<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<item>
- <title>New book, "Fri kultur" by @lessig, a Norwegian Bokmål translation of "Free Culture" from 2004</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_book___Fri_kultur__by__lessig__a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of__Free_Culture__from_2004.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_book___Fri_kultur__by__lessig__a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of__Free_Culture__from_2004.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2015 09:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>People keep asking me where to get the various forms of the book I
-published last week, the Norwegian Bokmål edition of Lawrence Lessigs
-book Free Culture. It was published on paper via lulu.com, and is
-also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI format. I currently sell the
-paper edition for self cost from lulu.com, but might extend the
-distribution to book stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble later.
-This will double the price and force me to make a profit from selling
-the book. Anyway, here are links to get the book in different
-formats:</p>
-
-<ul>
-
- <li><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">Buy
- paper edition from lulu.com</a></li>
-
- <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">Download
- PDF, size 7.9 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
-
- <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">Download
- ePub, size 11 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
-
- <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">Download
- MOBI, size 3.8 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>Note that the MOBI version have problems with the table of content,
-at least with the viewers I have been able to test. And the ePub file
-have several problems according to
-<a href="https://github.com/IDPF/epubcheck">epubcheck</a>, but seem
-to display fine in the viewers I have tested. All the files needed to
-create the book in various forms are available from
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">the
-github project page</a>.</p>
-
-<p>The project got press coverage from the Norwegian IT news site
-digi.no. Check out the article
-"<a href="http://www.digi.no/juss_og_samfunn/2015/10/29/vil-apne-politikernes-oyne-for-creative-commons">Vil
-åpne politikernes øyne for Creative Commons</a>".</li>
-
-<p>I've <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">blogged
-about the project</a> as it moved along. The blogs document the translation
-progress and insights I had along the way.</p>
+ <title>UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 19 Mar 2016 09:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Back in 2013 I proposed
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">a
+way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by
+adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice</a>. I
+suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format
+for name and address, but any format would work. I did not do
+anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make
+something like it. It would make it possible to efficiently send
+machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.</p>
+
+<p>This was the background when I came across a proposal and
+specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier
+<a href="http://www.visma.com/">Visma</a> in Sweden called
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/">UsingQR</a>. Their PDF invoices contain
+a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format.
+This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR
+specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to
+get a more bogus entry). I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier
+to read. Normally this is all on one long line:</p>
+
+<p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-19-qr-invoice.png" align="right"><pre>
+{
+ "vh":500.00,
+ "vm":0,
+ "vl":0,
+ "uqr":1,
+ "tp":1,
+ "nme":"Din Leverandør",
+ "cc":"NO",
+ "cid":"997912345 MVA",
+ "iref":"12300001",
+ "idt":"20151022",
+ "ddt":"20151105",
+ "due":2500.0000,
+ "cur":"NOK",
+ "pt":"BBAN",
+ "acc":"17202612345",
+ "bc":"BIENNOK1",
+ "adr":"0313 OSLO"
+}
+</pre></p>
+
+</p>The interpretation of the fields can be found in the
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UsingQR_specification1.pdf">format
+specification</a> (revision 2 from june 2014). The format seem to
+have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment
+of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in
+Norway.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about
+the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the
+specification. Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in
+November to clarify. Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at)
+visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark
+protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based
+usage limitations for the format. I urged her to make sure this was
+explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but
+unfortunately this has not happened yet. So I guess if there is
+submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright
+infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at
+risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that
+the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so. At least
+with patents, there is always
+<a href="http://www.paperspecs.com/paper-news/beware-the-qr-code-patent-trap/">a
+chance of getting sued...</a></p>
+
+<p>I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an
+independent standard organization to give others more confidence that
+they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms
+with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this. Their plan was
+to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and
+evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular. I hope
+they conclude that using an open standard organisation like
+<a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> is the correct place to
+maintain such specification.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Gavebok overlevert Stortinget i dag</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gavebok_overlevert_Stortinget_i_dag.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gavebok_overlevert_Stortinget_i_dag.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 29 Oct 2015 11:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Like før kl. 11 i dag leverte jeg fem esker med gaveinnpakkede
-bøker til Stortinget, for utdeling til alle stortingsrepresentanter.
