<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<item>
- <title>Faktasjekk: Trond Giske hevder Henry Ford sa at hvis du spør folk hva de vil ha så svarer de ”en større hest”</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Faktasjekk__Trond_Giske_hevder_Henry_Ford_sa_at_hvis_du_sp_r_folk_hva_de_vil_ha_s__svarer_de__en_st_rre_hest_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Faktasjekk__Trond_Giske_hevder_Henry_Ford_sa_at_hvis_du_sp_r_folk_hva_de_vil_ha_s__svarer_de__en_st_rre_hest_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:06 GMT</pubDate>
- <description><p>Næringsminister Trond Giske er av
-<a href="http://www.dn.no/forsiden/naringsliv/article2361916.ece">Dagens
-Næringsliv</a> i dag sitert på å ha sagt følgende:</p>
+ <title>Trenger en avtale med MPEG-LA for å publisere og kringkaste H.264-video?</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Trengs det avtale med MPEG-LA for å ha lovlig rett til å
+distribuere og kringkaste video i MPEG4 eller med videokodingen H.264?
+<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 og MPEG4 er jo ikke en
+fri og åpen standard</a> i henhold til
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_og__pen_standard__slik_Digistan_ser_det.html">definisjonen
+til Digistan</a>, så i enkelte land er det ingen tvil om at du må ha
+en slik avtale, men jeg må innrømme at jeg ikke vet om det også
+gjelder Norge. Det ser uansett ut til å være en juridisk interessant
+problemstilling. Men jeg tenkte her om dagen som så, at hvis det er
+nødvendig, så har store aktører som
+<a href="http://www.nrk.no/">NRK</a> og
+<a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/">regjeringen</a> skaffet seg en
+slik avtale. Jeg har derfor sendt forespørsel til begge (for
+regjeringen sin del er det Departementenes Servicesenter som gjør
+jobben), og bedt om kopi av eventuelle avtaler de har om bruk av MPEG
+og/eller H.264 med MPEG-LA eller andre aktører som opererer på vegne
+av MPEG-LA. Her er kopi av eposten jeg har sendt til
+<a href="http://www.dss.dep.no/">Departementenes Servicesenter</a>.
+Forespørselen til NRK er veldig lik.</p>
<p><blockquote>
-Henry Ford sa at hvis du spør folk hva de vil ha så svarer de ”en
-større hest”
+
+<p>Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:18:33 +0200
+<br>From: Petter Reinholdtsen
+<br>To: postmottak@dss.dep.no
+<br>Subject: Innsynsbegjæring om MPEG/H.264-relaterte avtaler
+
+<p>Hei. Jeg ber herved om innsyn og kopi av dokumenter i DSS relatert
+til avtaler rundt bruk av videoformatene MPEG og H.264. Jeg er
+spesielt interessert i å vite om DSS har lisensavtale med MPEG-LA
+eller noen som representerer MPEG-LA i Norge.</p>
+
+<p>MPEG og H.264 er videoformater som brukes både til kringkasting
+(f.eks. i bakkenett og kabel-TV) og videopublisering på web, deriblant
+via Adobe Flash. MPEG-LA, &lt;URL:
+<a href="http://www.mpeg-la.com/">http://www.mpeg-la.com/</a> &gt;, er
+en organisasjon som har fått oppgaven, av de kjente rettighetshavere
+av immaterielle rettigheter knyttet til MPEG og H.264, å selge
+bruksrett for MPEG og H.264.</p>
+
+<p>Via regjeringen.no kringkastes med MPEG og H.264-baserte
+videoformater, og dette ser ut til å være organisert av DSS. Jeg
+antar dermed at DSS har avtale med en eller annen aktør om dette.</p>
+
+<p>F.eks. har Adobe Premiere Pro har følgende klausul i følge &lt;URL:
+<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html">http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html</a>
+&gt;:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+ <p>6.17. AVC DISTRIBUTION. The following notice applies to software
+ containing AVC import and export functionality: THIS PRODUCT IS
+ LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND
+ NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (a) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE
+ WITH THE AVC STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (b) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT
+ WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL
+ ACTIVITY AND/OR AVC VIDEO THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER
+ LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE
+ IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED
+ FROM MPEG LA L.L.C. SEE
+ <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">http://www.mpegla.com</a>.</p>
+
</blockquote></p>
-<p>Det syntes jeg var en så merkelig ting for Henry Ford å si at jeg
