X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/28a38686d60047dad1001fafdbe167b3d9df3389..1cc531d685cf39fc87b075985a50c4cf9bffaa0f:/blog/archive/2011/04/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2011/04/index.html b/blog/archive/2011/04/index.html index be6c5c65f8..232057c57a 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2011/04/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2011/04/index.html @@ -1,88 +1,329 @@ - - - Petter Reinholdtsen: entries from April 2011 - - - - - - -
-

- Petter Reinholdtsen - -

- -
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + + + + Petter Reinholdtsen: entries from April 2011 + + + + + + +
+

+ Petter Reinholdtsen + +

+ +
-

Entries from April 2011.

+

Entries from April 2011.

+ +
+
+ Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system +
+
+ 30th April 2011 +
+
+

Today, the first draft implementation of an +Open311 API for the Norwegian +service FiksGataMi started to +work. It is only available on the developer server for now, and I +have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the +platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is +able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed +requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality. +I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those +that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.

+ +

Where is it? Visit +http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/ +to have a look. Please send feedback to the +fiksgatami +(at) nuug.no mailing list.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: english, fiksgatami, open311. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet +
+
+ 29th April 2011 +
+
+

The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for +the Open311 API in the +Norwegian FixMyStreet service. +Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit +reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the +New Zealand version of +FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to +me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and +municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service. +Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for +FixMyStreet. The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting +to get a draft limping along. In the process, I have discovered a few +issues with the Open311 specification.

-
- -
- 2011-04-03 22:50 -
+

One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language +handling in the specification. The specification seem to assume all +reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the +receiving end to specify which languages are understood there. To be +able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers, +it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports. +I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers +of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the +submitter to specify which language the report is written in. +Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical +methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to +know which language to use when writing a problem report. I suspect +some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.

-
- -

Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog -posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short -update in English.

+

A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided, +which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet. One issue I +run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for +each category. The specification do not state that the identifier +should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers +here. In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each +category. As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name +as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle +it.

-

The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work -done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port -of the British service -FixMyStreet up and running, -and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been -organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors -to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with -mySociety on what to develop, -and in February the development took place. Most of it involved -converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British -easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get -running in any country by now. The Norwegian -FiksGataMi is using -OpenStreetmap as the map -source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and -support for this had to be added/fixed.

+

The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet +differ in a key part. FixMyStreet have a title and a description, +while Open311 only have a description and lack the title. I'm not +quite sure how to best handle this yet. When asking for a FixMyStreet +report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the +open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API +should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.

-

The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend -polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is -running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000 -problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android -and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the -public infrastructure.

+

The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems +near a geographic location. I believe this is important if one is to +use Open311 as the query language for mobile units. The specification +should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon= +and range= options.

-

Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without -such service?

+

The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle +several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem +to assume only one administration. For FixMyStreet, this mean a +report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories +available depend on the location of the problem. Not quite sure how +to best handle this. I've noticed +SeeClickFix added +latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not +solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified. +Will have to investigate this a bit more.

-
- -
-
- -
- -
- 2011-04-04 07:40 -
- -
- -

I dag ligger an til å bli en trist dag for Norge. I dag skal etter +

+
+ + + Tags: english, fiksgatami, open311. + + +
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ 15th April 2011 +
+
+

Det er morsomt å følge med hvordan bruken av FiksGataMi sprer seg +over det ganske land. Her er lenkene til fylkesoversikt på kart over +de (for tiden) 200 siste problemene. Bruker her GeoRSS-kilden i +FiksGataMi og presenterer enten via Google Maps eller en +GeoRSS-fremviser jeg fant for OpenStreetmap.

+ + + +

Antall problemer returnert i GeoRSS-kildene justeres over tid etter +hvert som vi får mer erfaring med hvilken belastning det gir på +tjenesten.

+ +

Oppdatering 2011-04-27: Endret URL til fylker med mellomrom i +navnene fra %20 til %2B, slik at de fungerer i flere nettlesere.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: fiksgatami, kart, norsk. + + +
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ 10th April 2011 +
+
+

Neste mann ut er Marius Kotsbak, styremedlem i +FRISK og mangeårig +bidragsyter i +Skolelinux-prosjektet.