-Det ble etterfulgt av følgende pressemelding. Stor takk til NUUG for
-lån av epostliste for å sende ut pressemeldingen.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><strong>Er opphavsretten for streng, spør ny bok</strong></p>
-
-<p>I dag kommer boken «<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Fri
-kultur</a>» av Lawrence Lessig ut på norsk. Boken handler om
-utviklingen og utvidelsene opphavsretten har hatt de siste 40 årene.
-Boken er i dag gitt i gave til alle stortingsrepresentantene.
-Oversetter og utgiver Petter Reinholdtsen håper Stortinget vil tenke
-seg om to ganger neste gang det er snakk om utvidelse av
-opphavsretten.</p>
-
-<p>Boken forteller om hvordan store medieaktører ved hjelp av
-opphavsretten bruker teknologi til å begrense kulturen og kontrollere
-kreativiteten. Den er skrevet av stifteren av
-<a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a>, professor
-Lawrence Lessig, som for tiden er med i kampen om å bli Demokratenes
-<a href="https://lessig2016.us/">presidentkandidat i USA sitt
-presidentvalg i 2016</a>. Lessig ble sist omtalt i norske medier da
-NRK i høst viste dokumentaren «Kampen for et demokratisk internett»
-som også er
-<a href="https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz">tilgjengelig
-fra The Internet Archive</a>.</p>
-
-<p>Boken beskriver hvordan opphavsrettens makt i USA har blitt
-betydelig utvidet etter 1974 langs fem kritiske akser: varighet (fra
-32 til 95 år), omfang (fra utgivere til alle), rekkevidde (gjelder nå
-enhver fremvisning via datamaskin), kontroll (avledede verk er
-definert så bredt at i praksis alle nye åndsverk risikerer søksmål fra
-en opphavsrettsinnehaver) og til sist maktkonsentrasjon og integrering
-av mediebransjen. Den dokumenterer også hvordan medieindustrien har
-lyktes med å bruke rettsvesenet til å begrense konkurranse, og i
-praksis har skaffet seg vetorett over teknologiske nyvinninger.
-Nedlasting av fritt, lovlig og i utgangspunktet gratis materiale
-stoppes med tekniske sperrer og lobbyert lovvern av sperrene.</p>
-
-<p>Utvidelsene illustreres i boken med ulike eksempler. For eksempel
-en demonstrasjon av at Walt Disney ville ha blitt ansett som en
-opphavsrettspirat dersom han gjorde i dag det han gjorde på
-1930-tallet. Boken beskriver hvordan vern av åndsverk er bra, men at
-mer vern ikke nødvendigvis er bedre.<?p>
-
-<p>Petter Reinholdtsen, som sammen med flere frivillige har oversatt
-boken på fritiden de siste 3 årene, håper at boken vil gjøre en
-forskjell. «Når en vet hvordan opphavsrettens varighet i Norge, uten
-opposisjon på Stortinget, ble utvidet nok en gang i mai i fjor, og
-hvordan Norges handelspartner USA gjennom de nye handelsavtalene
-Trans-Pacific Partnership og Transatlantic Trade and Investment
-Partnership
-<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-feared">ønsker
-å utvide opphavsrettens makt også i andre land</a>, håper jeg at flere
-vil spørre: Er det virkelig fornuftig å gjøre de samme utvidelsene i
-Norge?», spør han. «Jeg håper boken kan bidra til kunnskap og
-forståelse, og kan gi Stortinget et bedre grunnlag til å ta riktige
-beslutninger som ivaretar befolkningens og samfunnets interesser i
-Norge.»</p>
-
-<p>Petter Reinholdtsen er en mangeårig fri programvareutvikler som har
-vært med på å lage systemer som operativsystemet Debian, IT-løsningen
-Skolelinux, borgerportalen FiksGataMi og innsynstjenesten Mimes brønn.