-sjekket litt rundt sitatet. Det Giske ser ut til å feilsitere, er et
-sitat kreditert Henry Ford som lyder "If I had asked people what they
-wanted, they would have said faster horses". Altså ikke større hest,
-men raskere hester.</p>
-
-<p>I følge
-<a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fast.html">Patrick
-Vlaskovits i en blogg</a> i Stanford Business Review, har Henry Ford
-aldri sagt dette, og den tidligste referansen han klarte å finne til
-sitatet er en bok fra 2009. Jeg finner også
-<a href="http://280group.com/blog/?p=1443">andre kilder</a> som også
-hevder at det ikke er påvist at Henry Ford faktisk har uttalt at
-kundene ville bedt om raskere hester .</p>
-
-<p>Konklusjonen min blir at Trond Giske ikke har fakta på sin side når
-det gjelder dette sitatet. Med forbehold om at journalisten i Dagens
-Næringsliv skrev det som ble sagt, og ikke det journalisten hørte.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
-
-<p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
-published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
-to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
-allowing users to check their local email account without providing
-any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
-and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
-and download as a
-<a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
-Theora</a> file. Check it out below.</p>
-
-<p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
- <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
- <p>Download video as
- <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
-</video></p>
+<p>Her er det kun "non-commercial" og "personal and non-commercial"
+aktivitet som er tillatt uten ekstra avtale med MPEG-LA.</p>
+
+<p>Et annet tilsvarende eksempel er Apple Final Cut Pro, som har
+følgende klausul i følge &lt;URL:
+<a href="http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf">http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf</a>
+&gt;:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+ <p>15. Merknad om H.264/AVC. Hvis Apple-programvaren inneholder
+ funksjonalitet for AVC-koding og/eller AVC-dekoding, krever
+ kommersiell bruk ekstra lisensiering og følgende gjelder:
+ AVC-FUNKSJONALITETEN I DETTE PRODUKTET KAN KUN ANVENDES AV
+ FORBRUKERE OG KUN FOR PERSONLIG OG IKKE- KOMMERSIELL BRUK TIL (i)
+ KODING AV VIDEO I OVERENSSTEMMELSE MED AVC-STANDARDEN ("AVC-VIDEO")
+ OG/ELLER (ii) DEKODING AV AVC-VIDEO SOM ER KODET AV EN FORBRUKER TIL
+ PERSONLIG OG IKKE-KOMMERSIELL BRUK OG/ELLER DEKODING AV AVC-VIDEO
+ FRA EN VIDEOLEVERANDØR SOM HAR LISENS TIL Å TILBY
+ AVC-VIDEO. INFORMASJON OM ANNEN BRUK OG LISENSIERING KAN INNHENTES
+ FRA MPEG LA L.L.C. SE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Tilsvarende gjelder for andre programvarepakker, kamera, etc som
+bruker MPEG og H.264, at en må ha en avtale med MPEG-LA for å ha lov
+til å bruke programmet/utstyret hvis en skal lage noe annet enn
+private filmer og i ikke-kommersiell virksomhet.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg er altså interessert i kopi av avtaler DSS har som gjør at en
+ikke er begrenset av de generelle bruksvilkårene som gjelder for
+utstyr som bruker MPEG og/eller H.264.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Nå venter jeg spent på svaret. Jeg planlegger å blogge om svaret
+her.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Større PC-tetthet i skolen med Skolelinux?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/St_rre_PC_tetthet_i_skolen_med_Skolelinux_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/St_rre_PC_tetthet_i_skolen_med_Skolelinux_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Den siste uka har det vært en del skriverier om hvor store
-forskjeller det er mellom skolene når det gjelder digital kompetanse.
-Et eksempel er
-<a href="http://www.digi.no/891660/bekymret-for-it-i-skolen">oppslaget
-i Digi</a>. Diskusjonen fikk meg til å bli litt nysgjerrig på om
-Linux-skoler har større PC-tettet enn snittet i landet. Grunnlaget
-for diskusjonen har vært undersøkelsen
-<a href="https://iktsenteret.no/ressurser/monitor-2011-skolens-digitale-tilstand">Monitor
-2011</a>, som bruker informasjon fra
-<a href="https://www.wis.no/gsi">Grunnskolens Informasjonssystem</a>
-(GSI). GSI-data kan lastes ned fra web og jeg lastet ned en Excel-fil
