It was a surprise to me to learn that project to create a complete
-computer system for schools I've involved in,
-Debian Edu / Skolelinux, was
-being used in India. But apparently it is, and I managed to get an
-interview with one of the friends of the project there, Shirish
-Agarwal.
-
-
Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
-
-
My name is Shirish Agarwal. Based out of the educational and
-historical city of Pune, from the western state of Maharashtra, India.
-My bread comes from giving training, giving policy tips,
-installations on free software to mom and pop shops in different
-fields from Desktop publishing to retail shops as well as work with
-few software start-ups as well.
-
-
How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?
-
-
It started innocently enough. I have been using Debian for a few
-years and in one local minidebconf / debutsav I was asked if there was
-anything for schools or education. I had worked / played with free
-educational softwares such as Gcompris and Stellarium for my many
-nieces and nephews so researched and found Debian Edu or Skolelinux as
-it was known then. Since then I have started using the various
-education meta-packages provided by the project.
-
-
What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?
-
-
It's closest I have seen where a package full of educational
-software are packed, which are free and open (both literally and
-figuratively). Even if I take the simplest software which is
-gcompris, the number of activities therein are amazing. Another one of
-the softwares that I have liked for a long time is stellarium. Even
-pysycache is cool except for couple of issues I encountered
-#781841 and
-#781842.
-
-
I prefer software installed on the system over web based solutions,
-as a web site can disappear any time but the software on disk has the
-possibility of a larger life span. Of course with both it's more a
-question if it has enough users who make it fun or sustainable or both
-for the developer per-se.
-
-
What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?
-
-
I do see that the Debian Edu team seems to be short-handed and I
-think more efforts should be made to make it popular and ask and take
-help from people and the larger community wherever possible.
-
-
I don't see any disadvantage to use Skolelinux apart from the fact
-that most apps. are generic which is good or bad how you see it.
-However, saying that I do acknowledge the fact that the canvas is
-pretty big and there are lot of interesting ideas that could be done
-but for reasons not known not done or if done I don't know about them.
-Let me share some of the ideas (these are more upstream based but
-still) I have had for a long time :
-
-
1. Classical maths question of two trains in opposing directions
-each running @x kmph/mph at y distance, when they will meet and how
-far would each travel and similar questions like these.
-
-
The computer is a fantastic system where questions like these can
-be drawn, animated and the methodology and answers teased out in
-interactive manner. While sites such as the
-Ask
-Dr. Math FAQ on The Two Trains problem (as an example or point of
-inspiration) can be used there is lot more that can be done. I dunno
-if there is a free software which does something like this. The idea
-being a blend of objects + animation + interaction which does
-this. The whole interaction could be gamified with points or sounds or
-colourful celebration whenever the user gets even part of the question
-or/and methodology right. That would help reinforce good behaviour.
-This understanding could be used to share/showcase everything from how
-the first wheel came to be, to evolution to how astronomy started,
-psychics and everything in-between.
-
-
One specific idea in the train part was having the Linux mascot on
-one train and the BSD or GNU mascot on the other train and they
-meeting somewhere in-between. Characters from blender movies could
-also be used.
-
-
2. Loads of crossword-puzzles with reference to subjects: We have
-enormous data sets in Wikipedia and Wikitionary. I don't think it
-should be a big job to design crossword puzzles. Using categories and
-sub-categories it should be doable to have Q&A single word answers
-from the existing data-sets. What would make it easy or hard could be
-the length of the word + existence of many or few vowels depending on
-the user's input.
-
-
3. Jigsaw puzzles - We already have a great software called
-palapeli with number of slicers making it pretty interesting. What
-needs to be done is to download large number of public domain and
-copyleft images, tease and use IPTC tags to categorise them into
-nature, history etc. and let it loose. This could turn to be really
-huge collection of images. One source could be taken from
-commons.wikimedia.org, others could be huge collection of royalty-free
-stock photos. Potential is immense.
-
-
Apart from this, free software suffers in two directions, we lag
-both in development (of using new features per-se) and maintenance a
-lot. This is more so in educational software as these applications
-need to be timely and the opportunity cost of missing deadlines is
-immense. If we are able to solve issues of funding for development and
-maintenance of such software I don't see any big difficulties. I know
-of few start-ups in and around India who would love to develop and
-maintain such software if funding issues could be solved.
-
-
Which free software do you use daily?
-
-
That would be huge list. Some of the softwares are obviously apt,
-aptitude, debdelta, leafpad, the shell of course (zsh nowadays),
-quassel for IRC. In games I use shisen-sho while card-games are evenly
-between kpat and Aiselriot. In desktops it's a tie between
-gnome-flashback and mate.