-Han forteller han selv har opplevd problemene utvidet varighet,
-omfang, rekkevidde og kontroll i opphavsretten medfører og at boken
-var en oppvekker. «Jeg håper andre finner boken like interessant som
-jeg gjorde. Boken kan
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">lastes
-gratis ned fra github</a> eller
-<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">kjøpes
-på papir fra lulu.com</a>,» avslutter Reinholdtsen.</p>
-
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>Så får vi se om det har noen positiv effekt. :)</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>"Fri kultur" av @lessig - norsk utgave av "Free Culture" tilgjengelig på papir, PDF og ePub</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Fri_kultur__av__lessig___norsk_utgave_av__Free_Culture__tilgjengelig_p__papir__PDF_og_ePub.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Fri_kultur__av__lessig___norsk_utgave_av__Free_Culture__tilgjengelig_p__papir__PDF_og_ePub.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 28 Oct 2015 09:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">Klikk her for å kjøpe boken</a>.</p>
-
-<p>I 2004, mens <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative
-Commons-bevegelsen</a> vokste frem, skrev bevegelsens stifter Lawrence
-Lessig boken
-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)">Free
-Culture</a> for å forklare problemene med økene åndsverksregulering og
-for å foreslå noen løsninger. Jeg leste boken den gangen, og den både
-inspirerte meg og endret på hvordan jeg så på opphavsrettslovigving.
-Jeg skulle ønske flere folk leste denne boken. Den gir en god
-gjennomgang av hvordan økende åndsverksregulering skader både
-nyskapning og kulturlivet, og skisserer hvordan både lovgivere og oss
-vanlige borgere kan bidra for å få slutt på dette.</p>
-
-<p>Derfor bestemte jeg meg sommeren 2012 for å oversette den til norsk
-bokmål og gjøre den tilgjengelig for de blant mine venner og familie
-som foretrekker å lese bøker på norsk. Jeg oversatte boken ved hjelp
-av docbook og en gettext PO-fil, og endte opp med to utgaver, en på
-norsk og en på engelsk. Den engelske publiserte jeg i forrige uke, og
-den norske utgaven på papir
-<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">er
-nå klar for salg</a>. Jeg fikk heldigvis hjelp med oversetting og
-korrekturlesing av den norske utgaven fra en rekke frivillige. Se
-side 245 for en komplett liste. Slik ser omslaget ut:
-
-<p align="center"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-10-28-free-culture-norwegian-published-cover.png"/></a></p>
-
-<p>I tillegg til den norske og engelske utgaven holder vi på med en
-fransk utgave. Den koordineres av dblatex-utvikleren Benoît Guillon,
-og oversettelsen var komplett denne uka men må korrekturleses før den
-kan gis ut. Flere frivillige trengs her, så ta kontakt med Benoît
-hvis du vil bidra.</p>
-
-<p>Boken er også tilgjengelig i PDF, ePub og MOBI-format fra
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">min
-github-prosjektside</a>. Merk at ePub og MOBI-utgavene har noen
-formatteringsproblemer som jeg tror kommer av feil i docbook-verktøyet
-dbtoepub (Debian BTS-rapporter
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=795842">#795842</a>
-og
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=796871">#796871</a>),
-men jeg har ikke tatt meg tid til å undersøke problemene. For de som
-vil ha elektronisk kopi anbefaler jeg å bruke PDF- og ePub-utgaven i
-denne omgang, da de ser ut til å hånderes bra av de fremviserne jeg
-har tilgjengelig.</p>
-
-<p>Etter at oversettelsen til bokmål var ferdig klarte jeg å overtale
-<a href="http://www.nuugfoundation.no/">NUUG Foundation</a> til å
-sponse trykking av boken. Det er årsaken til at stiftelsens logo er
-på baksiden av omslaget. Jeg er svært takknemlig for dette, og bruker
-bidraget til å gi en kopi av den norske utgaven til alle
-Stortingsrepresentanter og andre beslutningstakere her i Norge.</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>"Free Culture" by @lessig - The background story for Creative Commons - new edition available</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Free_Culture__by__lessig___The_background_story_for_Creative_Commons___new_edition_available.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Free_Culture__by__lessig___The_background_story_for_Creative_Commons___new_edition_available.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 23 Oct 2015 12:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">Click
