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<item>
- <title>MPEG LA on "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" licensing and non-private use</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 7 Jul 2015 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html">why
-they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
-the MPEG LA</a>, I was wiser, but still confused. So I asked MPEG LA
-if their understanding matched that of NRK. As far as I can tell, it
-does not.</p>
-
-<p>I started by asking for more information about the various
-licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the "Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video" class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
-did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
-
-<p><blockquote>
-
-<p>According to
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf">a
-MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02</a>, there is no charge when
-using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of "Internet Broadcast AVC
-Video". I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of "Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video" is, and wondered if you could help me. What
-exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?</p>
-
-<p>The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
-PDF named
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">AVC
-Patent Portfolio License Briefing</a>, which states this about the
-fees:</p>
-
-<ul>
- <li>Where End User pays for AVC Video
- <ul>
- <li>Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
- subscribers/yr = no royalty; &gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
- $25,000; &gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &gt;500,000 to
- 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000</li>
-
- <li>Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &gt;12 minutes in
- length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title</li>
- </ul></li>
-
- <li>Where remuneration is from other sources
- <ul>
- <li>Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
- (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &gt; 100,000 HH rising to
- maximum $10,000 for &gt;1,000,000 HH</li>
-
- <li>Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
- – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License</li>
- </ul></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p>Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
-categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that "Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video" is the category for things that do not fall into
-one of the other three categories? Can you point me to a good source
-explaining what is ment by "title-by-title" and "Free Television" in
-the license terms for AVC/H.264?</p>
-
-<p>Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
-"video on demand" fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
-subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
-get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the "Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video", ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
-Portfolio license? Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
-access to personalized services?</p>
-
-<p>Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
-Internet.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
-with the MPEG LA:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA. We
-appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.</p>
-
-<p>As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
-which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
-the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10). Specifically, coverage is
-provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
-technology. Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
-video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
-paying the applicable royalties.</p>
-
-<p>Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
-defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
-the Internet free-of-charge. Therefore, if a party offers a service
-which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
-AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
-receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
-Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
-License. This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
-free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
-AVC Video content. In other words, as long as the End User is given
-access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
-no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.</p>
-
-<p>On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
-specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
-video would constitute Subscription AVC Video. In cases where AVC
-Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
-content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video. If a party offers
-Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
-be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
-through an "over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission", then
-such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
-subject to the applicable royalties.</p>
-
-<p>For your reference, I have attached
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf">a
-.pdf copy of the AVC License</a>. You will find the relevant
-sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
-2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
-You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
-Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License. Please note that the
-electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
-be used for execution.</p>
-
-<p>I hope the above information is helpful. If you have additional
-questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
-free to contact me directly.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
-that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
-me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
-But I still had a few questions:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>I have a small followup question. Would it be possible for me to get
-a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid? The
-reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
-clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA. The clauses
-typically look similar to this:
-
-<p><blockquote>
- 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.
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
-an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
-there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA. I suspect it will
-differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway. What is
-MPEG LAs view on this?</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
-non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-
-<p>With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
-clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
-reads:</p>
-
-<p>THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
-THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
-RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
-STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
-BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR 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 HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM</p>
-
-<p>The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
-personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
-with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
-product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
-licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
-deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
-Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party's AVC
-Product as their own branded AVC Product).</p>
-
-<p>Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
-Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
-Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
-conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
-payable under the License. On the other hand, if that party (either a
-Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
-own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
-above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
-Products by the licensed supplier.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
-countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
-Norway.</p>
-
-<p>I hope this clarification is helpful. If I may be of any further
-assistance, just let me know.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
-asked for more information:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-
-<p>But one minor question at the end. If I understand you correctly,
-you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
-Portfolio that are valid in Norway. This make me believe I read the
-list available from &lt;URL:
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx">http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx</a>
-&gt; incorrectly, as I believed the "NO" prefix in front of patents
-were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
-Electric Corporation expired in 2012. Which patents are you referring
-to that are relevant for Norway?</p>
-
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
-in that list:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-
-<p>Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
-Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012. Therefore, where AVC
-Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
-royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
-With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
-Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
-the last Norwegian AVC patent expired. I would also like to clarify
-that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
-country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.</p>
-
-<p>Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
-a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
-Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
-coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
-initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
-Patents (for example, Norway). Similarly, a party would need to
-conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
-country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
-such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
-Portfolio Patents.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
-Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
-license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
-anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
-Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
-content. I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
-none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid. Will the
-copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
-the patents are not valid in Norway?</p>
+ <title>Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 15 Mar 2016 15:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Back in September, I blogged about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
+system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
+how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
+created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
+but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
+package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
+a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
+fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
+hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.</p>
+
+<p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
+hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
+battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
+battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
+able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
+information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
+battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
+graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
+status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
+Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
+tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
+
+<p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
+battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
+about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
+battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
+yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
+bit more before I make a new release.</p>
+
+<p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
+suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
+impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
+and graphing.</p>
+
+<p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
+battery, check out the battery-stats package in
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
+on
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
+I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 5 Jul 2015 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
-need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
-thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
-fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
-do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
-machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
-with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
-for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
-not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
-using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
-might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
-
-<p>One tip I got was to use the
-<a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
-compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
-prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
-keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
-very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
-keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
-
-<p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
-newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
-(which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
-Debian Sid/Unstable according to
-<a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>. The reports I
-got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
-is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
-Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
-keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
-keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
-replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
-activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
-also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
-noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
-Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
-
-<p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
-<a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
-<a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
-The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
-
-<p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
-as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
-
-<p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
-<a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
-different
-<a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
-thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
+ <title>Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
+details. And one of the details is the content of the
+debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
+the code in the package in question, preferably in
+<a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
+readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
+
+<p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
+and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
+package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
+the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
+both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
+out what was wrong with
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
+zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
+figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
+semi-automatically.</p>
+
+<p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
+file based on the code in the source package,
+<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
+and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>. I'm
+not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
+create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
+be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
+polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
+option in
+<a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
+blog posts from 2014</a>.