+ +

Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?

+ +

Jeg er en systemutvikler/kybernetiker og jobber med dette til +daglig. På fritiden tester jeg ut/bruker mye fri programvare, og +bidrar med testing og utvikling når jeg ser stort nok behov for det og +jeg har noe å bidra med.

+ +

Hvordan kom du i kontakt med Skolelinux-prosjektet?

+ +

Hmm, det er lenge siden, så det er nesten så jeg ikke husker. Jeg +hadde vel hørt om prosjektet i media før en gjeng i Trondheim startet +opp SPIST, Skolelinux-prosjektet i Sør-Trøndelag, hvor vi hjalp noen +skoler i nærområdet med å installere Skolelinux og finne brukt +IT-utstyr til disse. Det var moro å gjøre noe praktisk for å spre +Skolelinux, og å se hvor fort gjort det var å sette opp utrangerte +klientmaskiner og få disse opp som tynnklienter på helt nye datasaler +på skolene, kun med kostnaden til servere.

+ +

Hva er fordelene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?

+ +

Det er et system spesielt skreddersydd for drift av et stort antall +klienter mot servere, og da spesielt i henhold til skolers behov. Det +er enkelt og billig å installere og drifte, og det trenger ikke ny +maskinvare for god ytelse.

+ +

Hva er ulempene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?

+ +

Hardwarestøtten kunne vært bedre og i enda større grad +installerbart rett ut av boksen. Distribusjonen har til tider hatt +litt gammel programvare pga. at den følger Debian sine utgivelser. +Kanskje man skulle vurdert en versjon basert på Ubuntu eller andre +distribusjoner i tillegg?

+ +

Hvilken fri programvare bruker du til daglig?

+ +

Oi, det er ikke lite. Her er det jeg kommer på i farta. Jeg bruker +Linux og Ubuntu, og på Ubuntu programene Firefox, Thunderbird, +Chromium, Pidgin, Digikam, OpenOffice, Wireshark, git og irssi. +Telefonen min er en Android, og der bruker jeg programmene K-9 Mail, +OI Shopping list, Shuffle, ZXing, OI Notepad og ADW Desktop. På jobb +bruker jeg JBoss, Eclipse, uCLinux for Blackfin, RCF-CPP, Qt, Maven, +og boost-bibliotekene for C++.

+ +

Hvilken strategi tror du er den rette å bruke for å få +skoler til å ta i bruk fri programvare?

+ +

En bør fokusere på totalkostnader inkludert driftsbehov, +fleksibilitet, åpenhet og ikke låsing til en leverandør framfor sparte +lisenskostnader, samt programvarens kvalitet og fortrinn, og at den +fritt kan brukes på et ubegrenset antall PC-er, også hjemme hos +elevene. En bør også forbedre den fri programvaren ved testing, +bugrapportering og kodebidrag om man kan, og ikke anbefale programvare +uten at man har forsikret seg at den har tilstrekkelig kvalitet, +ellers kan man lett oppnå det motsatte. Tror en bør selge inn +konseptet til fylkes-/statsnivå, kanskje med bidrag til +utviklingsarbeid fra disse som alle landets skoler kan få glede +av.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: debian edu, intervju, norsk. + + +
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ 6th April 2011 +
+
+

The Gnash project is still +the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. +A few days ago the project +announced +that it will participate in Google Summer of Code. I hope many +students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support +into Gnash.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: english, multimedia, video, web. + + +
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ 4th April 2011 +
+
+

I dag ligger an til å bli en trist dag for Norge. I dag skal etter planen Stortinget stemme over om det skal innføres elektronisk brev- og besøkskontroll for hele folket, og Arbeiderpartiet og Høyre utgjør et flertall som har annonsert at de er enige om at dette skal gjøres. @@ -197,302 +438,147 @@ er noen aktuelle lenker, både nye og gamle:

-
-
- - - - Tags: norsk, personvern. - -
-
-
- -
- -
- 2011-04-06 09:00 -
- -
- -

The Gnash project is still -the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. -A few days ago the project -announced -that it will participate in Google Summer of Code. I hope many -students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support -into Gnash.

