Help us with this petition for security on anti-collision systems

Good point Bruce!
I would only add that in this case also the Flarm's users should care. First of all in Europe there are gliders flying with DSX. As of today Flarms can only see Flarms. So they buy an anti-collision system and they may collide with another glider only because the encryption.... Crazy isn't it?

Second, in a condition of monopoly, the incumbent may decide the commercial policy he likes the most. And this, believe me, will not be in favor of the users


On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:19:37 PM UTC+2, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00:10 AM UTC+3, Nick wrote:
Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

Ebay is a good example. In New Zealand they got their arses kicked by local site TradeMe.

Or Starbucks. Why is Starbucks a virtual monopoly in the USA? They also got their arses kicked in both New Zealand and Australia, where they couldn't compete with local boutique cafes (not even another chain) and have closed something like 80% of their stores.

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 7:52:38 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Good point Bruce!
I would only add that in this case also the Flarm's users should care. First of all in Europe there are gliders flying with DSX. As of today Flarms can only see Flarms. So they buy an anti-collision system and they may collide with another glider only because the encryption.... Crazy isn't it?

Second, in a condition of monopoly, the incumbent may decide the commercial policy he likes the most. And this, believe me, will not be in favor of the users


On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:19:37 PM UTC+2, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00:10 AM UTC+3, Nick wrote:
Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

Ebay is a good example. In New Zealand they got their arses kicked by local site TradeMe.

Or Starbucks. Why is Starbucks a virtual monopoly in the USA? They also got their arses kicked in both New Zealand and Australia, where they couldn't compete with local boutique cafes (not even another chain) and have closed something like 80% of their stores.

Sergio, have you heard of a little company named Apple? They seem to be the ultimate monopolist, nobody is guarding their intellectual and physical properties and trademarks as they do. Last I've seen, they are doing pretty well with that strategy - and their users seem to love them. Why don't you go whining to them? Flarm is in a much more vulnerable place and I don't begrudge them wanting to protect what they developed. To claim they are putting customers' safety at risk is the height of hypocrisy.

I don't see much the point of your comment, but as you mention Apple, perhaps you can also tell why Samsung, LG and all the other smartphones CAN communicate with the I-Phones, and therefore be sold, in spite of the fact that Apple at first designed one and created the market for them.

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 1:52:38 PM UTC+1, wrote:
Good point Bruce!
I would only add that in this case also the Flarm's users should care. First of all in Europe there are gliders flying with DSX. As of today Flarms can only see Flarms. So they buy an anti-collision system and they may collide with another glider only because the encryption.... Crazy isn't it?

Second, in a condition of monopoly, the incumbent may decide the commercial policy he likes the most. And this, believe me, will not be in favor of the users


On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:19:37 PM UTC+2, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00:10 AM UTC+3, Nick wrote:
Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

Ebay is a good example. In New Zealand they got their arses kicked by local site TradeMe.

Or Starbucks. Why is Starbucks a virtual monopoly in the USA? They also got their arses kicked in both New Zealand and Australia, where they couldn't compete with local boutique cafes (not even another chain) and have closed something like 80% of their stores.

DSX explicitly don't want their T-Advisor unit to function as an anti-collsion unit and they don't believe in the philosophy of a predictive algorithm for gliders - which is the absolutely defining feature of Flarm - so why would Flarm want to offer their communication protocols to DSX? In that case we Flarm users would be receiving traffic advisories of limited usefulness from DSX units instead of much more useful Flarm alerts. It would be very much better if DSX owners had bought Flarms or if DSX incorporated Flarm functionality in their products under licence - as do many other successful glider instrument companies.

See: http://www.soaringwear.com/uploadz/0...r_07_12_19.pdf

DSX simply got it commercially wrong with the T-Advisor. At least with the SaFly they produced a sensible product that functions solely as a tracker and emergency locator.

Mah! This is very much an opinion of yours. In the same document there's an explaination why a prediction based method is not suited for this application. I personally agree with DSX approach.

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 1:02:45 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Mah! This is very much an opinion of yours. In the same document there's an explaination why a prediction based method is not suited for this application. I personally agree with DSX approach.

Only about 5 million hours of flarm experience to date showing that their predictive algorithm works very well indeed.

-T8

So as a pilot in a Glider with Flarm I'm warned of a potential collision
risk with one of 25000 or so other Flarm equipped Gliders. If there's no
collision risk Flarm doesn't distract me.

How Many DSX equipped gliders are there in Europe?
What collision risk prediction does it do, their website suggests it does
no prediction and just tells me that there are lots of gliders flying
within 7km of me. I already know that on any day that I'm flying in the
South of England there are lots of gliders within 7km, what does DSX
provide that I don't get from looking out of the window?


At 12:52 26 May 2015, wrote:
First of all in Europe there are gliders flying with DSX.