-
-
Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?
-
-
I think it should first start with using specific FOSS apps. in
-whatever environment they are. If it's MS-Windows or Mac so be it.
-Once they are habitual with the apps. and there is buy-in from the
-school management then it could be installed anywhere. Most of the
-people now understand the concept of a repository because of the
-various online stores so it isn't hard to convince on that front.
-
-
What is harder is having enough people with technical skills and
-passion to service them. If you get buy-in from one or two teachers
-then ideas like above could also be asked to be done as a project as
-well.
-
-
I think where we fall short more than anything is in marketing. For
-instance, Debian has this whole range of fonts in its archive but
-there isn't even a page where all those different fonts in the La
-Ipsum format could be tried out for newcomers.
-
-
One of the issues faced constantly in installations is with updates
-and upgrades. People have this myth that each update and upgrade
-means the user interface will / has to change. I have seen this
-innumerable times. That perhaps is one of the reasons which browsers
-like Iceweasel / Firefox change user interfaces so much, not because
-it might be needed or be functional but because people believe that
-changed user interfaces are better. This, can easily be pointed with
-the user interfaces changed with almost every MS-Windows and Mac OS
-releases.
-
-
The problems with Debian Edu for deployment are many. The biggest
-is the huge gap between what is taught in schools and what Debian Edu
-is aimed at.
-
-
Me and my friends did teach on week-ends in a government school for
-around 2 years, and
-gathered
-some experience there. Some of the things we learnt/discovered
-there was :
-
-
-
- - Most of the teachers are very territorial about their subjects
- and they do not want you to teach anything out of the
- portion/syllabus given.
-
- - They want any activity on the system in accordance to whatever
- is in the syllabus.
-
- - There are huge barriers both with the English language and at
- times with objects or whatever. An example, let's say in gcompris
- you have objects falling down and you have to name them and let's
- say the falling object is a hat or a fedora hat, this would not be
- as recognizable as say a
- Puneri
- Pagdi so there is need to inject local objects, words wherever
- possible. Especially for word-games there are so many hindi words
- which have become part of english vocabulary (for instance in
- parley), those could be made into a hinglish collection or
- something but that is something for upstream to do.
-
-
+
+
9th July 2015
+
I går fikk vi endelig lansert en norsk version av mySocietys
+WhatDoTheyKnow.
+Tjenesten heter Mimes brønn, og ble
+annonsert
+av NUUG via blog, epost og twitter til NUUG-assosierte personer.
+Det har tatt noen år, men de siste dagene fikk vi endelig tid til å få
+på plass de siste bitene. Vi er to, Gorm og meg selv, som har vært
+primus motor for det hele, men vi har fått hjelp med oversettelser og
+oppsett fra mange flere. Jeg vil si tusen takk til hver og en av dem,
+og er veldig fornøyd med at vi klarte å få tjenesten opp å kjøre før
+ferietiden slo inn for fullt.
+
+
Vi er usikker på hvor mye belastning den virtuelle maskinen der
+tjenesten kjører klarer, så vi har lansert litt i det stille og ikke
+til for mange folk for å se hvordan maskinen klarer seg over sommeren,
+før vi går mer aktivt ut og annonserer til høsten. Ta en titt, og se
+om du kanskje har et spørsmål til det offentlige som er egnet å sende
+inn via Mimes brønn.
+
+
Hvis du lurer på hva i alle dager en slik tjenestes kan brukes til,
+anbefaler jeg deg å se
+TED-foredraget til
+Heather Brook om hvordan hun brukte WhatDoTheyKnow til å lære
+hvordan offentlige midler ble misbrukt. Det er en inspirerende
+historie.
@@ -409,33 +59,268 @@ there was :
-
-
7th April 2015
-
I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the Open Source Developers'
-Conference Nordic 2015!
-
-
It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
-where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
-a talk proposal for
-it (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted). As
-part of my involvement with the
-Norwegian Unix User Group member
-association I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
-conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
-Hackathon with our friends
-over at mySociety and
-Holder de ord. This part is
-named the 'My Society' track in the program. There is still space for
-more talks and participants. I hope to see you there.
-
-
Check out the talks
-submitted and accepted so far.
+
+
7th July 2015
+
After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
+why
+they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
+the MPEG LA, I was wiser, but still confused. So I asked MPEG LA
+if their understanding matched that of NRK. As far as I can tell, it
+does not.
+
+
I started by asking for more information about the various
+licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
+did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
+
+
+
+According to
+a
+MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02, there is no charge when
+using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of "Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video". I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" is, and wondered if you could help me. What
+exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?