+
+<p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
+
+<p><pre>
+debmake -cc > debian/copyright
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
+this might not be the best option.</p>
+
+<p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
+this approach in
+<a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
+blog post from 2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
+dpkg-copyright' option:
+
+<p><pre>
+cme update dpkg-copyright
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
+handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
+
+<p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
+check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
+<tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>. The former seem
+to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
+ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
+copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
+names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
+fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
+if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
+copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
+
+<p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning. It
+will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
+It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
+can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
+
+<p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
+debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
+planet.debian.org.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
+on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
+
+<p><pre>
+licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
+ /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
+version control system to make it easier to discover license and
+copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
+with my packages in the future.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
+against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
+command line.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 3 Jul 2015 07:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
-replacement soon. The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
-started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
-cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
-flickering.</p>
-
-<p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
-still as
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
-described them in 2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
-good help from
-<a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
-where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
-wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
-and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
-laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
-G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
-keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
-the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
-deteriorated since X41.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
-seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
-set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
-have suggestions.</p>
+ <title>Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
+is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
+convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
+firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
+be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
+about. :)</p>
+
+<p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
+file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
+picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
+unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
+by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
+providing the example file, do like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+% apt install appstream
+[...]
+% apt update
+[...]
+% appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
+ awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
+firmware-qlogic
+%
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
+appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
+a way appstream can use.</p>
+
+<p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
+given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
+know how to handle. First find the mime type using <tt>file
+--mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
+it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
+and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+% apt install appstream
+[...]
+% apt update
+[...]
+% appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
+ awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
+bkchem
+phototonic
+inkscape
+shutter
+tetzle
+geeqie
+xia
+pinta
+gthumb
+karbon
+comix
+mirage
+viewnior
+postr
+ristretto
+kolourpaint4
+eog
+eom
+gimagereader
+midori
+%
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
+packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 2 Jul 2015 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> with recording the talks at
-<a href="http://www.makercon.no/">MakerCon Nordic</a>, a conference for
-the Maker movement. Since then it has been the plan to publish the
-recordings on <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, which
-finally happened the last few days. A few talks are missing because
-the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
-talks are available. The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
-channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
-from the Frikanalen web site. The unedited recordings are
-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">available on
-Youtube too</a>.</p>
-
-<p>This is the list of talks available at the moment. Visit the
-<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon">Frikanalen video
-pages</a> to view them.</p>
-
-<ul>
-
- <li>Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
- to robotics (Kyrre Glette)</li>
-
- <li>Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)</li>
-
- <li>Making a one year school course for young makers
- (Olav Helland)</li>
-
- <li>Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
- Inspiration (Hege Langlo)</li>
-
- <li>Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)</li>
-
- <li>How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)</li>
-
- <li>Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
- Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)</li>
-
- <li>Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)</li>
-
- <li>Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)</li>
-
- <li>Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)</li>
-
- <li>Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)</li>
-
- <li>Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
- Sevens)</li>
-
- <li>How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
- (Jennifer Turliuk)</li>
-
- <li>Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
- Connected Exploration (David Lang)</li>
-
- <li>Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
- Dyvik)</li>
-
- <li>The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
-to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
-longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
-argument changes). In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
-which sent me on a detour to
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">package
-bs1770gain for Debian</a>. Now this is in place and it became a lot
-easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.</p>
+ <title>Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 24 Jan 2016 10:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
+with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
+position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
+time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
+computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
+mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
+also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
+during installation). And when these programs send out information to
+central collection points, the location is often included, unless
+extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
+information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
+good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
+the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
+perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
+when they share their whereabouts with private and public
+entities.</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
+
+<p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
+when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
+unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
+officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
+unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
+public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
+tool to do so is called
+<a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>. I
+discovered it when I read
+<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
+article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
+November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
+The python program was in Debian, but
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
+Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
+uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
+have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
+get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
+Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
+are now included
+<a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
+Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
+complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
+given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
+these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
+least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
+days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
+configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
+information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
+into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
+about yourself with the services.</p>
+
+<p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
+geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
+of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
+information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
+information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
+I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
+twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
+Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
+making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
+things. A similar technique have been
+<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
+to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
+tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
+understand the value of the private information they provide to the
+public.</p>
+
+<p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
+it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
+least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
+python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
+
+<p>(I have uploaded
+<a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
+screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
+Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Hvem fører Medietilsynet tilsyn med?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvem_f_rer_Medietilsynet_tilsyn_med_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvem_f_rer_Medietilsynet_tilsyn_med_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 28 Jun 2015 23:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>I en global verden med eierskap på tvers, trengs det informasjon om
-hvem som har kontrollen i selskaper og bedrifter. Og for å få tilgang
-til slik informasjon for alle som ønsker å analysere eierskap, holder
-med ikke med nasjonale databaser over eierskap, det må globale
-samledatabaser med åpne data til. Heldigvis finnes det en
-internasjonal bevegelse for å gjøre selskapsinformasjon for alle land
-offentlig tilgjengelig. En slik database heter
-<a href="http://opencorporates.com">OpenCorporates</a>, der
-informasjonen er gratis tilgjengelig med en "del på samme
-vilkår"-lisens. De samler inn selskapsinformasjon, eierskap,
-konsesjonstildelinger og lignende. De manglet ganske mye for Norge,
-da bruksvilkårene til Norsk offentlig informasjon i stor grad
-blokkerer OpenCorporates fra å samle den inn.</p>
-
-<p>Men jeg er jo involvert i
-<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, som har
-TV-konsesjon, og tenkte det kunne være fint om informasjon om alle
-mediakonsesjoner var tilgjengelig i OpenCorporates, så jeg sendte
-avgårde følgende spørsmål til Medietilsynet 2015-06-22:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p>Hei. Finnes det en oversikt over enhetene som Mediatilsynet fører
-tilsyn med som åpne data? Jeg lette etter den på
-&lt;URL:<a href="http://data.norge.no/">http://data.norge.no/</a>&gt; og
-&lt;URL:<a href="http://hotell.difi.no/">http://hotell.difi.no/</a>&gt; uten å
-finne noe der, og fant heller ikke noe under
-&lt;URL:<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/</a>&gt;.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg tenker på alle som har fått kringkastingskonsesjon og alle som
-er omtalt under
-&lt;URL:<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebildet/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebildet/</a>&gt;.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg skulle gjerne hatt dette maskinlesbart, og inkludert
-organisasjonsnummer og hva slags forhold mediatilsynet har til
-organisasjonene. Tanken er å importere det i
-&lt;URL:<a href="https://opencorporates.com/">https://opencorporates.com/</a>&gt; for analyse, så det bør ikke ha
-bruksbegresninger som gjør dette umulig.</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>To dager senere fikk jeg svar, med de datasettene de hadde
-tilgjengelig. Svaret fra Hanne Sekkelsten hos Medietilsynet var
-informativt og imøtekommende.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p>Vi viser til din e-post av 22. juni, der du ber om å få tilsendt oversikter
-over aktører Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med.</p>
-
-<p>Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med kringkastere og audiovisuelle
-bestillingstjenester som omfattes av kringkastingsloven, og med
-eierskap i aviser, fjernsyn radio og elektroniske medier etter
-medieeierskapsloven. I tillegg vil Medietilsynet etter at
-beskyttelsesloven trer i kraft fra 1. juli ha tilsyn med en rekke nye
-aktører. Nærmere informasjon om den nye loven finnes på Medietilsynets
-nettsted, her:
-<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebransjen/bildeprogramloven/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebransjen/bildeprogramloven/</a>
-. Vi har ikke utarbeidet oversikter over alle aktørene, men vi sender
-deg her de listene vi har utarbeidet, hentet fra våre databaser. Vi
-har dessverre ikke ferdige rapporter som inneholder
-organisasjonsnummer. Dersom du ønsker flere opplysninger ber vi om at
-du tar kontakt med oss slik at vi kan finne ut av hvilke opplysninger
-du trenger, og hvilke vi kan fremskaffe.</p>
-
-<p>Vedlagt følger:
-
-<ul>
-
- <li>Konsesjoner - lokalradio FM pr. 31.12.2014 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjoner_lokalradio_fm_felles_31.12.2014.pdf">PDF (original)</a>]</li>
-
- <li>Konsesjoner - lokalfjernsyn i det digitale bakkenettet for fjernsyn, pr. mars 2015 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Lokalfjernsyn_DTT_konsesjoner_mars_2015.docx">DOCX (original)</a>,
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Lokalfjernsyn_DTT_konsesjoner_mars_2015.pdf">PDF</a>]</li>
-
- <li>Konsesjoner - DAB-radio, status mars 2015 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjonaernummer_DAB.xps">XPS (original)</a>,
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjonaernummer_DAB.pdf">PDF</a>]</li>
-
- <li>Registreringspliktige kringkastere - status mars 2015: [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Registreringspliktige_kringkastere_register_-_aktive.xps">XPS (original)</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Registreringspliktige_kringkastere_register_-_aktive.pdf">PDF</a>]
-
- <ul>
- <li>Kabelsendt fjernsyn
- <li>Satellittsendt fjernsyn
- <li>Nett-tv
- <li>Kabelsendt radio
- <li>Satellittsendt radio
- <li>Nett-radio
- </ul></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p>Vi må ta forbehold om at det kan være enkelte feil i oversiktene
-siden disse ikke er oppdaterte pr. dags dato. Vi vil foreta nye
-oppdateringer i august.</p>
-
-<p>Med hilsen</p>
-
-<p>Hanne Nistad Sekkelsten
-<br>Seniorrådgiver | Senior Legal Adviser
-<br>Medietilsynet | Norwegian Media Authority
-<br>A: Nygata 4, NO-1607 Fredrikstad
-<br>T: [telefonnummer fjernet]
-<br>E: [adresse fjernet] | W: www.medietilsynet.no
-</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>Desverre er formatene for ustrukturerte til maskinell behandling og
-mangler endel informasjon, men det er gode oversikter over hvem
-Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med. Filene er på formatene PDF, XPS
-(XML-basert PDF-lignende format fra Microsoft) og DOCX, så det vil
-være en stor jobb å strukturere informasjonen på en måte som kan
-importeres i OpenCorporates. Svaret er ikke i tråd med
-<a href="http://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2013-04-05-959">Forskrift
-om IT-standarder i offentlig forvaltning</a> som sier epostvedlegg
-skal sendes som PDF, så jeg har gjorde PDF-utgaver av XPS og
-DOCX-utgavene tilgjengelig for å gjøre det enklere for alle å se
-innholdet.</p>
+ <title>Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
+<a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
+that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
+believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
+security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
+use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
+listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
+Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
+to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
+download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
+<a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
+to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>. He
+was not the first to propose this, as the
+<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
+package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
+to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
+aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
+sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
+Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
+it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
+making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
+installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
+urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
+of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
+<tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
+done in /etc/.</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+apt install apt-transport-tor
+sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
+sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
+the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
+using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
+edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
+
+<p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
+<tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
+system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
+<tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
+which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
+need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
+
+<p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
+using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
+update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
+masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
+become normal for the machine in question.</p>
+
+<p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
+is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
+enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
+system.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies
-in Norway. The information is publicly available, but one need to
-recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete
-ownership graph of a given set of companies. To save me the work in
-the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the
-ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format. The data source
-is web scraping from <a href="http://www.proff.no/">Proff</a>, because
-I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of
-the ownership data, <a href="http://www.brreg.no/">Brønnøysundsregistrene</a>.</p>
-
-<p>To get an ownership graph for a set of companies, fetch
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/brreg-norway-ownership-graph">the code from git</a> and run it using the organisation number. I'm
-using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its
-ownership structure is very simple:</p>
-
-<pre>
-% time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot
-
-real 0m2.841s
-user 0m0.184s
-sys 0m0.036s
-%
-</pre>
-
-<p>The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line,
-allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image. The
-resulting dot file for the example above look like this. The edges
-are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the
-organisation number as their name and the name as the label:</p>
-
-<pre>
-digraph ownership {
-rankdir = LR;
-"Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"]
-"910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"]
-"998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"]
-"974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"]
-"958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"]
-"998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"]
-"974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"]
-"910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"]
-}
-</pre>
-
-<p>To view the ownership graph, run "<tt>dotty dagbladet.dot</tt>" or
-convert it to a PNG using "<tt>dot -T png dagbladet.dot >
-dagbladet.png</tt>". The result can be seen below:</p>
-
-<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-15-ownership-graphs-norway-dagbladet.png" width="80%">
-
-<p>Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect
-data in the official ownership register, as that name is not
-registered in the official company register for Norway. The ownership
-register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking
-of the ownership links.</p>
-
-<p>Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources.