-here to buy the book</a>.</p>
-
-<p>In 2004, as the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons
-movement</a> gained momentum, its creator Lawrence Lessig wrote the
-book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)">Free
-Culture</a> to explain the problems with increasing copyright
-regulation and suggest some solutions. I read the book back then and
-was very moved by it. Reading the book inspired me and changed the
-way I looked on copyright law, and I would love it if more people
-would read it too.</p>
-
-<p>Because of this, I decided in the summer of 2012 to translate it to
-Norwegian Bokmål and publish it for those of my friends and family
-that prefer to read books in Norwegian. I translated the book using
-docbook and a gettext PO file, and a byproduct of this process is a
-new edition of the English original. I've been in touch with the
-author during by work, and he said it was fine with him if I also
-published an English version. So I decided to do so. Today, I made
-this edition
-<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">available
-for sale on Lulu.com</a>, for those interested in a paper book. This
-is the cover:
-
-<p align="center"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-10-23-free-culture-english-published-cover.png"/></a></p>
-
-<p>The Norwegian Bokmål version will be available for purchase in a
-few days. I also plan to publish a French version in a few weeks or
-months, depending on the amount of people with knowledge of French to
-join the translation project. So far there is only one active
-person, but the French book is almost completely translated but
-need some proof reading.</p>
-
-<p>The book is also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI formats from
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
-github project page</a>. Note the ePub and MOBI versions have some
-formatting problems I believe is due to bugs in the docbook tool
-dbtoepub (Debian BTS issues
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=795842">#795842</a>
-and
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=796871">#796871</a>),
-but I have not taken the time to investigate. I recommend the PDF and
-ePub version for now, as they seem to show up fine in the viewers I
-have available.</p>
-
-<p>After the translation to Norwegian Bokmål was complete, I was able
-to secure some sponsoring from
-<a href="http://www.nuugfoundation.no/">the NUUG Foundation</a> to
-print the book. This is the reason their logo is located on the back
-cover. I am very grateful for their contribution, and will use it to
-give a copy of the Norwegian edition to members of the Norwegian
-Parliament and other decision makers here in Norway.</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>EU-domstolen konkluderer motsatt av Skatteetaten når det gjelder Bitcoin</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/EU_domstolen_konkluderer_motsatt_av_Skatteetaten_n_r_det_gjelder_Bitcoin.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/EU_domstolen_konkluderer_motsatt_av_Skatteetaten_n_r_det_gjelder_Bitcoin.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Bitcoin er i litt vinden i Norge for tiden, med
-<a href="http://www.nrk.no/ytring/en-digital-robin-hood-1.12604681">kronikk
-om bitcoin-overføringer på tvers av landegrensene</A> hos NRK Ytring
-for to dager siden og
-<a href="https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID25009815/kapital-bitcoin-en-digital-pengebinge">dokumentar
-om bitcoin</a> på NRK 2 i forgårs og i går. I den sammenhengen er det
-spesielt hyggelig med en gladnyhet fra EU om Bitcoin.</p>
-
-<p>I dag konkluderte EU-domstolen at
-<a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=170305&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=604079">Bitcoin-kjøp
-fra Bitcoin-børser ikke er MVA-pliktig</a> (sak C‑264/14). Fant
-<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/22/us-bitcoin-tax-eu-idUSKCN0SG0X920151022">nyheten
-først hos Reuters</a>, etter tips fra innehaveren av
-<a href="http://www.bitmynt.no/">Bitmynt</a>. EU-domstolens avgjørelse
-er stikk i strid med
-<a href="http://www.skatteetaten.no/no/Radgiver/Rettskilder/Uttalelser/Prinsipputtalelser/Bruk-av-bitcoins--skatte--og-avgiftsmessige-konsekvenser/">annonseringen
-fra Skatteetaten i 2013</a>, der de konkluderte med at bitcoin er et
-«formuesobjekter» som det skulle betales mva på ved kjøp og salg.
