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.