biggest Software firm in India in 1997, my salary was about US$ 1500/annum in India - yes there is no zero missing. It was Fifteen Hundred dollars per annum. It was a meager amount even by Indian (and in general 3rd world) standards. I had to scrape around for money for gasoline for my motorbike.
I worked with other firms, eventually got promoted to being overpaid when I decided to start a firm based purely on Free software (later branched to cover FOSS software). I started with US$ 300, a borrowed laptop and dial-up Internet access. Actually I could not look at starting a firm with proprietary technologies as the license costs were too steep - remember that we are in India.
I really believe in FOSS and think it is great for unlocking the productivity of 3rd world countries. I am convinced enough to bet my life (not to mention my savings, career and marital bliss) on starting a FOSS consultancy. We are doing pretty well and have also contributed back to the community. In spite of that, I am not convinced with the argument of abolishing patents altogether. The purpose of patents (and copyright) was to benefit the society and reward the inventor. The fact that the current patent law is being abused by large firms is a reason for modifying the law - not for abolishing it altogether. We have to ensure that the laws are changed to serve the original intent of fostering innovation to benefit society and rewarding the inventor.
Abolishing patent protection for software altogether will just enable established large organisations to further enhance their monopolies. The small firms where quite a bit of innovation happens will be left with no protection from large organisations which can absorb the innovation (for free) and then use their marketing/marketshare muscle to simply put the small firms out of business. Apart from people who write software for the love of it (and are good at it), small firms and individual inventors will not have much of a incentive to innovate.
Take the case of firms like mine with less than 20 people. If we had hit upon a innovative idea and decided to implement it as FOSS without patenting it, any large corporation can just re-implement it in their products and we will be left with no differentiating factor.
In fact, no matter how hard we try and provide value to our customers, the large corporations can just let us make all the mistakes and simply adopt all our successes. There will be no reason for a customer to choose our product/services over the established players. After all, the bigger players can demonstrate more stability and bigger support infrastructure. To top it all, the large players need not open their source code as they are not using my code - just my idea/concept which they have implemented in their proprietary product.
There is also no reason for the large players to 'play nice' with small firms.
In this scenario, our only hope for survival is if we can get some kind of legal protection. If indeed we are awarded a patent, the larger established players will be comp to license it from us and thus small firms like mine will be compensated.
If the large cos. are abusing this system to create barriers, then we have to look at preventing the abuse rather than abolish the system itself. Just because somebody is into credit card fraud does not mean we abolish credit cards altogether.
In India, there was a 10 year tax holiday for software firms (which ends in about a yr.). There were other firms like realty, manufacturing etc which registered themselves as software firms to benefit from this. The Government should look at tax fraud instead of abolishing the policy altogether - That would be a knee jerk reaction and simplistic.
The government is expected to provide a level playing field for all players. If the small firms do not have patent protection, it will be difficult indeed for small firms to be founded much less succeed unless as a result gross incompetence on behalf of the large firms.
I would recommend a more democratic solution to the software patent issue:
1. Let patents be granted only to individuals and small firms(Criteria - can be discussed).
2. Even in large firms, patents will be granted to individuals/small teams. The large firms should not be allowed to restrict independent licensing of these patents. They can at the most ask that they get exclusive access to these patents for 6 months from date of filing or to recover the cost of the patent.
3. Free patent organisation, Apache foundation, GNU can also patent stuff which can be leveraged to open up more source code.
4. GPLed (GPL v3, Affero GPL) software can be made exempt from patent prosecution if the software for the complete(and not just partial) product/service is GPLv3 or under Affero GPL. This exemption will serve the primary purpose of benefiting society (with patents being a vehicle to promote this).
This way, the society is benefited from innovation without the inventor being shortchanged.
When I started my IT career with the then biggest Software firm in India in 1997, my salary was about US$ 1500/annum in India - yes there is no zero missing. It was Fifteen Hundred dollars per annum. It was a meager amount even by Indian (and in general 3rd world) standards. I had to scrape around for money for gasoline for my motorbike.
I worked with other firms, eventually got promoted to being overpaid when I decided to start a firm based purely on Free software (later branched to cover FOSS software). I started with US$ 300, a borrowed laptop and dial-up Internet access. Actually I could not look at starting a firm with proprietary technologies as the license costs were too steep - remember that we are in India.
I really believe in FOSS and think it is great for unlocking the productivity of 3rd world countries. I am convinced enough to bet my life (not to mention my savings, career and marital bliss) on starting a FOSS consultancy. We are doing pretty well and have also contributed back to the community. In spite of that, I am not convinced with the argument of abolishing patents altogether. The purpose of patents (and copyright) was to benefit the society and reward the inventor. The fact that the current patent law is being abused by large firms is a reason for modifying the law - not for abolishing it altogether. We have to ensure that the laws are changed to serve the original intent of fostering innovation to benefit society and rewarding the inventor.