-Dermed la Skatteetaten opp til dobbel MVA-betaling hvis en kjøpte noe
-med Bitcoin fra Norge (først mva på kjøp av Bitcoin, deretter mva på
-det en kjøper med Bitcoin). Jeg lurer på om denne avgjørelsen får
-Skatteetaten til å bytte mening. Gleder meg til fortsettelsen.</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>Lawrence Lessig interviewed Edward Snowden a year ago</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lawrence_Lessig_interviewed_Edward_Snowden_a_year_ago.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lawrence_Lessig_interviewed_Edward_Snowden_a_year_ago.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 19 Oct 2015 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Last year, <a href="https://lessig2016.us/">US president candidate
-in the Democratic Party</a> Lawrence interviewed Edward Snowden. The
-one hour interview was
-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE">published by
-Harvard Law School 2014-10-23 on Youtube</a>, and the meeting took
-place 2014-10-20.</p>
-
-<p>The questions are very good, and there is lots of useful
-information to be learned and very interesting issues to think about
-being raised. Please check it out.</p>
-
-<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o_Sr96TFQQE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
-
-<p>I find it especially interesting to hear again that Snowden did try
-to bring up his reservations through the official channels without any
-luck. It is in sharp contrast to the answers made 2013-11-06 by the
-Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg to the Norwegian Parliament,
-<a href="https://tale.holderdeord.no/speeches/s131106/68">claiming
-Snowden is no Whistle-Blower</a> because he should have taken up his
-concerns internally and using official channels. It make me sad
-that this is the political leadership we have here in Norway.</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>The Story of Aaron Swartz - Let us all weep!</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 8 Oct 2015 12:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>The movie "<a href="http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy">The
-Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz</a>" is both inspiring
-and depressing at the same time. The work of Aaron Swartz has
-inspired me in my work, and I am grateful of all the improvements he
-was able to initiate or complete. I wish I am able to do as much good
-in my life as he did in his. Every minute of this 1:45 long movie is
-inspiring in documenting how much impact a single person can have on
-improving the society and this world. And it is depressing in
-documenting how the law enforcement of USA (and other countries) is
-corrupted to a point where they can push a bright kid to his death for
-downloading too many scientific articles. Aaron is dead. Let us all
-weep.</p>
-
-<p>The movie is also available on
-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58">Youtube</a>. I
-wish there were Norwegian subtitles available, so I could show it to
-my parents.</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>Alle Stortingets mobiltelefoner kontrolleres fra USA...</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Alle_Stortingets_mobiltelefoner_kontrolleres_fra_USA___.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Alle_Stortingets_mobiltelefoner_kontrolleres_fra_USA___.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 7 Oct 2015 09:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Jeg lot meg fascinere av
-<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/Stortinget-har-tilgang-til-a-fjernstyre-600-mobiler-8192692.html">en
-artikkel i Aftenposten</a> der det fortelles at «over 600 telefoner som
-benyttes av stortingsrepresentanter, rådgivere og ansatte på
-Stortinget, kan «fjernstyres» ved hjelp av
-<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airwatch.androidagent">programvaren
-Airwatch</a>, et såkalte MDM-program (Mobile Device Managment)». Det
-hele bagatelliseres av Stortingets IT-stab, men det er i hovedsak på
-grunn av at journalisten ikke stiller de relevante spørsmålene. For
-meg er det relevante spørsmålet hvem som har lovlig tilgang (i henhold
-til lokal lovgiving, dvs. i hvert fall i Norge, Sverige, UK og USA)
-til informasjon om og på telefonene, og hvor enkelt det er å skaffe
-seg tilgang til hvor mobilene befinner seg og informasjon som befinner
-seg på telefonene ved hjelp av utro tjenere, trusler, innbrudd og
-andre ulovlige metoder.</p>
-
-<p>Bruken av AirWatch betyr i realiteten at USAs etteretning og
-politimyndigheter har full tilgang til stortingets mobiltelefoner,
-inkludert posisjon og innhold, takket være
-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008">FISAAA-loven</a>
-og
-"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter">National
-Security Letters</a>" og det enkle faktum at selskapet
-<a href="http://www.airwatch.com/">AirWatch</a> er kontrollert av et
-selskap i USA. I tillegg er det kjent at flere lands
-etterretningstjenester kan lytte på trafikken når den passerer
-landegrensene.</p>
-
-<p>Jeg har bedt om mer informasjon
-<a href="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/saksnummer_for_saker_anganede_br">fra
-Stortinget om bruken av AirWatch</a> via Mimes brønn så får vi se hva
-de har å fortelle om saken. Fant ingenting om 'airwatch' i
-postjournalen til Stortinget, så jeg trenger hjelp før jeg kan be om
-innsyn i konkrete dokumenter.</p>
-
-<p>Oppdatering 2015-10-07: Jeg er blitt spurt hvorfor jeg antar at
-AirWatch-agenten rapporterer til USA og ikke direkte til Stortingets
-egen infrastruktur. Det stemmer at det er teknisk mulig å sette
-opp mobiltelefonene til å rapportere til datamaskiner som eies av
-Stortinget. Jeg antar det rapporteres til AirWatch sine sentrale
-tjenester basert på det jeg leste fra beskrivelsen av
-<a href="http://www.airwatch.com/solutions/mobile-device-management/">Mobile
-Device Management</A> på AirWatch sine egne nettsider, koblet med at
-det brukes en standard app som kan hentes fra "app-butikkene" for å få
-tilgang. Enten må app-en settes opp individuelt hos Stortinget, eller
-så får den beskjed fra AirWatch i USA om hvor den skal koble seg opp.