-(intet åpen standard-valg tilgjengelig) med navn på alle skoler,
-hvilke kommune de befinner seg i og hvor mange elever pr. elev-PC de
-har rapportert inn. For å få en ide om svaret trenger jeg deretter å
-vite hvilke skoler i landet som bruker Linux, slik at jeg kan slå dem
-opp i GSI og finne ut hvor stor PC-tetthet de har.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg vet om skoler i Balsfjord, Flora, Harstad, Kongsvinger, Narvik,
-Nittedal, Nord-Odal, Randaberg og Sunndal som bruker Skolelinux eller
-andre Linux-varianter. Jeg tror det er flere enn de 56 skolene jeg
-har klart å identifisere de siste dagene, men har ikke klart å få det
-bekreftet med offentlige kilder.</p>
-
-<p>Monitor 2011-rapporteres side 95 forteller at det "ifølge GSI
-(20120-2011) er det 3,11 elever per datamaskin når vi tar med alle
-grunnskoler (1.-10.trinn)". For de 56 Linux-skolene jeg har klart å
-koble mot informasjon i GSI er det 2,28 elever per elevdatamaskin,
-hvilket betyr at det er 36% høyere PC-tetthet på Linux-skoler enn
-landsgjennomsnittet. Linux-skolen med høyest tettet blant de jeg har
-notert -skole er Flora ungdomsskule i Flora kommune med 0.82 elev
-pr. PC (482 elever, 588 elevdatamaskiner).</p>
-
-<p>Skolelinux gir datamaskiner lengre levetid, og en kan dermed få
-flere operative datamaskiner for samme budsjett, i tillegg til en
-rekke andre fordeler. Kan det være forklaringen på forskjellen?</p>
-
-<p>Tallene må tas med en liten klype, da GSI ser ut til å ha endel
-feilføringer. Jeg synes i hvert fall en skole med 423 elever og 9
-elevmaskiner ser mistenkelig ut. Eller en skole med 346 elever, 0
-elevmaskiner, som er et annet ekstremt eksempel jeg fant.</p>
-
-<p>Takk til Sturle Sunde, Klaus Ade Johnstad, Ole-Anders Andreassen og
-Trond Mæhlum for innspill om skoler med Linux.</p>
+ <title>Gatemagasinet =Oslo får konkurrent fra Folk er Folk</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gatemagasinet__Oslo_f_r_konkurrent_fra_Folk_er_Folk.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gatemagasinet__Oslo_f_r_konkurrent_fra_Folk_er_Folk.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Aftenposten melder i dag at selgerne av
+<a href="http://www.erlikoslo.no/">gatemagasinet =Oslo</a> er
+<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Oslo-selgerne-irritert-pa-nytt-gatemagasin-6850970.html">irritert
+på at det er kommet en konkurrent på banen</a> fra organisasjonen
+<a href="http://oslo.folkerfolk.no/">Folk er Folk</a>,
+som støtter “rumenerne”, de mest uglesette av tiggerne i Norge. Min
+første tanke da jeg leste nyheten er at slik må =Oslo-selgerne tåle
+når de nekter "rumenerne" og andre utenlandske tiggere å selge
+gatemagasinet sitt. Det ble rapportert for noen år siden at
+<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Ikke-rom-i-herberget-6677803.html">utenlandske
+tiggere ikke var velkomne som selgere</a>, og å opprette en konkurrent
+virker da for meg som et rasjonelt alternativ. Og at "rumerene"
+utelukkes gjelder visst ikke bare i Oslo. I Adresseavisen fant jeg en
+artikkel om at selgerne av
+<a href="http://www.gatemagasinetsorgenfri.no/">gateavisen
+Sorgenfri</a> i Trondheim også
+<a href="http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/article1122005.ece?index=20">utelukker
+utenlandske selgere</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Men situasjonen er visst ikke så rett frem som opprinnelige
+artikler kunne tyde på. Mens jeg søkte opp gamle artikler og
+referanser om temaet, fant jeg et
+<a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2008/07/29/542041.html">leserbrev
+fra en av stifterne av =Oslo</a>, som protesterte på
+<a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2008/07/23/541530.html">påstander
+fra likestillingsombudet om diskriminering</a> og forteller at =Oslo
+krever at de som selger magasinet skal kunne kommunisere med kundene
+for å kunne representere magasinet utad, og at "rumererne" ikke
+ekskluderes for å være utlendinger men pga. at de ikke kan snakke
+norsk. Det er jo ikke urimelig å kreve at en selger skal kunne
+kommunisere med kundene, men som kjøper har jeg ikke snakket så mye
+med =Oslo-selgerne at det ville vært et problem for meg om selgeren
+ikke kunne snakke norsk. Jeg er dermed i tvil om hvorvidt
+argumentasjonen holder når effekten er at de mest uglesette tiggerne i
+Norge ekskluderes.</p>
+
+<p>Uansett tror jeg ikke markedet for gatemagasiner i Oslo er mettet.