Abolishing patent protection for software altogether will just enable established large organisations to further enhance their monopolies. The small firms where quite a bit of innovation happens will be left with no protection from large organisations which can absorb the innovation (for free) and then use their marketing/marketshare muscle to simply put the small firms out of business. Apart from people who write software for the love of it (and are good at it), small firms and individual inventors will not have much of a incentive to innovate.
Take the case of firms like mine with less than 20 people. If we had hit upon a innovative idea and decided to implement it as FOSS without patenting it, any large corporation can just re-implement it in their products and we will be left with no differentiating factor.
In fact, no matter how hard we try and provide value to our customers, the large corporations can just let us make all the mistakes and simply adopt all our successes. There will be no reason for a customer to choose our product/services over the established players. After all, the bigger players can demonstrate more stability and bigger support infrastructure. To top it all, the large players need not open their source code as they are not using my code - just my idea/concept which they have implemented in their proprietary product.
There is also no reason for the large players to 'play nice' with small firms.
In this scenario, our only hope for survival is if we can get some kind of legal protection. If indeed we are awarded a patent, the larger established players will be comp to license it from us and thus small firms like mine will be compensated.
If the large cos. are abusing this system to create barriers, then we have to look at preventing the abuse rather than abolish the system itself. Just because somebody is into credit card fraud does not mean we abolish credit cards altogether.
In India, there was a 10 year tax holiday for software firms (which ends in about a yr.). There were other firms like realty, manufacturing etc which registered themselves as software firms to benefit from this. The Government should look at tax fraud instead of abolishing the policy altogether - That would be a knee jerk reaction and simplistic.
The government is expected to provide a level playing field for all players. If the small firms do not have patent protection, it will be difficult indeed for small firms to be founded much less succeed unless as a result gross incompetence on behalf of the large firms.
I would recommend a more democratic solution to the software patent issue:
1. Let patents be granted only to individuals and small firms(Criteria - can be discussed).
2. Even in large firms, patents will be granted to individuals/small teams. The large firms should not be allowed to restrict independent licensing of these patents. They can at the most ask that they get exclusive access to these patents for 6 months from date of filing or to recover the cost of the patent.
3. Free patent organisation, Apache foundation, GNU can also patent stuff which can be leveraged to open up more source code.
4. GPLed (GPL v3, Affero GPL) software can be made exempt from patent prosecution if the software for the complete(and not just partial) product/service is GPLv3 or under Affero GPL. This exemption will serve the primary purpose of benefiting society (with patents being a vehicle to promote this).
This way, the society is benefited from innovation without the inventor being shortchanged.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Government liasoning for startups in India
Do NOT deal with any govt' agency on your own. Always deal through your lawyer or Chartered Accountant or through a competent qualified professional.
In lots of cases, the officials themselves will not know the correct procedure or law. If you go directly, you will be misled and/or misinformed. Always deal through a competent professional.
In lots of cases, the officials themselves will not know the correct procedure or law. If you go directly, you will be misled and/or misinformed. Always deal through a competent professional.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
orgChart plugin for Rails
Quite a few of our applications require capturing and using the organisational Chart of our clients. We finally decided to make a plugin out of it. We have launched the alpha version of it on rubyforge. It does need improvements and we will add features as and when we require them in our appplications - meanwhile it will be great if people start using it and report issues/feature requests. http://rubyforge.org/projects/orgchartplugin/
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Issues with partnerships when starting ventures.
As an entrepreneur, I have had quite a few offers where people come to me with ideas that they have come up with. Some are quite good actually and some not. People expect me to fund these ideas and take them to market. Rknowsys sometimes does help people with this. I have had quite a few unique problems in this process. Our usual modus operandi is that we first discuss the idea to see whether it does have monetary potential. After that we look at logistics and issues involved in taking it to market. We work with some management consultants. We also work with i-runway.com for Intellectual property issues. After that comes the technology part which is where R-Knowsys is paid either with cash or stake in the new venture i.e. R-Knowsys acts as an incubator. We have relatively easy access to VCs due to our partnerships.
Now, a lot of people underestimate the effort and difficulties involved with entrepreneurship. We need a very well defined product/service offering. We need clarity on what we are NOT doing and at some point people need to be paid for services - including R-Knowsys built prototypes. Recently I have had 3-4 people come to me with ideas. One of the ideas was a pretty good one too. My friend wanted to have a web-site dedicated to educating consumers for a very specialised financial product. He wanted to make money off advertisements. Not a bad idea but I wasn't sure if people will visit the site just for education. I pitched the idea of comparing different products in terms of features and cost and then actually selling the product online. We got pretty excited and R-Knowsys built a prototype and we started going about making the business plan. We made some initial progress but then we started facing issues. Eventually my friend landed a very high paying job and risking that for this venture did not appeal to him. He lost interest and dropped out. There were a few issues which could have been handled better. We had a deal with various vendors. I had paid some of them and it was understood that my friend will pay for one vendor. The liability was split roughly based on stake in the venture. One of the vendor's work was slightly short of our expectations. My friend resisted paying this vendor and I ended up picking up the tab as I have continuing relations with this vendor. I think that this is a very important decision that should be made upfront. What happens to liabilities if the venture is abandoned midway?
The second issue is that R-Knowsys is sort-of expected to put in effort for prototypes/solutions and valuation of this work could be more professional. For Eg. Lets say we put in 3-4 man months of effort for a working prototype which we demonstrate to a VC. What is the valuation of this? Now, we are a service company and charge in dollars/hr for our work. We are based in India and though we pay on par with the market, this is lesser than the actual earnings. Now I believe that the valuation should be what we would charge any client for this. i.e. It should be around USD15k for a 3-4 man month effort. We have had people looking to value our contributions based on our cost rather that opportunity cost. We are working on correcting this, the time/effort we spend on these projs should be considered as lost opportunity with respect to our services business. This has been one of our bigger challenges.
Other issues include - lack of interest/drive from some parties. This is a bigger problem than it appears. There needs to be a clear agreements on responsibilities even among founders. Though painful, formal legal agreements even during prototype stage are a good idea. I have seen parties who are extremely risk/responsibility averse but hang around just in case things work out.
Hope to discuss other issues as we come across them.
Now, a lot of people underestimate the effort and difficulties involved with entrepreneurship. We need a very well defined product/service offering. We need clarity on what we are NOT doing and at some point people need to be paid for services - including R-Knowsys built prototypes. Recently I have had 3-4 people come to me with ideas. One of the ideas was a pretty good one too. My friend wanted to have a web-site dedicated to educating consumers for a very specialised financial product. He wanted to make money off advertisements. Not a bad idea but I wasn't sure if people will visit the site just for education. I pitched the idea of comparing different products in terms of features and cost and then actually selling the product online. We got pretty excited and R-Knowsys built a prototype and we started going about making the business plan. We made some initial progress but then we started facing issues. Eventually my friend landed a very high paying job and risking that for this venture did not appeal to him. He lost interest and dropped out. There were a few issues which could have been handled better. We had a deal with various vendors. I had paid some of them and it was understood that my friend will pay for one vendor. The liability was split roughly based on stake in the venture. One of the vendor's work was slightly short of our expectations. My friend resisted paying this vendor and I ended up picking up the tab as I have continuing relations with this vendor. I think that this is a very important decision that should be made upfront. What happens to liabilities if the venture is abandoned midway?
The second issue is that R-Knowsys is sort-of expected to put in effort for prototypes/solutions and valuation of this work could be more professional. For Eg. Lets say we put in 3-4 man months of effort for a working prototype which we demonstrate to a VC. What is the valuation of this? Now, we are a service company and charge in dollars/hr for our work. We are based in India and though we pay on par with the market, this is lesser than the actual earnings. Now I believe that the valuation should be what we would charge any client for this. i.e. It should be around USD15k for a 3-4 man month effort. We have had people looking to value our contributions based on our cost rather that opportunity cost. We are working on correcting this, the time/effort we spend on these projs should be considered as lost opportunity with respect to our services business. This has been one of our bigger challenges.
Other issues include - lack of interest/drive from some parties. This is a bigger problem than it appears. There needs to be a clear agreements on responsibilities even among founders. Though painful, formal legal agreements even during prototype stage are a good idea. I have seen parties who are extremely risk/responsibility averse but hang around just in case things work out.
Hope to discuss other issues as we come across them.
Launched RailsSecure on rubyforge
We had identified quite a few components needed for enterprise applications. Today we launched another Rails plugin useful in collaborative web applications. Normally when we upload files to web applications, they are stored in unsecure format on the server. We launched a new Rails plugin which will encrypt and store uploaded documents - this will keep the data safe even from system administrators and application administrators.
Link to the plugin - http://rubyforge.org/projects/railssecure/
More plugins to come.
Link to the plugin - http://rubyforge.org/projects/railssecure/
More plugins to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