-I det første tilfellet vil den ikke rapportere direkte til USA, men
-til programvare utviklet av AirWatch som kjører på en maskin under
-Stortingets kontroll. Det er litt bedre, men fortsatt vil det være
-umulig for Stortinget å være sikker på hva programvaren som tar imot
-forbindelser gjør. Jeg ser fra beskrivelsen av
-<a href="http://www.airwatch.com/differentiators/enterprise-integration/">Enterprice
-Integration</a> hos AirWatch at det er mulig å ha lokal installasjon,
-og håper innsynsforespørsler mot Stortinget kan fortelle mer om
-hvordan ting konkret fungerer der.</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>French Docbook/PDF/EPUB/MOBI edition of the Free Culture book</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 1 Oct 2015 13:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>As I wrap up the Norwegian version of
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
-Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig (still waiting for my final proof
-reading copy to arrive in the mail), my great
-<a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> helper and
-developer of the dblatex docbook processor, Benoît Guillon, decided a
-to try to create a French version of the book. He started with the
-French translation available from the
-<a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">Wikilivres wiki
-pages</a>, and wrote a program to convert it into a PO file, allowing
-the translation to be integrated into the po4a based framework I use
-to create the Norwegian translation from the English edition. We meet
-on the <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23dblatex">#dblatex IRC
-channel</a> to discuss the work. If you want to help create a French
-edition, check out
-<a href="https://github.com/marsgui/free-culture-lessig">his git
-repository</a> and join us on IRC. If the French edition look good,
-we might publish it as a paper book on lulu.com. A French version of
-the drawings and the cover need to be provided for this to happen.</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>The life and death of a laptop battery</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
-But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
-within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
-and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
-all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
-about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
-more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
-
-<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
-
-<p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
-battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
-by someone else. I found
-<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
-which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
-broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
-write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
-from him. Via
-<a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
-blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
-discovered
-<a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
-available in Debian.</p>
-
-<p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
-battery stats ever since. Now my
-/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
-measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
-when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
-collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
-
-<pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-# Inspired by
-# http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
-# See also
-# http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
-logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
-
-files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
- energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
-
-if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
- (
- printf "timestamp,"
- for f in $files; do
- printf "%s," $f
- done
- echo
- ) > "$logfile"
-fi
-
-log_battery() {
- # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
- # when several log processes run in parallel.
- msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
- for f in $files; do \
- printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
- done)
- echo "$msg"
-}
-
-cd /sys/class/power_supply
-
-for bat in BAT*; do
- (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
-done
-</pre>
-
-<p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
-change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
-and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
-every 10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
-is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
-The code for the Debian package
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
-available on github</a>.</p>
-
-<p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
-
-<pre>
-timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
-1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
-[...]
-1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
-1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
-</pre>
-
-<p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
-over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
-battery.</p>
-
-<p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
-dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
-satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
-<a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
-University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
-chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
-all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
-I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
-<a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
-the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
-100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
-like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
-story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
-Linux too.</p>
-
-<p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
-stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
-preparation for a longer trip? I found
-<a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
-recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
-80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
-load).</p>
-
-<p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
-at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
-times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
-back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
-speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
-to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
-level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
-those.</p>
-
-<p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
-acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
-packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
-initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
-and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
-and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
-specific.</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>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff