X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/1ae1fc3a45ceff0f4d13cac421dabb60a79201d0..9c49238e73f83d4f53bff94e696a3a467668edf8:/blog/archive/2012/07/07.rss diff --git a/blog/archive/2012/07/07.rss b/blog/archive/2012/07/07.rss index 65c86766a3..391d8a0828 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2012/07/07.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2012/07/07.rss @@ -475,7 +475,7 @@ Postjournal? Er dere fornøyd med dagens leveringfrekvens?</p> <hr/> <p>Subject: Re: Hvor ofte leverer Kunnskapsdepartementet til Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal? -Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:42:23 +0200</p> +<br>Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:42:23 +0200</p> <p>Hei. Kom denne eposten frem? Har ikke sett noe svar, og andre institusjoner jeg har spurt om tilsvarende har svart i løpet av under en @@ -705,10 +705,481 @@ og lokalisere en kopi fra 2007 av <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1342960/000119312509050004/dex1024.htm">lisensavtalen mellom MPEG-LA og DivX, Inc.</a>, slik at mine lesere kan se hvordan avtalen så ut da. Jeg har ikke sammenlignet tekstene for å se om noe -har endret seg siden den tid.</p> +har endret seg siden den tid, men satser på at teksten er representativ.</p> <p>Jeg aner fortsatt ikke hvor FedEx tok veien med pakken fra MPEG-LA.</p> + +<p>Update 2012-07-06: Jeg er visst ikke den første som forsøker å få +klarhet i problemstillinger rundt H.264, og kom nettopp over en veldig +interessant bloggpost fra 2010 hos LibreVideo med tittelen +"<a href="http://www.librevideo.org/blog/2010/06/14/mpeg-la-answers-some-questions-about-avch-264-licensing/">MPEG-LA +answers some questions about AVC/H.264 licensing</a>. Anbefales!</p> + + + + + Free Timetabling Software - nice free software + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html + Sat, 7 Jul 2012 09:50:00 +0200 + <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / +Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific +software. It is one of the packages not installed by default but +provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to, +is a system to automatically plan the school time table using +information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with +the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should +receive. The software is + +<a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a +graphical user interface to input the required information, save the +result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for +both teachers and students. It is available both for +<a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and +Windows</a>.</p> + +<p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the +feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p> + +<p><ul> + + <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later. + You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li> + + <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca + (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa + (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu + (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk + (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR + (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala), + sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz + (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages) + </li> + + <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also + semi-automatic or manual allocation</li> + + <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on + GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li> + + <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing + with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li> + + <li>Import/export from CSV format</li> + + <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV + formats </li> + + <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups + and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and + non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students + (as separate sets)</li> + + <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0% + (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight + percentage)</li> + + <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on + demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more + memory): + <ul> + <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li> + <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li> + <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li> + <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li> + <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li> + <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li> + <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li> + <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li> + <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li> + <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and + students sets for each activity. (it is possible + also to have no teachers or no students sets for an + activity)</li> + <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li> + <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li> + </ul></li> + + <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints: + <ul> + <li>Break periods</li> + <li>For teacher(s): + <ul> + <li>Not available periods</li> + <li>Max/min days per week</li> + <li>Max gaps per day/week</li> + <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li> + <li>Min hours daily</li> + <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li> + + <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of + days per week</li> + </ul></li> + <li>For students (sets): + <ul> + <li>Not available periods</li> + <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li> + <li>Max gaps per day/week</li> + <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li> + <li>Min hours daily</li> + <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li> + + <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of + days per week</li> + </ul></li> + <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities: + <ul> + <li>A single preferred starting time</li> + <li>A set of preferred starting times</li> + <li>A set of preferred time slots</li> + <li>Min/max days between them</li> + <li>End(s) students day</li> + <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li> + <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and + flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li> + <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li> + <li>Not overlapping</li> + <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li> + <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li> + </ul></li> + </ul></li> + + <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints: + <ul> + <li>Room not available periods</li> + <li>For teacher(s): + <ul> + <li>Home room(s)</li> + <li>Max building changes per day/week</li> + <li>Min gaps between building changes</li> + </ul> + </li> + + <li>For students (sets): + <ul> + <li>Home room(s)</li> + <li>Max building changes per day/week</li> + <li>Min gaps between building changes</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li>Preferred room(s): + <ul> + <li>For a subject</li> + <li>For an activity tag</li> + <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li> + <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li> + </ul> + </li> + + <li>For a set of activities: + <ul> + <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> +</ul></p> + +<p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table +planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it. If you +need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it +manually, check it out. + +A quick summary on how to use it can be found in +<a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a +blog post from MarvelSoft</a>. If you find FET useful, please provide +a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the +<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo +section</a>.</p> + + + + + Why do schools waste money on IT? + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html + Sun, 8 Jul 2012 09:40:00 +0200 + <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one +of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills +in schools and municipalities. We provide what the happy users of +Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the +alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution. I +was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom +Steinberg in his blog post +"<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can +you recognize the million pound chair?</a>". Read it and weep for the +spending of your tax money.</p> + +<p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our +projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation +causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need +to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when +public decision makers are unable to understand computer system +purchases.</p> + + + + + Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html + Mon, 9 Jul 2012 00:30:00 +0200 + <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / +Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until +recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour +country Sweden. This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March +this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how +to adjust and scale the just released +<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu +Wheezy</a> setup to his liking. He granted me an interview, and I am +happy to share his answers with you here.</p> + +<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> + +<p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at +the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational +background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a +"folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups. In +Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master +in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I +just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my +perspective when working with IT.</p> + +<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu +project?</strong></p> + +I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by +now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some +time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be +a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When +K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more +seriously into Skolelinux instead. + +<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete +distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows +integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an +administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux +based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very +well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better +when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is +showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to +mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the +same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by +setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the +workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the +thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very +convenient since a school today often need to use a class room +projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a +small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You +have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin +clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time. Our +old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very +nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it +comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even +such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is +quicker to update. + +<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example +we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this +year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped +sound from working with them. It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have +to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in +a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p> + +<p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at +install time. In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the +distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration. +That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem. +Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs +to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and +support for single-sign on. That will make the transition to free +software easier, because you can keep the applications you really +need. No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where +some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to +run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes. We run a journalist +education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d +by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association). Our +education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they +are done. This is important if you want to get a job.</p> + +<p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and +magazines. We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there +market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource +world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according +to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they +are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to +edit and compile a newspaper. But politically at our school we are not +there yet. And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p> + +<p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to +the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try +Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to +Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have +tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio +program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio +studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only +want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise. Those +things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You +have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old +fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from +one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently +because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the +sound file.