+
+
+ + + Tags: norsk, personvern. + + +
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ 3rd April 2011 +
+
+

Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog +posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short +update in English.

-
-
- +

The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work +done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port +of the British service +FixMyStreet up and running, +and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been +organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors +to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with +mySociety on what to develop, +and in February the development took place. Most of it involved +converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British +easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get +running in any country by now. The Norwegian +FiksGataMi is using +OpenStreetmap as the map +source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and +support for this had to be added/fixed.

- - Tags: english, multimedia, video, web. - -
-
-
- -
- -
- 2011-04-10 11:00 -
- -
- -

Neste mann ut er Marius Kotsbak, styremedlem i -FRISK og mangeårig -bidragsyter i -Skolelinux-prosjektet.

+

The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend +polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is +running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000 +problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android +and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the +public infrastructure.

-

Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?

+

Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without +such service?

-

Jeg er en systemutvikler/kybernetiker og jobber med dette til -daglig. På fritiden tester jeg ut/bruker mye fri programvare, og -bidrar med testing og utvikling når jeg ser stort nok behov for det og -jeg har noe å bidra med.

+
+
+ + + Tags: debian, english, fiksgatami, kart. + + +
+
+
+ +

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    - 2011-04-15 13:15 -
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    Det er morsomt å følge med hvordan bruken av FiksGataMi sprer seg -over det ganske land. Her er lenkene til fylkesoversikt på kart over -de (for tiden) 200 siste problemene. Bruker her GeoRSS-kilden i -FiksGataMi og presenterer enten via Google Maps eller en -GeoRSS-fremviser jeg fant for OpenStreetmap.

    +
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    Antall problemer returnert i GeoRSS-kildene justeres over tid etter -hvert som vi får mer erfaring med hvilken belastning det gir på -tjenesten.

    +
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    Oppdatering 2011-04-27: Endret URL til fylker med mellomrom i -navnene fra %20 til %2B, slik at de fungerer i flere nettlesere.

    +
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    - 2011-04-29 10:00 -
    - -
    - -

    The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for -the Open311 API in the -Norwegian FixMyStreet service. -Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit -reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the -New Zealand version of -FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to -me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and -municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service. -Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for -FixMyStreet. The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting -to get a draft limping along. In the process, I have discovered a few -issues with the Open311 specification.

    +
  • August (6)
  • -

    One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language -handling in the specification. The specification seem to assume all -reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the -receiving end to specify which languages are understood there. To be -able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers, -it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports. -I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers -of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the -submitter to specify which language the report is written in. -Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical -methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to -know which language to use when writing a problem report. I suspect -some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.

    +
  • September (9)
  • -

    A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided, -which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet. One issue I -run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for -each category. The specification do not state that the identifier -should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers -here. In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each -category. As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name -as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle -it.

    +
  • October (17)
  • -

    The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet -differ in a key part. FixMyStreet have a title and a description, -while Open311 only have a description and lack the title. I'm not -quite sure how to best handle this yet. When asking for a FixMyStreet -report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the -open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API -should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.

    +
  • November (10)
  • -

    The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems -near a geographic location. I believe this is important if one is to -use Open311 as the query language for mobile units. The specification -should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon= -and range= options.

    +
  • December (7)
  • -

    The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle -several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem -to assume only one administration. For FixMyStreet, this mean a -report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories -available depend on the location of the problem. Not quite sure how -to best handle this. I've noticed -SeeClickFix added -latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not -solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified. -Will have to investigate this a bit more.

    + -

    My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues -up with the open311 developer group. I really wish they had a email -list available via Gmane to use for -discussions instead of only -a forum. Oh, -well. That will probably resolve itself, one way or another. I've -also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one -seem to reply to my questions there. This make me wonder if I just -fail to understand how the open311 community work. It sure do not -work like the free software project communities I am used to.

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