-The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.</p>
-
-<p>Update 2015-06-15: Since the initial post I've been told that
-"<a href="http://www.proff.dk/firma/carl-allers-etablissement-aktieselskab/københavn-v/hovedkontorer/13624518-3/">Aller
-Holding A/S</a>" is a Danish company, which explain why it did not
-have a Norwegian organisation number. I've also been told that there
-is a <a href="http://www.brreg.no/automatiske/webservices/">web
-services API available</a> from Brønnøysundsregistrene, for those
-willing to accept the terms or pay the price.</p>
+ <title>Nedlasting fra NRK, som Matroska med undertekster</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nedlasting_fra_NRK__som_Matroska_med_undertekster.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nedlasting_fra_NRK__som_Matroska_med_undertekster.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 2 Jan 2016 13:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Det kommer stadig nye løsninger for å ta lagre unna innslag fra NRK
+for å se på det senere. For en stund tilbake kom jeg over et script
+nrkopptak laget av Ingvar Hagelund. Han fjernet riktignok sitt script
+etter forespørsel fra Erik Bolstad i NRK, men noen tok heldigvis og
+gjorde det <a href="https://github.com/liangqi/nrkopptak">tilgjengelig
+via github</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Scriptet kan lagre som MPEG4 eller Matroska, og bake inn
+undertekster i fila på et vis som blant annet VLC forstår. For å
+bruke scriptet, kopier ned git-arkivet og kjør</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+nrkopptak/bin/nrk-opptak k <ahref="https://tv.nrk.no/serie/bmi-turne/MUHH45000115/sesong-1/episode-1">https://tv.nrk.no/serie/bmi-turne/MUHH45000115/sesong-1/episode-1</a>
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>URL-eksemplet er dagens toppsak på tv.nrk.no. Argument 'k' ber
+scriptet laste ned og lagre som Matroska. Det finnes en rekke andre
+muligheter for valg av kvalitet og format.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg foretrekker dette scriptet fremfor youtube-dl, som
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html">
+nevnt i 2014 støtter NRK</a> og en rekke andre videokilder, på grunn
+av at nrkopptak samler undertekster og video i en enkelt fil, hvilket
+gjør håndtering enklere på disk.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
-everywhere. Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
-ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
-the viewers do not like this. This fact is well known to the TV
-channels. See for example the BBC white paper
-"<a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf">Terminology
-for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that</a>" from 2011 for a
-summary of the problem domain. To better address the need for even
-loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
-new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
-standardizing loudness. From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
-"<a href="http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en">Algorithms to
-measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level</a>".</p>
-
-<p>The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
-loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
-having a way to measure is not enough. To get the same loudness
-across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
-on. For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
-R128, "<a href="https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf">Loudness
-normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals</a>", which
-specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS. In Norway, I have been
-told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
-follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.</p>
-
-<p>There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
-level using the LUFS. In Debian, I am aware of a library named
-<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128">libebur128</a>
-able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
-named <a href="http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net">bs1770gain</a>
-capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
-for NEW processing. I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
-<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org">Debian
-multimedia</a> umbrella.</p>
-
-<p>The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
-<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, plan to follow the
-R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
-do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
-the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
-Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
-I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
-NUUG member organisation</a>. The program seem to be able to measure
-the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only
-successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files. I suspect it
-should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.</p>
+ <title>OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2015 01:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
+call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
+numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
+to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
+exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
+time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
+
+<p>A few days I came across
+<a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
+project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
+report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
+"car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
+such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
+number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
+the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
+even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
+discovered the developer
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
+Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
+help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
+archive.</p>
+
+<p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
+it into Debian, where it currently
+<a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
+in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
+
+<p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
+for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
+surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
+and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
+when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
+was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
+to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
+car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
+capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
+open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
+guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
+cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
+out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
+before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
+package show up in unstable.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale med MPEG LA?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2015 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Helt siden jeg i 2012 fikk beskjed fra MPEG LA om at
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_mener_NRK_m__ha_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html">NRK
-trengte patentavtale med dem</a> hvis de distribuerte H.264-video til
-sluttbrukere, har jeg lurt på hva som gjør at NRK ikke har slik
-avtale. For noen dager siden fikk jeg endelig gjort noe med min
-undring, og sendte 2015-05-28 følgende epost til info (at) nrk.no med
-tittel "Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale
-med MPEG LA?":</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Jeg lurer på en ting rundt NRKs bruk av H.264-video på sine
-websider samt distribusjon via RiksTV og kabel-TV. Har NRK vurdert om
-det er behov for en patentavtale med
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG LA</a> slik det står i
-programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe
-Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X?</p>
-
-<p>Hvis dere har vurdert dette, hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering?</p>
-
-<p>Hvis dere ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
-for patentavtale?</p>
-
-<p>I følge en artikkel på
-<a href="https://nrkbeta.no/2012/02/01/siste-kutt-for-final-cut/">NRK
-Beta i 2012</a> har NRK brukt eller testet både Apple Final Cut
-Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X til bruk
-for å redigere video før sending. Alle disse har bruksvilkår
-understøttet av opphavsretten som sier at de kun kan brukes til å lage
-filmer til personlig og ikke-kommersiell bruk - med mindre en har en
-lisensavtale med MPEG LA om bruk av patenter utstedt i USA for H.264.
-Se f.eks. <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">bruksvilkårene for Avid</a>, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html">Adobe Premiere</a> og <a href="http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf">Apple Final
-Cut Studio</a> og søk etter "MPEG LA".</p>
-
-<p>Dette får meg til å lure på om det er brudd på opphavsretten å bruke
-disse verktøyene i strid med bruksvilkårene uten patentavtale med MPEG
-LA. Men NRK bruker jo tilsynelatende disse verktøyene uten patentavtale
-med MPEG LA.</p>
-
-<p>I følge forfatteren av Open Broadcast Encoder finnes det to typer
-H.264-relaterte avtaler en kan få med MPEG LA. Det er én for å lage
-programvare og utstyr som produserer H.264-video, og en annen for å
-kringkaste video som bruker H.264. Dette forteller meg at selv om
-produsentene av utstyr og programvare som NRK bruker har en slik avtale
-med MPEG LA, så trenges det en egen avtale for å kringkaste video på det
-formatet.</p>
-
-<p>I følge Ryan Rodriguez hos MPEG LA, da jeg spurte ham på epost i
-juni 2012, har NRK ikke en slik avtale med MPEG LA. Han sa videre at
-NRK trenger en slik avtale hvis NRK tilbyr H.264-kodet video til
-sluttbrukere. Jeg sjekket listen med
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx">organisasjoner
-med avtale med MPEG LA</a> og NRK står fortsatt ikke der.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg lurer dermed på hva som gjør at NRK kan bruke de overnevnte
-videoredigeringsverktøyene, som tilsynelatende har krav om avtale med
-MPEG LA for å kunne brukes slik NRK bruker dem, til å lage videofiler
-for distribusjon uten å ha en avtale med MPEG LA om distribusjon av
-H.264-video? Dette er spesielt interessant å vite for oss andre som
-også vurderer å spre H.264-video etter å ha redigert dem med disse mye
-brukte videoredigeringsverktøyene.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Samme dag fikk jeg automatisk svar om at min henvendelse hadde fått
-saksid 1294699. Jeg fikk deretter følgende respons fra NRK
-2015-06-09:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som kunne
-svare på dette.</p>
-
-<p>For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks
-NRKs nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike
-tjenester uten betaling fra forbrukere – er det heller ikke påkrevd
-noen patentavtale.</p>
-
-<p><a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y">http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y</a></p>
-
-<p>Med vennlig hilsen
-<br>Gunn Helen Berg
-<br>Informasjonskonsulent, Publikumsservice</p>
-
-<p>NRK
-<br>Strategidivisjonen
-<Br>Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
-<br>Post: NRK Publikumsservice, 8608 Mo i Rana
-<br>nrk.no / info (at) nrk.no</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-Da dette ikke helt var svar på det jeg lurte på, sendte jeg samme dag
-oppfølgerepost tilbake:
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>[Gunn Helen Berg]
-<br>> Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som
-<br>> kunne svare på dette.</p>
-
-<p>Takk for svar. Men det besvarte ikke helt det jeg spurte om.</p>
-
-<p>> For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks NRKs
-<br>> nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike tjenester
-<br>> uten betaling fra forbrukere – er det heller ikke påkrevd noen
-<br>> patentavtale.
-<br>>
-<br>> http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y</p>
-
-<p>Spørsmålet er ikke kun om MPEG LA krever patentavtale eller ikke
-(hvilket ikke helt besvares av pressemeldingen omtalt over, gitt at
-pressemeldingen kom i 2010, to år før MPEG LA ansvarlige for
-internasjonal lisensiering egen Ryan Rodriguez fortalte meg på epost
-at NRK trenger en lisens.</p>
-
-<p>Det er uklart fra pressemeldingen hva "Internet Broadcast AVC
-Video" konkret betyr, men i følge en
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">presentasjon
-fra MPEG LA med tema "AVC PAtent Portfoli License Briefing" datert
-2015-05-15</a> gjelder "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" kun kringkasting
-på Internet som ikke tilbyr valg av enkeltinnslag ("not
-title-by-title"), hvilket jo NRK gjør på sine nettsider. I tillegg
-kringkaster jo NRK H.264-video også utenom Internet (RiksTV, kabel,
-satelitt), hvilket helt klart ikke er dekket av vilkårene omtalt i
-pressemeldingen.</p>
-
-<p>Spørsmålet mitt er hvordan NRK kan bruke verktøy med bruksvilkår
-som krever avtale med MPEG LA for det NRK bruker dem til, når NRK ikke
-har avtale med MPEG LA. Hvis jeg forsto spørsmålet riktig, så mener
-NRK at dere ikke trenger avtale med MPEG LA, men uten slik avtale kan
-dere vel ikke bruke hverken Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere
-Pro, Avid eller Apples Final Cut Pro X for å redigere video før
-sending?</p>
-
-<p>Mine konkrete spørsmål var altså:</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>Hvis NRK har vurdert om det er behov for en patentavtale med MPEG LA
- slik det er krav om i programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple
- Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X,
- hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering? Kan jeg få kopi av vurderingen
- hvis den er gjort skriftlig?</li>
-
-<li>Hvis NRK ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
- for patentavtale?</li>
-
-<li>Hva slags saksnummer fikk min henvendelse i NRKs offentlige
- postjournal? Jeg ser at postjournalen ikke er publisert for den
- aktuelle perioden ennå, så jeg fikk ikke sjekket selv.</li>
-
-</ul>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Det hjelper å ha funnet rette vedkommende i NRK, for denne gangen
-fikk jeg svar tilbake dagen etter (2015-06-10), fra Geir Børdalen i
-NRK:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Hei Petter Reinholdtsen</p>
-
-<p>Jeg har sjekket saken med distribusjonssjef for tv, Arild Hellgren
-(som var teknologidirektør da bakkenettet ble satt opp). NRK v/
-Hellgren hadde møte med MPEG LA sammen med den europeiske
-kringkastingsunionen EBU før bakkenettet for TV ble satt opp
-(igangsatt høsten 2007). I dette møtet ble det avklart at NRK/EBU ikke
-trengte noen patentavtale for h.264 i forbindelse med oppsett av
-bakkenettet eller bruk av MPEG4 h.264 som kompresjonsalgoritme fordi
-tjenesten «in full»(nor: helt) var betalt av utsendelseselskapene og
-ikke av forbrukerne.</p>
-
-<p><a href="http://www.nrk.no/oppdrag/digitalt-bakkenett-1.3214555">http://www.nrk.no/oppdrag/digitalt-bakkenett-1.3214555</a></p>
-
-<p>Det er også klart slått fast at selskaper som leverer video basert
-på MPEG4 h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett, heller ikke påkrevd noen
-patentavtale – så lenge de leverer slike tjenester uten betaling fra
-sluttbrukere.</p>
-
-<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y">http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y</a>
-
-<p>“MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will
-continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to
-end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire
-life of this License. MPEG LA previously announced it would not charge
-royalties for such video through December 31, 2015 (see
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf">http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf</a>),
-and today’s announcement makes clear that royalties will continue not
-to be charged for such video beyond that time. Products and services
-other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be
-royalty-bearing.”</p>
-
-<p>Vi har derfor ikke noe behov for å vurdere noen patentavtale med
-MPEG LA.</p>
-
-<p>Understreker for øvrig at NRK ikke er låst til MPEG4 – h.264 som
-utsendelsesformat – og at vi har brukt og bruker flere andre
-alternativer i våre tjenester. Ulike «devicer» har ofte behov for
-forskjellige løsninger – og NRK har forsøkt å levere med best mulig
-kvalitet /økonomi /stabilitet avhengig av
-plattform. Produksjonsformater i NRK spenner for øvrig over en rekke
-forskjellige formater – hvor MPEG4 bare er en av disse. Når NRK kjøper
-teknisk utstyr er betaling for kodekstøtte ofte en del av
-anskaffelsesprisen for denne maskinvaren (enten dette er spesialiserte
-enkodere eller forskjellige typer produksjonsutstyr).</p>
-
-<p>Vennlig hilsen
-<br>Geir Børdalen</p>
-
-<p>________________________________________
-<br>Geir Børdalen
-<br>Investeringsansvarlig NRK / Hovedprosjektleder - Origo
-<br>Avdeling for utvikling, innovasjon, investering og eiendom
-<br>NRK medietjenester
-<br>Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
-<br>Post: NRK, AUTV (RBM5), Pb. 8500 Majorstuen, 0340 Oslo
-<br>nrk.no
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Et godt og grundig svar, som var informativt om hvordan NRK tenker
-rundt patentavtale med MPEG LA, men heller ikke helt besvarte det jeg
-lurte på, så jeg sendte epostoppfølging samme dag.</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>[Geir Børdalen]
-<br>> Hei Petter Reinholdtsen</p>
-
-<p>Hei, og takk for raskt svar. Er min henvendelse journalført slik
-at den dukker opp i NRKs postjournal?</p>
-
-<p>Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du skriver
-at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via bakkenettet
-gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge. Hvilke saksnummer fikk dokumenter
-som ble opprettet i forbindelse med det omtalte møtet NRK v/Hellgren
-og EBU hadde med MPEG LA (dvs. referater, avtaler, etc),
-f.eks. dokumentet der formuleringen "in full" som du omtaler
-finnes?<p>
-
-<p>Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår. Det ene er
-hvorfor NRKs forståelse av hva "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" dekker
-ser ut til å avvike fra det som presenteres i
-<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">lysark
-fra MPEG LA</a> i mai, der MPEG LA på lysark med overskriften
-"AVC/H.264 License Terms Participation Fees" og undertittel "Where
-remuneration is from other sources" skriver "Internet Broadcast AVC
-Video (not title-by-title, not subscription) – no royalty for life of
-the AVC Patent Portfolio License".</p>
-
-<p>Her leser jeg MPEG LA dithen at det kun er kringkasting uten
-abonnement via Internet som er dekket at vilkårne omtalt i
-pressemeldingen, mens jeg forstår deg dithen at NRK mener NRKs
-nettsider som også har enkeltfilmer og innslag (som jeg forstår dekket
-av formuleringen "title-by-title") dekkes av "Internet Broadcast AVC
-Video" fra MPEG LA. Hva baserer dere denne tolkningen på? Jeg har
-ikke sett noe skriftlig fra MPEG LA som støtter NRKs tolkning, og
-lurer på om dere har andre kilder enn den pressemeldingen fra 5 år
-tilbake, der NRKS forståelse av hva "Internet Broadcast AVC Video"
-dekker er beskrevet?</p>
-
-<p>Det andre er at eposten din ikke nevnte spørsmålet mitt om
-bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene som NRK bruker. Disse
-har som tidligere nevnt krav om at de kun skal brukes til private og
-ikke-kommersielle formål med mindre en har avtale med MPEG LA, og uten
-avtale med MPEG LA kan det jo virke som om NRK bruker verktøyene i
-strid med bruksvilkårene. Hva gjør at disse bruksvilkårene ikke
-gjelder for NRK?</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Noen minutter senere får jeg foreløpig siste svar i
-føljetongen:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Hei igjen</p>
-
-<p>Vårt dokumentarkiv har fått en kopi (journalføringsnr kan jeg
-dessverre ikke gi deg).<p>
-
-<p>> Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du
-<br>> skriver at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via
-<br>> bakkenettet gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge.</p>
-
-<p>Svar: Kan ikke svare for andre enn for NRK/EBU - og for bakkenettet
-i Norge er det kun NRK som er et lisensbasert selskap. Kan ikke gi noe
-svar på saksnr på dokumenter eller ytterligere informasjon da jeg selv
-ikke var del i dette.</p>
-
-<p>> Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår. ...</p>
-
-<p>Svar: Kan ikke gå ytterligere inn i dette fra min side og mitt
-fagfelt som er produksjon/publisering og systemstrukturene bak
-disse. For øvrig ligger det etter vår formening ingen begrensninger
-for NRK i mulighetene til publisering mht til kodek i
-produksjonssystemer. Som tidligere skrevet mener vi at NRK ikke
-trenger noen avtale med MPEG LA og støtter oss til det vi allerede har
-kommunisert i forrige epost.</p>
-
-<p>Mvh
-<br>Geir Børdalen</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Det syntes vanskelig å komme videre når NRK ikke ønsker å gå inn i
-problemstillingen rundt bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene
-NRK bruker, så jeg sendte takk for svarene og avsluttet utvekslingen
-så langt:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-<p>Tusen takk for rask respons, og oppklarende forklaring om hvordan
-NRK tenker rundt MPEG LA.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg vil høre med NRK-arkivet for å se om de kan spore opp de
-omtalte dokumentene. Jeg setter pris på om du kan dele titler, dato
-eller annen informasjon som kan gjøre det enklere for arkivet å finne
-dem.</p>
-
-<p>Når det gjelder hvordan bruksvilkårene til
-videoredigeringsverktøyene skal tolkes, så skal jeg høre med MPEG LA
-og produsentene av verktøyene for å forsøke å få klarhet i hva de
-mener er rikgig rettstilstand.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Jeg ble litt klokere, men fortsatt er det uklart for meg hva som er
-grunnlaget til NRK for å se bort fra bruksvilkår i
-videoredigeringsprogramvare som krever MPEG LA-avtale til alt annet
-enn privat og ikke-kommersiell bruk.</p>
+ <title>Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 20 Dec 2015 12:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Around three years ago, I created
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
+system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
+hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
+present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
+relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
+lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
+tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
+it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
+install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
+system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
+words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
+with.</p>
+
+<p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
+adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
+time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
+I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
+the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
+was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
+<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
+appstream system</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
+add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
+appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
+Debian version of appstream.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
+and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
+appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
+package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
+pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
+how do add the required
+<a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
+in pymissile</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
+this content:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
+&lt;component&gt;
+ &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
+ &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
+ &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
+ &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
+ &lt;description&gt;
+ &lt;p&gt;
+ Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
+ Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
+ motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
+ launcher.
+ &lt;/p&gt;
+ &lt;/description&gt;
+ &lt;provides&gt;
+ &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
+ &lt;/provides&gt;
+&lt;/component&gt;
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
+which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
+(modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
+will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
+0202.</p>
+
+<p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
+are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
+appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
+these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
+it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
+(in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
+it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
+upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
+
+<p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
+mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
+appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
+package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
+line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
+all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
+pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
+installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
+
+<p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
+try running this command on the command line:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
+blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Blir det virkelig krav om fingeravtrykk i nasjonale ID-kort?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2015 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Noen finner det vanskelig å tro at Stortinget faktisk har vedtatt å
-kreve at alle norske borgerne må avgi fingeravtrykk til politiet for å
-fungere i samfunnet. Jeg er blitt spurt hva som er grunnlaget for
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html">min
-påstand i forrige bloggpost</a> om at det nå blir krav om å avgi
-fingeravtrykk til politiet for å fungere som borger i Norge. De som
-spør klarer ikke lese det ut fra det som er vedtatt. Her er en liten
-oppsummering om hva jeg baserer det på. Det sies ikke direkte i
-hverken proposisjon, innstilling eller vedtak, men fremgår når en ser
-på indirekte formuleringer.</p>
-
-<p>I
-<a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dokumenter/prop.-66-l-2014-2015/id2399703/">stortingsproposisjon
-66</a>, avsnitt 6.3.5 (Avgivelse av biometriske personopplysninger)
-står det<p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-
- <p>Departementet foreslår at både ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk skal
- kunne opptas og lagres som identifikasjonsdata i de nasjonale
- ID-kortene, på samme måte som i passene. Lovforslaget er derfor
- utformet i tråd med passloven § 6 annet ledd, som fastslår at det
- til bruk for senere verifisering eller kontroll av passinnehaverens
- identitet kan innhentes og lagres i passet biometrisk
- personinformasjon i form av ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk (to
- fingre). Dagens ordning med lagring av ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk
- i et kontaktløst smartkort i passet er basert på internasjonale
- standarder. Fingeravtrykkene i nasjonalt ID-kort vil bli beskyttet
- på samme måte som fingeravtrykkene i passene.</p>
-
- <p>[...]</p>
-
- <p>For norske forhold understreker departementet at innføring av
- nasjonale ID-kort sammen med innføring av nye systemer for sikrere
- utstedelse og kontroll av pass og relaterte dokumenter gir mulighet
- til å utforme ordningen slik at den best mulig møter utfordringene
- forbundet med identitetskriminalitet. Det tilsier at fingeravtrykk
- opptas og lagres i alle nasjonale ID-kort.</p>
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Departementet sier altså at sin anbefaling er at fingeravtrykk skal
-opptas og lagres i alle nasjonale ID-kort. Det skrives som om det
-blir valgfritt, på samme måten som det skrives passloven, der det i
-loven sier at det kan
-«<a href="https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1997-06-19-82#§6">innhentes
-og lagres i passet biometrisk personinformasjon i form av ansiktsfoto
-og fingeravtrykk (to fingre)</a>». Men på tross av bruken av «kan» i
-passloven er det innført krav om å avgi fingeravtrykk for å få et pass
-i Norge. Proposisjonen sier i tillegg i del 1 (Proposisjonens
-hovedinnhold) at ID-kortene skal være like pålitelig som pass og ha
-samme sikkerhetsnivå som pass. Departementet foreslår altså at
-ID-kortene skal gis etter samme regler som for pass.</p>
-
-<p>Formuleringene fra hovedinnholdet i proposisjonen er videreført i
-<a href="https://www.stortinget.no/no/Saker-og-publikasjoner/Publikasjoner/Innstillinger/Stortinget/2014-2015/inns-201415-243/?lvl=0">innstillingen
-fra stortingskomiteen</a>, der det konkret står «De foreslåtte reglene
-vil gi befolkningen tilbud om et offentlig utstedt identitetsbevis som
-vil være like pålitelig som passet, og mer praktisk å bruke som
-legitimasjon» og «Det nasjonale ID-kortet skal også holde samme
-sikkerhetsnivå som passet». Komiteen har altså ingen kommentarer
-eller innsigelser til dette forslaget, og gjorde i debatten da saken
-ble vedtatt det klart at dette var en god sak og at en enstemmig
-komité var glad for resultatet. Stortinget har dermed stilt seg helt
-og fullt bak departementets forslag.</p>
-
-<p>For meg er det åpenbart når en leser proposisjonen at «like
-pålitelig» og «samme sikkerhetsnivå» vil bli tolket av departementet
-som «med samme biometrisk informasjon som i passene», og departementet
-forklarer i tillegg i proposisjonen at de har tenkt at
-fingeravtrykkene «vil bli beskyttet på samme måte som fingeravtrykkene
-i passene». Jeg ser det dermed som åpenbart at den samme
-tvangsinnhentingen av fingeravtrykk som gjelder for pass vil bli
-viderført til de nasjonale ID-kortene.</p>
-
-<p>Det eneste som kan endre dette er massive protester fra
-befolkningen på at folk som ikke er mistenkt for noe kriminelt skal
-tvinges til å gi fingeravtrykket til politiet for å f.eks. kunne få
-bankkonto eller stemme ved valg. Det kunne få departementet til å
-snu. Det tror jeg ikke vil skje.</p>
+ <title>Bokhandeldistribusjon av boken Fri kultur av Lawrence Lessig</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bokhandeldistribusjon_av_boken_Fri_kultur_av_Lawrence_Lessig.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bokhandeldistribusjon_av_boken_Fri_kultur_av_Lawrence_Lessig.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 14 Dec 2015 12:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p><strong>Besøk
+<a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">lulu.com</a>
+eller
+<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fri-kultur-Norwegian-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018236/">Amazon</a>
+for å kjøpe boken på papir, eller last ned ebook som
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">PDF</a>,
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">ePub</a>
+eller
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">MOBI</a>
+fra
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/">github</a>.</strong></p>
+
+<p>Jeg ble gledelig overrasket i dag da jeg oppdaget at boken jeg har
+gitt ut
+<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fri-kultur-Norwegian-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018236/">hadde
+dukket opp i Amazon</a>. Jeg hadde trodd det skulle ta lenger tid, da
+jeg fikk beskjed om at det skulle ta seks til åtte uker.
+Amazonoppføringen er et resultat av at jeg for noen uker siden
+diskuterte prissetting og håndtering av profitt med forfatteren. Det
+måtte avklares da bruksvilkårene til boken har krav om
+ikke-kommersiell bruk. Vi ble enige om at overskuddet fra salg av
+boken skal sendes til
+<a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons-stiftelsen</a>.
+Med det på plass kunne jeg be
+<a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">lulu.com</a>
+om å gi boken «utvidet» distribusjon. Årsaken til at
+bokhandeldistribusjon var litt utfordrende er at bokhandlere krever
+mulighet for profitt på bøkene de selger (selvfølgelig), og dermed
+måtte de få lov til å selge til høyere pris enn lulu.com. I tillegg
+er det krav om samme pris på lulu.com og i bokhandlene, dermed blir
+prisen økt også hos lulu.com. Hva skulle jeg gjøre med den profitten
+uten å bryte med klausulen om ikkekommersiell? Løsningen var å gi
+bort profitten til CC-stiftelsen. Prisen på boken ble nesten
+tredoblet, til $19.99 (ca. 160,-) pluss frakt, men synligheten øker
+betraktelig når den kan finnes i katalogene til store nettbokhandlere.
+Det betyr at hvis du allerede har kjøpt boken har du fått den veldig
+billig, og kjøper du den nå, får du den fortsatt billig samt donerer i
+tillegg noen tiere til fremme av Creative Commons.</p>
+
+<p>Mens jeg var i gang med å titte etter informasjon om boken
+oppdaget jeg at den også var dukket opp på
+<a href="https://books.google.no/books?id=uKUGCwAAQBAJ">Google
+Books</a>, der en kan lese den på web. PDF-utgaven har ennå ikke
+dukket opp hos <a href="https://www.nb.no/">Nasjonalbiblioteket</a>,
+men det regner jeg med kommer på plass i løpet av noen uker. Boken er
+heller ikke dukket opp hos
+<a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/">Barnes & Noble</a> ennå, men
+jeg antar det bare er et tidsspørsmål før dette er på plass.</p>
+
+<p>Boken er dessverre ikke tilgjengelig fra norske bokhandlere, og
+kommer neppe til å bli det med det første. Årsaken er at for å få det
+til måtte jeg personlig håndtere bestilling av bøker, hvilket jeg ikke
+er interessert i å bruke tid på. Jeg kunne betalt ca 2000,- til
+<a href="http://www.bokbasen.no/">den norske bokbasen</a>, en felles
+database over bøker tilgjengelig for norske bokhandlere, for å få en
+oppføring der, men da måtte jeg tatt imot bestillinger på epost og
+sendt ut bøker selv. Det ville krevd at jeg var klar til å
+sende ut bøker på kort varsel, dvs. holdt meg med ekstra bøker,
+konvolutter og frimerker. Bokbasen har visst ikke opplegg for å be
+bokhandlene bestille direkte via web, så jeg droppet oppføring der.
+Jeg har spurt Haugen bok og Tronsmo direkte på epost om de er
+interessert i å ta inn boken i sin bestillingskatalog, men ikke fått
+svar, så jeg antar de ikke er interessert. Derimot har jeg fått en
+hyggelig henvendelse fra Biblioteksentralen som fortalte at de har
+lagt den inn i sin database slik at deres bibliotekskunder enkelt kan
+bestille den via dem.</p>
+
+<p>Boken er i følge
+<a href="http://bibsys-almaprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=BIBSYS_ILS71518423420002201&indx=1&recIds=BIBSYS_ILS71518423420002201&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&tab=library_catalogue&dstmp=1448543801124&vl(freeText0)=fri%20kultur&vid=UBO&mode=Basic">Bibsys/Oria</a>
+og bokdatabasen til
+<a href="https://www.deich.folkebibl.no/cgi-bin/websok?tnr=1819617">Deichmanske</a>
+tilgjengelig fra flere biblioteker allerede, og alle eksemplarer er
+visst allerede utlånt med ventetid. Det synes jeg er veldig gledelig
+å se. Jeg håper mange kommer til å lese boken. Jeg tror den er
+spesielt egnet for foreldre og bekjente av oss nerder for å forklare
+hva slags problemer vi ser med dagens opphavsrettsregime.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Norwegian citizens now required by law to give their fingerprint to the police</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2015 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>5 days ago, the Norwegian Parliament decided, unanimously, that all
-citizens of Norway, no matter if they are suspected of something
-criminal or not, are
-<a href="https://www.holderdeord.no/votes/1430838871e">required to
-give fingerprints to the police</a> (vote details from Holder de
-ord). The law make it sound like it will be optional, but in a few
-years there will be no option any more. The ID will be required to
-vote, to get a bank account, a bank card, to change address on the
-post office, to receive an electronic ID or to get a drivers license
-and many other tasks required to function in Norway. The banks plan
-to stop providing their own ID on the bank cards when this new
-national ID is introduced, and the national road authorities plan to
-change the drivers license to no longer be usable as identity cards.
-In effect, to function as a citizen in Norway a national ID card will
-be required, and to get it one need to provide the fingerprints to
-the police.</p>
-
-<p>In addition to handing the fingerprint to the police (which
-promised to not make a copy of the fingerprint image at that point in
-time, but say nothing about doing it later), a picture of the
-fingerprint will be stored on the RFID chip, along with a picture of
-the face and other information about the person. Some of the
-information will be encrypted, but the encryption will be the same
-system as currently used in the passports. The codes to decrypt will
-be available to a lot of government offices and their suppliers around
-the globe, but for those that do not know anyone in those circles it
-is good to know that
-<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/nov/17/news.homeaffairs">the
-encryption is already broken</a>. And they
-<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2215057/wireless/bad-guys-could-read-rfid-passports-at-217-feet--maybe-a-lot-more.html">can
-be read from 70 meters away</a>. This can be mitigated a bit by
-keeping it in a Faraday cage (metal box or metal wire container), but
-one will be required to take it out of there often enough to expose
-ones private and personal information to a lot of people that have no
-business getting access to that information.</p>
-
-<p>The new Norwegian national IDs are a vehicle for identity theft,
-and I feel sorry for us all having politicians accepting such invasion
-of privacy without any objections. So are the Norwegian passports,
-but it has been possible to function in Norway without those so far.
-That option is going away with the passing of the new law. In this, I
-envy the Germans, because for them it is optional how much biometric
-information is stored in their national ID.</p>
-
-<p>And if forced collection of fingerprints was not bad enough, the
-information collected in the national ID card register can be handed
-over to foreign intelligence services and police authorities, "when
-extradition is not considered disproportionate".</p>
-
-<p>Update 2015-05-12: For those unable to believe that the Parliament
-really could make such decision, I wrote
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html">a
-summary of the sources I have</a> for concluding the way I do
-(Norwegian Only, as the sources are all in Norwegian).</p>
+ <title>The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov 2015 09:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
+"<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
+GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
+the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
+I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
+
+The first step is to choose a
+<a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
+code.<br/>
+
+The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
+<b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
+
+and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
+work<br/>
+
+is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
+<a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
+0x57</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As the Debian Website
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
+<a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
+imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
+the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
+software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
+software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
+to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
+such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
+Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
+expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
+ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
+and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
+Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
+copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
+to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
+representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
+some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
+Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
+of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
+In March the SFC supported a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
+by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
+with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
+kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
+conferences
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
+or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
+less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
+individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
+a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
+a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
+supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
+Software.</p>
+
+<p>If you support Free Software,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
+what the SFC do, agree with their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
+principles</a>, are happy about their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
+work on a project that is an SFC
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
+just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
+<a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
+Allan Webber</a>,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
+Smith</a>,
+<a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
+Bacon</a>, myself and
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
+becoming a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>. For the
+next week your donation will be
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
+by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
+match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
+spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
+social media accounts.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
+of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
+supporter too?</p>
</description>
</item>
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