</p> + +<p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we +will try. The problem is the students have certain expectations when +they start an education towards a profession. So the programs has to +look and feel professional. Good thing with radio, there are many +programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised +as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what +program they learn, because once they start working they still have to +learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn +the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p> + +<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> + +<p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days. I use almost +only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes +to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;) +)</p> + +<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?</strong></p> + +<p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open +source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But +it's also very important that the multimedia support is working +flawlessly. The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever +will create problems when it comes to both teachers and +students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin +clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good +idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for +the administration. It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with +open source, if the principal has to run Windows. It also creates a +problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that +will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good +support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux) +desktop is essential. At least at our school, where we have mixed +level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p> + +<p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three +useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN +article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station +management with Airtime</a>, +<a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which +claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and +<a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to +be complete radio broadcast automation solution. All of them seem +useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p> + + + + + Dugnad for å sende norsk versjon av Free Culture til stortingets representanter! + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html + Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:00:00 +0200 + <p>Da opphavsrettsloven ble revidert i forrige runde rundt 2005, var +det skummelt å se hvor lite stortingsrepresentantene forsto hvordan +Internet påvirket folks forhold til kulturuttrykk, og min venn Vidar +og jeg spekulert på at det hadde kanskje vært fornuftig om samtlige +representanter fikk en norsk utgave av boken +<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> av Lawrence Lessig +som forklarte litt om problemstillingene. Vi endte opp med å +prioritere utvikling i +<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>-prosjektet i +stedet, så den oversatte boken så aldri dagens lys. Men i forrige uke +ble jeg inspirert til å ta opp tråden og se om det er mulig å få til +bokprosjektet denne gang, da det er tydelig at kulturdepartementet i +sitt nye forsøk på å gjøre opphavsrettsloven enda mer ubalansert til +fordel for forlag og store mediehus fortsatt trenger en annen vinkling +i debatten.</p> + +<p>Planen min er å oversette boka på dugnad, sette den opp for +trykking med en av de mange +<a href="http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trykk_på_forespørsel">trykk på +forespørsel</a>-tjenestene, skaffe sponsor til å finansiere trykking +til stortingsrepresentantene og alle som har bidratt med +oversettelser. Kanskje vi også kan få en avtale med et forlag om +publisering når boka er ferdig? Kommentarene til +<a href="http://newth.net/eirik/2011/04/01/e-selvpublisering/">Eirik +Newth</a> og +<a href="http://www.espen.com/norskblogg/archives/2008/09/erfaringer_med_publishing_on_demand.html">Espen +Andersen</a> om erfaringene med selvpublisering og trykk på +forespørsel er interessante og ikke avskrekkende, og jeg mistenker at +<a href="http://www.lulu.com/">Lulu</a> er en grei leverandør av +trykketjenester til prosjektet.</p> + +<p>Jeg har satt opp +<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">et +Github-prosjekt</a> for a lage boken, basert på Docbook-utgaven jeg +fant fra Hans Schou. Skolelinux har hatt byggesystem for å lage +oversatt HTML og PDF-utgave av Docbook-bøker i en årrekke, så jeg har +kopiert og utvidet dette oppsettet. Originalteksten er i Docbook, og +oversettelsen gjøres i .po-filer med hjelp av vanlige +oversetterverktøy brukt i fri programvareverden. Dernest tar +byggesystemet over og lager PDF og EPUB-utgave av den oversatte +teksten. Resultatet kan ses i Github-prosjektet. For å komme raskt +igang har jeg brukt maskinoversettelse av alle tekstbitene fra engelsk +til norsk, noe som grovoversatte ca. 1300 av de ca. 1700 tekstbitene +boken består av. Jeg håper nå at flere kan bidra med å få +oversettelsen på plass, slik at teksten kan være klar i løpet av +høsten. Når alt er oversatt må teksten gjennomgås for feil og +konsistent språk. Totalt er det nok mange timer som trengs for å +gjennomføre oversettelsen.</p> + +<p>Økonomien i dette er ikke avskrekkende. 169 +stortingsrepresentanter og nesten like mange varamedlemmer bør få +bøker, og estimert produduksjonskostnad for hver bok er rundt 6 EURO i +følge et raskt estimat fra Lulu. Jeg vet ennå ikke hvor mange sider +det blir i størrelsen 5,5" x 8.5" (det er ca. 140 sider i A4-format), +så jeg gjettet på 400 sider. Jeg tror originalutgaven har nesten 400 +sider. For 169*2 eksemplarer snakker vi om en trykkekostnad på +ca. 2000 EURO, dvs. ca 15 000 NOK. Det burde være mulig å finne en +sponsor for å dekke en slik sum. I tillegg kommer distribusjon og +porto, som antagelig kommer på like mye.</p> + +<p>Kan du bidra med oversettelse og docbook-typesetting? Ta kontakt +og send patcher i github. Jeg legger gjerne inn folk i prosjektet +slik at du kan oppdatere direkte.</p> + + + + + Fri programvare - "fri" som i "talefrihet", ikke som i "fri bar" + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_programvare____fri__som_i__talefrihet___ikke_som_i__fri_bar_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_programvare____fri__som_i__talefrihet___ikke_som_i__fri_bar_.html + Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:20:00 +0200 + <p>Et ofte brukt sitat i fri programvareverden er Stallman-sitatet +«<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en">Free Software, +"free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer"</a>». Men det er +ikke direkte overførbart til norsk, da det baserer seg på koblingen +gratis/fri på engelsk. En direkte oversettelse ville være «Fri +programvare, "fri" som i "talefrihet", ikke som "gratis øl"», og det +går jo glipp av poenget. I forbindelse med at vi er +<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">igang +med å oversette</a> <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> +av Lawrence Lessig, måtte jeg forsøke a finne en bedre +oversettelse.</p> + +<p>Mitt forslag til oversettelse blir dermed å droppe ølet, og heller +fokusere på det kjente norske uttrykket "fri bar". Dermed blir +oversettelsen «Fri programvare - "fri" som i "talefrihet", ikke som i +"fri bar"».</p> + +<p>Noen som har bedre forslag?</p> + +<p>Forøvrig bruker jeg fri programvare som et samlebegrep på norsk for +begge de engelske uttrykkene Free Software og Open Source, jamfør +<a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/folder-friprogramvare.pdf">NUUGs +lille folder om temaet</a>.</p>