+Personlig kunne jeg godt tenkte meg å kjøpe flere, men gidder ikke
+kjøpe den samme utgaven av =Oslo flere ganger. En konkurrent som Folk
+er Folk kan dermed ende opp med å gjøre markedet større i stedet for å
+spise av markedsandelene til =Oslo.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
-users are spread all across the globe. The second inteview after
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
-Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
-long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
-Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
-author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
-contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
-encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
-years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
-weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
-installations.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
-London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
-just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
-along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
-mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
-well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
-have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
-LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
-these things we decided to try it.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
-from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
-goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
-would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
-low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
-that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
-Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
-proprietary software everywhere.</p>
+ <title>SQL-database med anbud publisert på Doffin</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SQL_database_med_anbud_publisert_p__Doffin.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SQL_database_med_anbud_publisert_p__Doffin.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p><a href="http://www.doffin.no/">Doffin</a> er det offentlige Norges
+portal for annonsering av anbudsutlysninger. Nettstedet er mye brukt,
+men rådataene er ikke enkelt tilgjengelig for almenheten. For å bøte
+på det har jeg som et <a href="htt://www.nuug.no/">NUUG-prosjekt</a>
+laget en <a href="http://scraperwiki.com/">Scraperwiki</a>-skraper som
+lager en
+<a href="https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/norwegian-doffin/">SQL-database
+med nøkkelinformasjonen fra Doffin</a>, slik at det er mulig å søke og
+analysere Doffin-oppføringene. Det publiseres mellom 900-1500 anbud
+hver måned via Doffin. Jeg har ingen konkrete planer for analyse, men
+håper enklere tilgjengelighet gjør at flere griper sjansen. På sikt
+håper jeg å bruke denne databasen som grunnlag for å lage en database
+over anbudsdokumenter, som i dag ikke er tilgjengelig fra doffin, men
+må bestilles fra hver enkelt utlyser.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg var litt usikker på om det var rettighetsproblemer knyttet til
+skraping av informasjon fra Doffin, men ser i
+<a href="http://www.doffin.no/sitehelp/help_terms.aspx">vilkårene til
+Doffin</a> følgende:</p>
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
-how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
-various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
-English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
-users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
+<p><blockquote>
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+<p>Opphavsrett mv</p>
-<p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
-OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
-desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
-use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
-that counts...)</p>
+<p>Ved innleggig av kunngjøringer på Doffin aksepterer Oppdragsgiver
+at opphavsrett og andre rettigheter til materialet overføres til
+Fornyings- og administrasjonsdepartementet, eller den departementet
+utnevner. Oppdragsgiver har imidlertid bruksrett til materialet, og
+kan benytte det til de formål de måtte ønske.</p>
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+</blockquote></p>
-<p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
-and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
-the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
-applications". However, schools today are experiencing budget
-constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
-XP. At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
-iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
-longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
-realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
-putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
-first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
-
-<p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
-free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
-Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
+<p>Hvis informasjonen er vernet av opphavsrettsloven (hvilket jeg
+tviler på, gitt lovens begrensninger om informasjon fra det
+offentlige), så er det FAD som har de immaterielle rettighetene. FAD
+er en del av staten, som opererer på vegne av folket, og enhver borger
+skulle dermed ha rett til å videreformidle informasjonen. Ingen av
+offentlighetslovens unntak kommer til anvendelse, i og med at
+informasjonen allerede er publisert.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
-it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
-translated versions in sync. To do this we have come up with what we
-believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
-
-<ol>
-
-<li>The documentation is written in a
-<a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
-<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
-Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
-docbook XML.</li>
-
-<li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
-.pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
-with the translated text.</li>
-
-<li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
-which part of the original wiki document is new or changed. They can
-use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
-the translation. There is even a system in place to handle translated
-images.</li>
-
-<li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
-XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
-
-<li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
-create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues. The biggest
-issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
-we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained. The docbook
-support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
-make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
-
-<p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
-package</a>.</p>
+ <title>Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>During my work on
+<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
+based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
+addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally found time to wrap up my
+notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p><ul>
+
+<li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
+changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
+with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
+system depend on tasksel tasks in
+/usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
+installation.</li>
+
+<li>Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos
+foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
+services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should
+at least try to enable it for these services:
+<ul>
+
+ <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
+ quotas.</li>
+ <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
+ <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
+ <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
+ <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
+ <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+<li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
+authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
+use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
+is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
+
+<li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made
+sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
+inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
+
+<li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
+touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is
+<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
+d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
+it and upload. After this is done we need to adjust
+debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
+
+<li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
+time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
+packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
+in Wheezy.
+
+<li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
+the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
+up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
+
+<li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
+change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on
+paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require
+fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
+
+<li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
+The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
+familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
+have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
+
+<li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
+actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the
+Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
+
+<li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
+using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
+packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
+
+<li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
+when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was
+requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
+#588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a
+MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
+
+<li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
+<ul>
+
+<li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
+<li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
+<li>and probably more?</li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is
+mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
+examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
+firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
+some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
+could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some
+command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
+for the LTSP chroot).</li>
+
+
+<li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We
+should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
+install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
+use.</li>
+
+<li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
+interesting educational packages. We should work on the package
+tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
+packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
+new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
+
+<li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
+with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
+be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
+filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should
+implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
+instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
+
+<li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
+"take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
+There are at least three implementations,
+<a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
+<a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
+<a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
+them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is
+how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
+and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
+given room.</li>
+
+<li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
+should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
+the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should
+provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
+them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
+configuration and data with the central server. This should be
+investigated.</li>
+
+</ul></p>
+
+<p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
+version.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>NUUG-presentasjon: Skolelinux - ferdig oppsatt skolenettløsning</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_presentasjon__Skolelinux___ferdig_oppsatt_skolenettl_sning.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_presentasjon__Skolelinux___ferdig_oppsatt_skolenettl_sning.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>I dag presenterte jeg ny versjon av Skolelinux for NUUGs medlemmer.
-<a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/mypapers/20120313-skolelinux-squeeze.html">Lysark</a>
-er tilgjengelige allerede og
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">video-opptak</a>
-kommer så snart videogruppa til NUUG får publisert den. Jeg kom på
-endel punkter om nye ting i Squeeze-utgaven under veis som jeg burde
-hatt med, og har sikkert skrevet noe tull på lysarkene som jeg ennå
-ikke har oppdaget. Denne presentasjonen ble smurt ihop på veldig kort
-tid, og jeg rakk ikke finpusse den. Håper den kan være lærerik
-likevel.</p>
+ <title>Litt statistikk fra Offentlig Elektronisk postjournal</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>De siste månedene har jeg sammen med andre i NUUG jobbet med å
+gjøre det enklere å få innsyn i offentlige dokumenter, og dette
+inkluderer å gjøre postjournaler enklere tilgjengelig for maskinell
+analyse og søk. I den forbindelse tok jeg i dag å tittet litt på
+<a href="http://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal
+(OEP)</a>, FAD/DIFIs fellesløsning for departementer og statlige
+etater.</p>
+
+<p>Her er antall oppføringer pr. måned det siste året,
+<a href="https://api.scraperwiki.com/api/1.0/datastore/sqlite?format=htmltable&name=postliste-oep&query=select%20strftime(%22%25Y-%25m%22%2C%20%60recordpublishdate%60)%20as%20oeppubmonth%2C%20count(*)%20from%20%60swdata%60%20group%20by%20oeppubmonth%20order%20by%20oeppubmonth">summert
+opp</a> ved hjelp av
+<a href="https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep/">en
+Scraperwiki-database</a>. Merk at denne Scraperwikien har
+ytelsesproblemer pga. mengden data. </p>
+
+<p><table border="1">
+<tr><th>Måned</th><th>Antall</th></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-07</td><td>164355</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-08</td><td>153662</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-09</td><td>173134</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-10</td><td>170665</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-11</td><td>198409</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2011-12</td><td>175908</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012-01</td><td>206875</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012-02</td><td>202862</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012-03</td><td>204225</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012-04</td><td>207931</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012-05</td><td>223754</td></tr>
+</table></p>
+
+<p>Det er også interessant å se hvor ofte ulike etater sender inn sine
+journaloppføringer til OEP. OEP inneholder en liste med sist
+innrapporteringsdato for alle som sender til OEP, og ved å se når og
+hvor ofte det blir sendt inn fra etatene kan
+<a href="https://api.scraperwiki.com/api/1.0/datastore/sqlite?format=htmltable&name=postliste-oep-deliverydates&query=select%20agency%2C%0A(julianday(datetime('now'))%20-%20%0A%20julianday(min(%60deliverydate%60)))%2Fcount(*)%20as%20dayfreq%2C%0A%20count(*)%0Afrom%20%60swdata%60%20group%20by%20agency%20order%20by%20dayfreq%20desc">frekvensen
+beregnes</a>. Her er bunnlista, dvs. de som leverer sjeldnere enn hver 10.
+dag beregnet fra
+<a href="https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep-deliverydates/">en
+Scraperwiki-database</a>:</p>
+
+<p><table border="1">
+
+<tr> <th>Etat</th> <th>Frekvens</th> <th>Leveringer</th> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Norges geologiske undersøkelse</td> <td>83.7527546296</td> <td>1</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Medietilsynet</td> <td>33.7527546296</td> <td>1</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Departementenes servicesenter</td> <td>23.8763773148</td> <td>2</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Kunnskapsdepartementet</td> <td>15.8763773148</td> <td>2</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Kompetansesenter for distriktsutvikling</td> <td>15.3763773148</td> <td>2</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Toll- og avgiftsdirektoratet</td> <td>15.3763773148</td> <td>2</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Fredskorpset</td> <td>12.5842515432</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Statens legemiddelverk</td> <td>12.1881886574</td> <td>4</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Utlendingsnemnda</td> <td>11.5842515432</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Politidirektoratet</td> <td>10.9175848765</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Skattedirektoratet</td> <td>10.9175848765</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Statens innkrevingssentral</td> <td>10.5842515432</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Barne-, ungdoms- og familiedirektoratet</td> <td>10.2509182099</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+<tr> <td>Kunst i offentlige rom</td> <td>10.2509182099</td> <td>3</td> </tr>
+
+</table></p>
+
+<p>En kan beregne lignende frekvenser ved å sammenligne
+journalføringsdato med publiseringsdato for hver enkelt oppføring i
+OEP, men den lenken legger jeg ikke ved her for å unngå at
+søkemotorroboter begynner å overbelaste Scraperwiki-databasen.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg har spurt Norges geologiske undersøkelse om hvorfor de leverer
+så sjelden, og det kommer av at de har problemer etter oppgradering av
+arkivsystemet sitt og jobber med å fikse det slik at de kan gå tilbake
+til å levere hver uke. Har ikke undersøkt noen av de andre.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Skolelinux-intervju: Kåre Nordby</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_intervju__K_re_Nordby.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_intervju__K_re_Nordby.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Første ut i serien med intervjuer av folk i
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>-miljøet etter at
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">ny
-versjon av Skolelinux</a> ble lansert i helga, er nylig valgte
-styremedlem i foreningen
-<a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/">Fri programvare i
-Skolen</a> (FRiSK) som organiserer
-Skolelinux-utviklingen og daglig leder i
-<a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, selskapet
-prosjektet opprettet som et tilbud til skoler som ønsket en
-kommersiell samarbeidsparter. Det bør nevnes at jeg er styremedlem i
-Skolelinux Drift AS og styreleder i selskapets hovedeier stiftelsen
-<a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/">SLX Debian Labs</a>
-som beskytter verdiene til Skolelinux-prosjektet, og kjenner Kåre den
-veien.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Jeg har siden januar 2010 vært daglig leder i Skolelinux Drift AS,
-som leverer support, installasjon, tilpasning, drift, og opplæring på
-Debian Edu / Skolelinux. Fra 2012 er jeg valgt inn som styremedlem i
-FRiSK. Min forrige jobb var som KAM i Redpill Linpro (som er en av
-eierne i Skolelinux Drift). Før det var jeg daglig leder i et eget 7
-manns konsulent selskap som også startet med fri programvare mot
-slutten.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvordan kom du i kontakt med Skolelinux-prosjektet?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Jeg hørte om det først når jeg jobbet i Redpill Linpro. Men jeg
-har også en datter som går på en friskole, som også bruker Skolelinux.
-Som kjent har ikke friskoler de samme økonomiske rammebetingelsene som
-offentlige skoler, så for dem var det det absolutt beste alternativet.
-De anser også Skolelinux som et stabilt system, som bare går og går (i
-motsetning til det lille Windows-baserte nettverket de har på
-admin-siden).</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hva er fordelene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Sentralisert drift av tynne og diskløse arbeidsstasjoner. Således
-lydløse og raskere arbeidsstasjoner som er bedre i klasserommet.
-Lengre levetid på PC'er. Store besparelser på maskinvare og drift. Og
-så klart fjerning av alle lisenskostnader. Personlig synes jeg også at
-mange av programmene er bedre enn alternativene. Men dette er ofte en
-smakssak og avhengig om man må ha det man er vant til fra før.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hva er ulempene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
-
-<p>For lite kjentskap til løsningen. Noen ganger for dårlig
-kompatibilitet med arbeidsstasjoners/bærbare maskiner sine
-nettverksdrivere eller skjermkort. Men dette løser vi i skolene ved
-standardisering. Ellers er det få, om nesten ingen, av de kjente
-maskinvare / infrastruktur leverandørene til fylkes- / kommuner som
-tilbyr denne plattformen. Skal dette endre seg så må kommunene selv
-sette slike krav til leverandørene.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvilken fri programvare bruker du til daglig?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Har brukt OpenOffice.org siden starten (2001 ?), Kun Linux på
-desktop siden 2005. Bruker i dag Kubuntu, Libreoffice og ymse annet
-programvare til ulik kontorbruk som er lett å installere / teste via
-alle programarkivene som finnes.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvilken strategi tror du er den rette å bruke for å få
-skoler til å ta i bruk fri programvare?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Fortsette å presentere flere av de gode eksemplene hvor Debian Edu
-/ Skolelinux brukes i kommuner og enkeltskoler. Vi må få bedre frem
-at det er mulig tilknytte både Windows og Mac klienter på denne
-plattformen (selv om det vil øke driftskostnadene). Dette gjøres
-mange steder. Spesielt er det mange lærere som ønsker å bruke
-Windows/Mac-bærbare, gjerne som sin private PC også. Det er også mulig
-for kommunen å integrere med Active Directory i stedet for OpenLDAP
-som kommer med ut av boksen (selv om også dette øker kostnadene).
-Dette vil muligens bidra til å fjerne noe motstand hos noen
-potensielle brukere / driftpersonell for å ta i bruk noe
-nytt. Fremveksten av mobile brukere og nettbrett går i vår favør.
-Brukerne blir kjent og vant til flere nye operativsystemer /
-brukergrensesnitt. Så utviklerfellesskapet bør jobbe videre med å
-integrere flere nye klienttyper, som ultra lav-kostklienter og
-nettbrett (blant annet fri programvare-alternativet
-<a href="http://makeplaylive.com/">Spark</a> med
-<a href="http://www.merproject.org/">Mer OS</a> og
-<a href="http://plasma-active.org/">KDE Active Plasma</a>).</p>
+ <title>TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 9 Jun 2012 22:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
+<a href="http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/06/09/0012247/intel-to-launch-tv-service-with-facial-recognition-by-end-of-the-year">TV
+with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
+me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
+recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who
+is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
+company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
+evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would
+be willing to pay for.</p>
+
+<p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
+household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
+It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
+<a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
+Orwell</a>.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
-on Debian/Squeeze. The full announcement is
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
-from the project announcement list. Now is a good time to test if it
-you have not done so already.</p>
-
-<p>I plan to present the new version at
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
-meeting</a> on tuesday. I look forward to seeing you there if you are
-in Oslo, Norway.</p>
+ <title>Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 6 Jun 2012 23:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A few days ago
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
+reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
+unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
+<a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
+by Daniel De Marco in february</a>. Combined with my web scraping
+code for HP, Dell and IBM
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
+2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
+<a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
+web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
+support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
+
+<p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
+output:
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+% GET <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1">https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1</a>
+supportstatus({"servicetag": "2v1xwn1", "warrantyend": "2013-11-24", "shipped": "2010-11-24", "scrapestamputc": "2012-06-06T20:26:56.965847", "scrapedurl": "http://143.166.84.118/services/assetservice.asmx?WSDL", "vendor": "Dell", "productid": ""})
+%
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
+support for other vendors. The python source is available on
+Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 9 Mar 2012 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
-interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
-interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
-community. This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
-more international audience.</p>
-
-<p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
-Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
-Europe, there are users all around the globe. One of those far away
-from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
-and contributor. It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
-work out of the box in Japan. I got him to answer a few questions,
-and am happy to share the response with you. :)
+ <title>Kommentar til artikkel i Adresseavisa som omtaler FiksGataMi</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 2 Jun 2012 19:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Jeg oppdaget nylig en
+<a href="http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/article1831198.ece">artikkel
+i Adresseavisa</a> i Trondheim som nevner FiksGataMi, og der Trondheim
+kommune ser ut til å fortelle at de ikke følger forvaltningslovens
+krav ved mottak av meldinger sendt inn via FiksGataMi. La derfor
+nettopp inn denne kommentaren til artikkelen:<p>
+<p><blockquote>
+
+<p>Her er en liten faktaoppdatering om FiksGataMi-tjenesten, da noen
+ser ut til å ha misforstått hvordan den fungerer.</p>
+
+<p>FiksGataMi er et privat initiativ opprettet og drevet av
+medlemsforeningen NUUG. FiksGataMi tar imot meldinger om feil i
+offentlig infrastruktur, og sender meldingen skriftlig videre på vegne
+av innmelder til aktuell aktør i det offentlige, det være seg kommune,
+fylke eller vegvesenregion. Offentlig etat blir valgt ut fra
+geografisk plassering og kategori valgt av innsender. Offentlige
+etater er i følge forvaltningsloven pliktig å følge opp og besvare
+skriftlige henvendelser, og hvis noen av mottakerne ikke gjør dette
+kan en klage på lovbrudd i det offentlige. FiksGataMi fungerer dermed
+som en slags epostklient for innbyggerne der kopi av innsendte
+meldinger gjøres tilgjengelig og knyttes til kartplassering for enkel
+gjenfinning. Å sende inn nye problemrapporter via FiksGataMi er
+dermed ikke avhengig av at kommunen aktivt må følge med på meldinger
+hos FiksGataMi, da de får dem tilsendt på sine offisielle
+epostmottakspunkter. Hvorvidt noe blir fikset og om innbyggerne er
+opp til mottaker av meldingene. For Trondheim kommune er
+mottaksadressen bydrift.vegdrift@trondheim.kommune.no, en adresse jeg
+inntil jeg leste denne artikkelen trodde ble håndtert i henhold til
+forvaltningslovens krav.</p>
+
+<p>Kan ellers fortelle at 57 kommuner lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine
+nettsider, og at 37 % (4182 av 11266 ) av problemrapportene sendt inn
+via FiksGataMi er markert som løst i løsningen. Trondheim kommune har
+fått tilbud om å få rapportene levert på datamaskinlesbart format i
+stedet for epost, men har ikke takket ja så langt.</p>
+
+<p>Vennlig hilsen Petter Reinholdtsen, en av NUUG-folkene bak FiksGataMi.no</p>
+
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Det høres for meg ut som om innbyggerne i Trondheim burde klage på
+kommunens potensielle lovbrudd.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 2 Jun 2012 15:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
+mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
+thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
+<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
+Squeeze</a> version.</p>
<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-<p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
-and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
-Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
-teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
-Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
-I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
-primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
-so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
-also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
-to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
-appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
+<p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
+Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
+(Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
+by Angela).</p>
+
+<p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
+and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
+touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
+the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
+becoming an osteopath.</p>
+
+<p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
+have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
+introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
+"IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
+skills with communication skills.</p>
<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
project?</strong></p>
-<p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
-server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
-samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
-Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
-did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
-and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
-there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
-problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
-previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
-Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
-downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
-Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
-my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
+<p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
+"IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
+reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
+people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
+distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
+
+<p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
+commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
+Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
+went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
+and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
+got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
+attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
+the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
+
+<p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
+people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
+protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
+
+<p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
+
+<p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
+bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
+by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
+whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
+IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
+customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
+possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
+standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
+degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
+locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
+point.</p>
+
+<p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
+all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
+for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
+has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
+of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
+tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
+
+<p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
+defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
+Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
+equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
+teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
+spare time.</p>
+
+<p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
+networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
+here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
+teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
+non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
+
+<p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
+class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
+avoidance do exist.</p>
+
+<p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
+social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
+for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
+several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
+they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
+at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
+and probably a gain for all.</p>
<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
Edu?</strong></p>
-<p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
-workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
-ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
-designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
-doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
-school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
-Japan.</p>
+<p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
+any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
+the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
+workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
+project communication, honest communication within the group of
+developers, etc.</p>
<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
Edu?</strong></p>
-<p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
-have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
-make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
-who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
-important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
-instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
-default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
-kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
-Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is. A
-second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
-customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
-multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
-took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
-I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
-help.</p>
+<p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
+
+<p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
+#311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
+client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
+should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
+about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
+several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
+contribute).</p>
+
+<p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
+find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
+Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
+promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
+there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
+these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
+all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
+meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
+there being rather disconnected from the development department of
+Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-<p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
-studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
-(customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
-still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
-house, that's very useful for the family photos and music. At school
-the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
-have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
-day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
-installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS. We also
-have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
-and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
+<p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
+
+<p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
+serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
+more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
+
+<p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
+development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
+PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
+is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
+
+<p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
+as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
+I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
+the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
+whiteboard.</p>
+
+<p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-<p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
-and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
-popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
-to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
-file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago. The Edu aspect is
-also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
-Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu? But of course the main attraction is
-budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
-compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
-is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
-are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
-doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
+<p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
+enrol people.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 7 Mar 2012 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
-
-<p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
-screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
-Debian Edu Squeeze. The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
-also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
-download as a
-<a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
-Theora</a> file. Check it out below.</p>
-
-<p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
- <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
- <p>Download video as
- <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
-</video></p>
+ <title>SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 1 Jun 2012 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A few years ago I wrote
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
+to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers. Recently
+I have learned from colleges here at the
+<a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
+made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given
+the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
+readable information about the support status. This perl code
+demonstrate how to do it:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+use SOAP::Lite;
+use Data::Dumper;
+my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
+my $App = 'test';
+my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
+my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
+my $s = SOAP::Lite
+ -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
+ -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
+ -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
+ ;
+my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
+ SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
+ SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
+ SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
+);
+print Dumper($a -> result) ;
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>The output can look like this:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+$VAR1 = {
+ 'Asset' => {
+ 'Entitlements' => {
+ 'EntitlementData' => [
+ {
+ 'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
+ 'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'Provider' => '',
+ 'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'DaysLeft' => '0'
+ },
+ {
+ 'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
+ 'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'Provider' => '',
+ 'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'DaysLeft' => '0'
+ },
+ {
+ 'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
+ 'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'Provider' => '',
+ 'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
+ 'DaysLeft' => '0'
+ }
+ ]
+ },
+ 'AssetHeaderData' => {
+ 'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
+ 'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
+ 'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
+ 'Buid' => '2323',
+ 'Region' => 'Europe',
+ 'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
+ 'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
+ }
+ }
+ };
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
+service outside the
+<a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
+documentation</a>, and according to
+<a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
+comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
+scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
+
+<p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If
+you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
</description>
</item>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff