A Stranger Friend Crossing My Path

Open-source experts are a rare breed in the country and we found one in the unlikeliest place — a farm.

OPEN-SOURCE evangelists seem to be everywhere these days. But you’d still never expect to find one on a farm in Kuang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Redhuan Oon certainly looks the part of an evangelist, working intently on his notebook amidst fruit trees swaying to a cacophony of goats, cows and chickens.

But don’t let the rustic simplicity fool you. Oon is a giant in the open-source community and proof that the Internet enables people to work from anywhere.

He leads some of the most savvy and cutting-edge open-source ­practitioners in the world as they push the envelope of distributed collaboration and the concept of software designed and supported by volunteers.

“Not just an evangelist. He’s better, he’s also an open-source expert,” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, chief executive officer of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), singing Oon’s praises.

“He has helped put Malaysia on the world technology map thanks to his community developed and supported enterprise resource ­planning (ERP) open-source effort,” he said.

“This proves to the world that Malaysians can not only embrace technology but also lead in ­improving, even building new ­technology.”

MDeC oversees the MSC Malaysia initiative that was conceptualised in 1996, to give Malaysians a boost into the Information Age.

MSC Malaysia now hosts about 2,500 foreign-owned and ­homegrown companies focusing on areas that include multimedia and communications products, as well as research and development.

Despite those gains, open-source experts are a rare commodity in the country. “There is only one open-source expert for every 50 ­proprietary software experts,” Badlisham said.

Out of the ashes

Oon’s story starts with the dotcom bust in 2001 when he became a “burned-out chief ­technology ­officer in the city.” Married and a father of two, he had just lost his high-flying, five-figure-salary job.

In despair, he searched his ­feelings and realised that “I actually hated my job. It was meeting after meeting, day in and day out, and I felt straitjacketed in a coat and tie,” said the 47-year-old.

His worsening financial situation brought on by the loss of his job eventually drove him to move his family to the two-acre farm in Kuang. He rented the place to hide and recover financially, and to regain his heart and soul.

He found it a pleasant change from his previous time in the city and his family soon embraced the idyllic lifestyle of living in the ­countryside.

“I learned how to catch fish from the pond, plant taugeh (bean sprouts) and did my own plumbing and wiring for the house,” Oon said.

He and his wife Fatimah, and their his two young kids Naguib and Mira (who are now 14 and 18 years respectively), lived on a shoestring budget.

“Money was so tight my kids had to sell nasi lemak in school to help us get by,” said Oon.

Oon couldn’t get another job after the dotcom bust. “There was no demand for technology workers at that time,” he said.

He started his 20-year career as a programmer, writing in Cobol, or Common Business-Oriented Language. “But I ended up giving tuition in Maths and English to secondary school students to eke out a living,” he said.

“And then I also began breeding tilapia fish.”

But Oon was just as unlucky with fish breeding. A mud slide wiped out his pond and any dreams he had of becoming a successful commercial fish breeder about a year into the endeavour.

Hope rekindled

Fortunately, a friend showed up shortly later and turned him on to an open-source ERP solution, called Compiere. This rekindled Oon’s interest in programming and the more he found out about open source and Compiere, the more interested he became.

Compiere was produced in 1999 by American Jorg Janke and was used for tracking goods, warehousing, inventory ­management, sales tracking, and other business ­functions.

“I find it strange that I discovered open source when I was on farm and not when I was a programmer in the big city,” Oon said.

“What struck me about open-source software is that tweaks and other changes can be made at ­lightning speed compared to doing the same with proprietary software because open source offers full access to any of the programs’ source code.

“The open-source community is the key to success. The power of many minds is brought to bear on any problems to be tackled and solutions are always quickly found. Many hands do make light work,” he said.

Oon also sees open source as a marketing opportunity. “What better way to market something than to give it away for free?” he said.

Discovering open source was the turning point in Oon’s life. “I also knew that ERP was going to be big deal, where a single contract can be as much as RM400mil,” he said.

He took to studying the inner workings of Compiere, spending hours on end tweaking it.

“It is a powerful ERP tool but it wasn’t very user-friendly in the beginning and I wanted to change this,” Oon said.

“It became a challenge and I would get so involved that on most days I would be up and at it from 5am and wouldn’t quit till midnight or later,” he said.

Oon eventually hooked up with some like-minded people and in 2003 became one of the founders and leader of ADempiere — an open-source community project to develop Compiere further and push it into the mainstream market.

He also decided to create a website — red1.org — that offers technical and basic tutorials on Compiere.

These days, he spends at least eight hours a day programming and configuring Compiere to meet specific customer needs.

He does his coding over a 512Kbps (kilobits per second) copper-line ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) connection.

“I built my little empire on a copper line and I work from my farm. I have no intention of ­changing this,” he said.

It is still hard work, though. “There are times when I do not get much sleep for 36 hours at a stretch,” he said. “This is because I need to sometimes communicate live with other members of the team who are in different time zones.”

Passion aflame

The toil has paid off for Oon and the ADempiere core community which comprises 30 members worldwide. Compiere has been one of the top three downloads on the sourceforge.net portal the past two years. (SourceForge.net is an online ­repository of open-source ­applications.)

Oon claims Compiere is catching on; it is being used by three major international shippers and a ­supplier to a huge supermarket chain in the United States.

Also, an Australian manufacturing company, GBC Scientific Equipment (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, uses Compiere at its Penang branch. It will be ­implementing the application at its headquarters in Melbourne next year.

“There are also hundreds of manufacturing, as well as small- and medium-scale enterprises, using the open-source application in Malaysia,” Oon added.

He is confident that Compiere will be able to give ERP software giant SAP a run for its money in the next two years.

“Our consultancy charges will be half that of SAP’s by that time, too. What ADempiere only lacks is a commercial face and front. We also need to build up our pool of ­expertise and we have started on this,” said Oon.

Fanning the fire

Oon has bigger plans. He is creating the first Masters programme for Compiere in the world this year at the Asia eUniversity in Kuala Lumpur — the only Malaysian university that offers certified open-source courses.

“The first year-long executive Masters programme is already underway with a dozen students. I am finalising the Masters programme which should begin in February next year.

“Degrees in open source are rare. There are some Linux courses but there are none in the world for ERP,” Oon said.

He believes that a certifiable knowledge base is important to make sure that Compiere remains a success. “Open source without a supporting talent pool is ­unthinkable,” he said.

Due to his indepth knowledge of Compiere, Oon is very much in demand and his career is beginning to take off again. “In the open-source community, information is free but expertise is not and is in demand,” he said.

Being an open-source guru is a far cry from the days when he was hoping to just survive the bad times. “I’ve even had the luxury of being able to turn down jobs because they would take me away for too long from my family and farm,” he said.

“I’ve grown accustomed to having the sounds of nature around me while I ponder lines of code.”

The simple life must suit him. Oon has been prolific in his work and has even found time to write a technical book called Open Source ERP, which will be out in stores in August.

What’s next after that?

“Well, I want to build a wooden sailing ship, like the one in Pirates of the Caribbean, and sail around the world,” Oon answered.

“Of course, it’ll have to be equipped with special antennas so that I’ll have Internet access ­wherever I go,” he added with a hearty laugh.

A Seeker Old Notes

Notes of 19.11.2007 after reading The Triumphal Sun:

Many seekers are being called travelers of the Path
but no one can claim to be a full sufi yet.
A traveler may arrives or get lost on the Way.
The Forest of Dunya is never kind to travelers
who enter it without a tested Guide.
Without a Weapon of Tawhid.
Without a Light of Discrimination-Furqan.

Buying sufic books and reading many old jawi
or Arabic kitab/texts of commentaries cannot help one
to see in the night of modernists anti-sufi.
On daytime the goats from the University Farms will attack
and chew up the green books because they are very hungry
and not trained well by their Masters and Dukturs
who prefer to feed them with spiritual empty grasses
and syllabus from the Orientalist wastelands.

(Dont ask me who is Hsue Tou and Neo-Hsue Tou, too late to learn mandarin and open the Blue Cliff Record of Thomas Cleary)

My student Zuigan Commentary ( free style spining poem)

Maulana Rumi Mountain collect clouds
Darqawi Deserts pour the rains
Half falls north of Master Izi River
Half falls into Attendant Zuigan Hut
Others may be stuck at Old Temples

Those who fear the Reality will be given knowledge
Do not say I have not warned you
A sufi a zen a monk still a name
Forest, desert and mountains
They cheat people most time
Or make them fight in politics
Sichuan Lu Xun Pur Erh

The Tea of China never Smells
Three sufi will make loud Noise
One solitary wali sat facing a city Wall
Music and drums they sell Tariqats

Kitaro and Wu Ming is my Friend
Leave all books journal and papers
Took the Sun burning Path
Where Universities cannot teach
_________________
Tubba alal-ghuraba
Fasalamun ala man tabaal-huda
Rabbi habli hukman wa ahiqni bis-salihin

Catatan Dari Jakarta

POJOK ZAWIYYAH RIBAT JAKARTA

Bismillah! yang dapat duduk dalam lingkaran ini
adalah yang berhati bening..walaupun kesalahan menutupinya,
dengan ijin Allah! masya Allah la quwatta ila billah
- hasbuna Allah wanimal wakil...

Pengetahuan terbesar adalah pengetahuan
yang di iringi rasa takut (kepada Allah). (ibn Ata'illah)

Hanya orang bodoh dan tertipu yang merasa dirinya tinggi
dan rendah karena apa yang ada ditangannya (al-faqir)

Pecinta sejati tiada bertepi, rindu tanpa batas
dan cinta tanpa kahir, tidak dimiliki dan memiliki (al-faqir)

Aku akan berjalan ribuan kilometer bersama kepalsuan,
sampai aku bisa menemukan satu langkah yang benar dan sejati (al-Junayd)

For those who travel to Allah and do not listen to its conversation or follow its opinion, it is like a strong wind released for sailors. In one hour, it makes them arrive whereas others arrive there after a month or a year. Allah knows best. When someone halts with conversation and opinion, by Allah, he remains becalmed, at a standstill, as occurs to sailors. Such is its nature. We think that the one who leaves what does not concern him will find that the least of means is enough for him. If he does not leave it, nonthing will be enough for him, no matter what he does. (Shaykh ad-Darqawi)

A Hundred Resolutions

Sharing one of the poems that speaks to me...

Lovers are Made Aware

You make a hundred resolutions
to journey somewhere,
He draws you somewhere else,
He turns the horse's bridle in every direction
So that the untrained horse may know there is a rider
The clever horse is well paced
because it knows a rider is mounted upon it.
He fixed your heart on a hundred passionate desires,
disappointed you, and then broke your heart.
Since He broke the wings of your first intention,
how do you doubt the existence of the Wing-Breaker?

Since His ordainment snapped the cord
of your contrivance,
how can you remain blind to His Command?
Your resolutions and aims now and then are fulfilled
so that through hope your heart
might form another intention
which He might once again destroy.
For if He were to keep you completely from success,
you would despair:
how would the seed of expectation be sown?

If your heart did not sow that seed,
and then encounter barrenness,
how would it recognize its submission to Divine will?
by their failures lovers are made aware of their Lord.
Lack of success is the guide to Paradise:
Pay attention to the tradition,
" Paradise is encompassed with pain"


Maulana Rumi, MATHWANI III, 4456-67
-Gift from traveler friend @mariefleur

Wun Tung

1. Hamba ditakdirkan dilahirkan didaerah pergunungan banjaran titiwangsa. Kampungku pernah digunakan kawasan laluan dan operasi perang gerila zaman jepun dan darurat komunis.Lebih awal lagi mungkin jadi markas atau tempat persembunyian dato' bahaman/mat kilau melawan penjajah mat salih. Jadi semasa membesar dalam pengembaraan mencari ilmu dunia dan akhirat terpaksa keluar dari bandar wuntung (bahasa dialek ibundaku).

2. Datuk dan ayahku (tungshan mari)telah melakukan satu revolusi atau cuba merealisasikan satu wawasan suci jauh kehadapan untuk seorang anak china hakka dilahirkan ibuku pada tahun 1956. Sempat bersuara dan menjerit untuk kemerdekaan malaya ketika itu. Malaysia hanya terbentuk pada tahun 1963 tatkala hamba berusia 7 tahun dan dihantar memperjuangkan masadepan sekolah aliran melayu kebangsaan !
Cuba fikir logik tak, kakakku dua orang dihantar belajar sekolah inggeris dan sekolah china tapi anak lelaki sulung dihantar sekolah melayu ? Hamba protes dalam senyap menggengam bara api...yang akhirnya bertukar percikan nur iman.

3. Bandar Bentong memiliki banyak keunikan dan memecahkan REKOD SEJARAH MALAYSIA seperti berikut :

a. Bandar ini diteroka kerana bijih timah, emas dan getah oleh pendatang china yang majoritinya puak hakka, kwongsai dan kantonis. Jika waktu malam hampir 99% pekan ini dikuasai orang china, penuh dengan basikal pada zaman 1960an dan 1970an serta burung-layang layang beribu-ribu ekor bermalam atas talian letrik panas dijalan loke yew, ah peng and chuiyin.

b. Ahli Parlimen bandar kecil diapit dua banjaran gunung dengan sebatang anak sungai pahang mengalir deras ditengahnya yang diwakili oleh MCA tak pernah TEWAS dalam pilihanraya sejak merdeka. Melahirkan tokoh politik china dan bekas menteri terkenal Tan Sri Chan Siang Sun, Lim Ah Lek, Chan Kong Choy, Liow Tiong Lai dan termasuk Menteri Besar Pahang mutakhir Adnan Yaakub (dari kg.benus).

c. Ramai terlupa sejarah bahawa Dato' Hussein , ayahanda Tun Razak (TR) pernah menjadi DO daerah ini dan kuburnya diziarahi setiap tahun oleh sanak saudaranya di perkuburan Batu Satu, Jalan Tras menghala ke Raub.Salah seorang sepupu TR yang sohor adalah Pak Busu yang membuka kedai runcit dan jual nasi lemak/kuih di persimpangan ke Air Terjun Chamang/Kg.Repas, kira-kira 1 km dari pekan. Kini kedai beliau sudah ditutup dan tanah kebun getah dibelakang rumahnya telah dijual kepada pemaju china pada 1975 lalu dibangunkan Taman Shahbandar Hussein sekarang !

d. Semasa TR menjadi TPM dizaman Tunku, daerah ini dipilih menjadi Tanah Rancangan Felda(getah) Pertama di Malaysia iaitu FELDA LEMBAH BILUT kira-kira 15 km dari bandar.


e. Seterusnya rekod Malaysia lain ialah pembinaan KOTA KASINO GENTING HIGHLAND diatas banjaran titiwangsa terletak dalam pentadbiran DO Bentong ! Ada sebuah Masjid di Genting bernama Tan Sri Noah iaitu bapa kepada Toh Puan Rahah isteri arwah TR. Dan anak sulungnya kini hampir beberapa hari lagi menjadi PM Malaysia !

f. Rekod satu lagi: pembinaan Lebuh Raya KL-Karak dan Terowong paling tinggi di Malaysia dekat Genting Sempah, 1500 kaki.

Hari Wanita Antarabangsa

1. Pada Isnin lepas 9 Mac 2009 diraikan media massa sebagai hari wanita atau international woman day. Maka tergerak hati saya mencatatkan sejarah tarikh unik dalam kamus hidup keluarga berdarah naga utara dan sang rimau nusantara ini.

2. Hampir 3 hari mengurus hidup berdikari tanpa wanita pada 7-9 Mac 2009 kerana isteri dikasih terbang balik ke Kota bahru menziarahi ahli keluarganya yang uzur.

3. Hamba ada 3 puteri mujahidah telah besar, dewasa dan boleh hidup berjauhan kerana kerja (anak sulung lulusan UIA mengajar di kolej Muar), anak kedua berkursus BTN dan Induksi di Perak dan Langkawi selama 2 minggu (baru habis mengaji di Melbourne) dan anak ketiga mengasah ijazah doktor di UK.

4. Jadi, yang tinggal serumah dengan sang bapa tunggal sementara adalah anak lelaki sulung (bersiap ke Ireland/Russia/ukraine begitulah bunyinya jika tamat Baccalaurate nanti)dan anak lelaki bongsu berjiwa samurai,dragonball,kitaro ...darjah 4 bisa menyanyi lagu inggeris dan jepun, mengaji Quran habis 10 juz..

5. Sebab tak pandai masak, maka kami sempena Hari Wanita buat keputusan makan musafir di Medan Selera Alamanda. Banyak mata memandang...eh mana emak atau ibu, kakak mereka ? Kasihan , bapa berumur lebih separuh abad makan masakan western, cina dan melayu dengan 2 anak lelaki ?

6. Begitulah secebis kisah hidup keluarga moden Malaysia. Adik isteri saya pernah belajar 5 tahun di universiti hiroshima dan kini sedang mengajar di UITM dan buat Ph.D di UKM. Jumpa suami di jepun. Adik lelaki seorang lagi mengaji di University of California hampir bekerja dengan NASA. Balik malaysia kerja dengan Petronas, berhenti. Kerja dengan JKR , berhenti. Masalah hasad dengki musuh sesama melayu dan muslim. Baik kerja dengan syarikat minyak US dapat gaji lebih Rm20,000 sebulan. Berkat biasiswa MARA taja dia belajar overseas.

7. sekian, akan sambung cerita Hari Bapa bila ada ilham.

Melawan Kufr dengan Kasut, Apa yang hilang ?

Tanpa Kasut Tanpa Mengenal Musuh Diri, Akal,Bangsa, Negara atau Kufr

By Abdas Samad Clarke

A shoe was thrown. It was thrown because of the destruction of Iraq, its infrastructure, and the million deaths of men, women and children, and the exile of substantially more people as refugees, because of the theft of Iraq’s resources and their being handed over to crony capitalism by what they like to call the ‘US government’, a rubric for what has been a kind of gangsterdom long before Mr Bush the clueless assumed the helm and which will certainly continue to be so with the next incumbent.

Now the man who threw the shoe is regarded as bad mannered, and possibly an extremist. So to throw a shoe is extremism but to kill a million people is not. And in other eyes, he is a new hero, a Saladdin. One man will buy the shoe for $10 million and another has offered his willing daughter in marriage.

However, if we now campaign for the one man who threw the shoe, to stop him being beaten in an Iraqi jail, where were we when the million people were being murdered, the millions exiled to suffering and poverty? Surely our efforts should have been many million-fold stronger on their behalf. This is a classic case of how information levels, it makes each crime seem the same: the throwing of a shoe-thrower in jail equates to the murder of a million people. The outrage felt is equivalent in both cases.

In reacting to the shoe, we are simply reacting to the signal fed us by the apparatus ironically called the ‘media’, ironically, since media are what transmit signals to the public, but this apparatus largely blocks real and true signals from getting to us. But how can that be?

The media came to the forefront in history during the French Revolution, for after all, the word journalism comes from the French word jour ‘a day’. They are a part and parcel of the theory of democracy, for how can you have a citizenry voting on the affairs of state and those who are to represent them in making decisions if the citizenry are not well informed? Theoretically the media are crucial in this process. But something has gone wrong, horribly wrong.

That wrongness comes from something so simple and so obvious that few people can see it, and if they are shown it they refuse to see it. Just as in this theory there is a need for media to inform the citizenry, there is clearly a need for journalists, staff, editors, printers, distributors, and a whole host of others to produce, sell and distribute the ‘news’, and equally there is a need for a great deal of technology, not least printing machines, but today PCs, faxes, and a host of other devices, and this costs a great deal, capital expense.

Our age in its lemming-like rush to extinction sees no alternative to taking loans that grow exponentially and destroy their host just as parasites do. That necessarily means that the whole apparatus of the news must think first and foremost about sales, rather than about informing people. Actions are by intentions. The news has become a matter of sales and is not about informing.

That is a great part of why, although there has never been a people so over-informed as we are today, it results in us being absolutely ineffective and impotent, until finally one of our number, one of the swarm of the impotent, after being thoroughly searched for any possible dangerous object, simply lost it and threw his shoes and he did not even hit the target. And we, right across the globe, have felt a rush of sympathy and support for this pathetic brave man who simply responded humanly to the awful liar, mass murderer and war criminal he saw before him. And he threw his shoes.