+
+The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
+PDF named
+AVC
+Patent Portfolio License Briefing, which states this about the
+fees:
+
+
+ - Where End User pays for AVC Video
+
+ - Subscription (not limited by title) â 100,000 or fewer
+ subscribers/yr = no royalty; > 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
+ $25,000; >250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; >500,000 to
+ 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; >1M subscribers/yr = $100,000
+
+ - Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; >12 minutes in
+ length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title
+
+
+ - Where remuneration is from other sources
+
+ - Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
+ (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for > 100,000 HH rising to
+ maximum $10,000 for >1,000,000 HH
+
+ - Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
+ â no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License
+
+
+
+Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
+categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" is the category for things that do not fall into
+one of the other three categories? Can you point me to a good source
+explaining what is ment by "title-by-title" and "Free Television" in
+the license terms for AVC/H.264?
+
+Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
+"video on demand" fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
+subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
+get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video", ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
+Portfolio license? Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
+access to personalized services?
+
+Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
+Internet.
+
+
+
The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
+with the MPEG LA:
+
+
+Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA. We
+appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.
+
+As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
+which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
+the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10). Specifically, coverage is
+provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
+technology. Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
+video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
+paying the applicable royalties.
+
+Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
+defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
+the Internet free-of-charge. Therefore, if a party offers a service
+which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
+AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
+receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
+License. This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
+free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
+AVC Video content. In other words, as long as the End User is given
+access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
+no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.
+
+On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
+specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
+video would constitute Subscription AVC Video. In cases where AVC
+Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
+content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video. If a party offers
+Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
+be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.
+
+Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
+through an "over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission", then
+such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
+subject to the applicable royalties.
+
+For your reference, I have attached
+a
+.pdf copy of the AVC License. You will find the relevant
+sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
+2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
+You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
+Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License. Please note that the
+electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
+be used for execution.
+
+I hope the above information is helpful. If you have additional
+questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
+free to contact me directly.
+
+
+
Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
+that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
+me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
+But I still had a few questions:
+
+
+I have a small followup question. Would it be possible for me to get
+a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid? The
+reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
+clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA. The clauses
+typically look similar to this:
+
+
+ This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
+ the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
+ video in compliance with the AVC standard ("AVC video") and/or (b)
+ decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
+ personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
+ obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
+ license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
+ information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
+
+
+It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
+an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
+there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA. I suspect it will
+differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway. What is
+MPEG LAs view on this?
+
+
+
According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
+non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:
+
+
+
+With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
+clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
+reads:
+
+THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
+THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
+RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
+STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
+BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
+A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
+OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
+OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM
+
+The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
+personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
+with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
+product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
+licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
+deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party's AVC
+Product as their own branded AVC Product).
+
+Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
+Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
+Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
+conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
+payable under the License. On the other hand, if that party (either a
+Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
+own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
+above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
+Products by the licensed supplier.
+
+Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
+countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
+Norway.
+
+I hope this clarification is helpful. If I may be of any further
+assistance, just let me know.
+
+
+
The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
+asked for more information:
+
+
+
+But one minor question at the end. If I understand you correctly,
+you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
+Portfolio that are valid in Norway. This make me believe I read the
+list available from <URL:
+http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx
+> incorrectly, as I believed the "NO" prefix in front of patents
+were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
+Electric Corporation expired in 2012. Which patents are you referring
+to that are relevant for Norway?
+
+
+
+
Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
+in that list:
+
+
+
+Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
+Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012. Therefore, where AVC
+Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
+royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
+With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
+Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
+the last Norwegian AVC patent expired. I would also like to clarify
+that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
+country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.
+
+Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
+a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
+Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
+coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
+initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
+Patents (for example, Norway). Similarly, a party would need to
+conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
+country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
+such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
+Portfolio Patents.
+
+
+
As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
+Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
+license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
+anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
+Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
+content. I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
+none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid. Will the
+copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
+the patents are not valid in Norway?
@@ -443,30 +328,62 @@ submitted and accepted so far.
-
-
4th April 2015
-
During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
-docbook version of the 2004 book
-Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig.
-At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
-inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
-I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
-check the text up to chapter 13. The current status is available on the
-github
-project pages. You can also check out the
-PDF,
-EPUB
-and HTML version available in the
-archive
-directory.
-
-
Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
-you find any.
+
+
5th July 2015
+
Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
+need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
+thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
+fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
+do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
+machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
+with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
+for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
+not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
+using FrancEcrans, but it
+might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.
+
+
One tip I got was to use the
+Skinflint web service to
+compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
+prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
+keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
+very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
+keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
+
+
When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
+newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
+(which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
+Debian Sid/Unstable according to
+Corsac.net. The reports I
+got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
+is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
+Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
+keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
+keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
+replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
+activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
+also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
+noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
+Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.
+
+
I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
+Pro-Star, another was
+Libreboot.
+The latter look very attractive to me.
+
+
Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
+as I keep looking for a replacement.
+
+
Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
+lapstore.de web shop for used laptops. They got several
+different
+old
+thinkpad X models, and provide one year warranty.
@@ -474,61 +391,38 @@ you find any.
-
-
9th March 2015
-
The Norwegian Unix User Group,
-where I am a member, and where people interested in free software,
-open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs
-come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video.
-The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider
-audience. For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel
-Frikanalen is a useful venue.
-Since a few days ago, when I figured out the
-REST API to program the
-channel time schedule,
-the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and
-some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org). I fill
-all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at
-the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.
-
-
The list of NUUG videos
-uploaded so far
-include things like a
-one hour talk by John
-Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo, a presentation of
-Haiku, the BeOS
-re-implementation, the
-history of FiksGataMi,
-the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet, the good old
-Warriors of the net
-video and many others.
-
-
We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to
-Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to
-spread the word there. I also hope to find useful recordings from the
-Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the
-channel as well. But this require locating the videos and their meta
-information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the
-recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to
-focus on this. Perhaps you want to help. Please join us on IRC,
-#nuug on irc.freenode.net
-if you want to help make this happen.
-
-
But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively
-filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new
-today, check out the Ogg Theora
-web stream or use one of the other ways to get access to the
-channel. Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still
-do not properly sync the video and sound. It is generated by recoding
-a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to
-Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that
-produces acceptable quality. Help needed, please get in touch if you
-know how to fix it using free software.
+
+
3rd July 2015
+
My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
+replacement soon. The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
+started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
+cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
+flickering.
+
+
My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
+still as
+I
+described them in 2013. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
+good help from
+prisjakt.no
+where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
+wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
+and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
+laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
+G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
+keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
+the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
+deteriorated since X41.
+
+
I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
+seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
+set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
+have suggestions.
@@ -536,36 +430,82 @@ know how to fix it using free software.
-
-
28th February 2015
-
Today I was happy to learn that the documentary
-Citizenfour by
-Laura Poitras
-finally will show up in Norway. According to the magazine
-Montages, a deal has finally been
-made for
-Cinema
-distribution in Norway and the movie will have its premiere soon.
-This is great news. As part of my involvement with
-the Norwegian Unix User Group, me and
-a friend have
-tried
-to get the movie to Norway ourselves, but obviously
-we
-were too late and Tor Fosse beat us to it. I am happy he did, as
-the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make
-it happen ourselves.
-The trailer
-can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this
-is.
-
-
The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum
-here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.
+
+
2nd July 2015
+
Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
+NUUG with recording the talks at
+MakerCon Nordic, a conference for
+the Maker movement. Since then it has been the plan to publish the
+recordings on Frikanalen, which
+finally happened the last few days. A few talks are missing because
+the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
+talks are available. The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
+channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
+from the Frikanalen web site. The unedited recordings are
+available on
+Youtube too.
+
+
This is the list of talks available at the moment. Visit the
+Frikanalen video
+pages to view them.
+
+
+
+ - Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
+ to robotics (Kyrre Glette)
+
+ - Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)
+
+ - Making a one year school course for young makers
+ (Olav Helland)
+
+ - Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
+ Inspiration (Hege Langlo)
+
+ - Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)
+
+ - How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)
+
+ - Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
+ Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)
+
+ - Travelling maker stories (Ãyvind Nydal Dahl)
+
+ - Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)
+
+ - Breaking the mold: Printing 1000âs of parts (Espen Sivertsen)
+
+ - Ultimaker â and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)
+
+ - Autodeskâs 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
+ Sevens)
+
+ - How Making is Changing the World â and How You Can Too!
+ (Jennifer Turliuk)
+
+ - Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
+ Connected Exploration (David Lang)
+
+ - Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
+ Dyvik)
+
+ - The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)
+
+
+
+
Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
+to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
+longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
+argument changes). In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
+which sent me on a detour to
+package
+bs1770gain for Debian. Now this is in place and it became a lot
+easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.
@@ -573,59 +513,125 @@ here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.
-
-
25th February 2015
-
The Norwegian nationwide open channel
-Frikanalen is still going
-strong. It allow everyone to send the video they want on national
-television. It is a TV station administrated completely using a web
-browser, running only Free
-Software, providing a REST
-api for administrators and members, and with distribution on the
-national DVB-T distribution network RiksTV. But only between 12:00
-and 17:30 Norwegian time. This has finally changed, after many years
-with limited distribution. A few weeks ago, we set up a Ogg Theora
-stream via icecast to allow everyone with Internet access to check out
-the channel the rest of the day. This is presented on
-the Frikanalen web site now. And
-since a few days ago, the channel is also available
-via multicast on
-UNINETT, available for those using IPTV TVs and set-top boxes in
-the Norwegian National Research and Education network.
-
-
If you want to see what is on the channel, point your media player
-to one of these sources. The first should work with most players and
-browsers, while as far as I know, the multicast UDP stream only work
-with VLC.
+
+
28th June 2015
+
I en global verden med eierskap på tvers, trengs det informasjon om
+hvem som har kontrollen i selskaper og bedrifter. Og for å få tilgang
+til slik informasjon for alle som ønsker å analysere eierskap, holder
+med ikke med nasjonale databaser over eierskap, det må globale
+samledatabaser med åpne data til. Heldigvis finnes det en
+internasjonal bevegelse for å gjøre selskapsinformasjon for alle land
+offentlig tilgjengelig. En slik database heter
+OpenCorporates, der
+informasjonen er gratis tilgjengelig med en "del på samme
+vilkår"-lisens. De samler inn selskapsinformasjon, eierskap,
+konsesjonstildelinger og lignende. De manglet ganske mye for Norge,
+da bruksvilkårene til Norsk offentlig informasjon i stor grad
+blokkerer OpenCorporates fra å samle den inn.
+
+
Men jeg er jo involvert i
+Frikanalen, som har
+TV-konsesjon, og tenkte det kunne være fint om informasjon om alle
+mediakonsesjoner var tilgjengelig i OpenCorporates, så jeg sendte
+avgårde følgende spørsmål til Medietilsynet 2015-06-22:
+
+
+Hei. Finnes det en oversikt over enhetene som Mediatilsynet fører
+tilsyn med som åpne data? Jeg lette etter den på
+<URL:http://data.norge.no/> og
+<URL:http://hotell.difi.no/> uten å
+finne noe der, og fant heller ikke noe under
+<URL:http://www.medietilsynet.no/>.
+
+Jeg tenker på alle som har fått kringkastingskonsesjon og alle som
+er omtalt under
+<URL:http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebildet/>.
+
+Jeg skulle gjerne hatt dette maskinlesbart, og inkludert
+organisasjonsnummer og hva slags forhold mediatilsynet har til
+organisasjonene. Tanken er å importere det i
+<URL:https://opencorporates.com/> for analyse, så det bør ikke ha
+bruksbegresninger som gjør dette umulig.
+
+
+
To dager senere fikk jeg svar, med de datasettene de hadde
+tilgjengelig. Svaret fra Hanne Sekkelsten hos Medietilsynet var
+informativt og imøtekommende.
+
+
+Vi viser til din e-post av 22. juni, der du ber om å få tilsendt oversikter
+over aktører Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med.
+
+Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med kringkastere og audiovisuelle
+bestillingstjenester som omfattes av kringkastingsloven, og med
+eierskap i aviser, fjernsyn radio og elektroniske medier etter
+medieeierskapsloven. I tillegg vil Medietilsynet etter at
+beskyttelsesloven trer i kraft fra 1. juli ha tilsyn med en rekke nye
+aktører. Nærmere informasjon om den nye loven finnes på Medietilsynets
+nettsted, her:
+http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebransjen/bildeprogramloven/
+. Vi har ikke utarbeidet oversikter over alle aktørene, men vi sender
+deg her de listene vi har utarbeidet, hentet fra våre databaser. Vi
+har dessverre ikke ferdige rapporter som inneholder
+organisasjonsnummer. Dersom du ønsker flere opplysninger ber vi om at
+du tar kontakt med oss slik at vi kan finne ut av hvilke opplysninger
+du trenger, og hvilke vi kan fremskaffe.
+
+Vedlagt følger:
- - http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv
- - udp://@224.17.43.129:1234
+
+ - Konsesjoner - lokalradio FM pr. 31.12.2014 [PDF (original)]
+
+ - Konsesjoner - lokalfjernsyn i det digitale bakkenettet for fjernsyn, pr. mars 2015 [DOCX (original),
+PDF]
+
+ - Konsesjoner - DAB-radio, status mars 2015 [XPS (original),
+PDF]
+
+ - Registreringspliktige kringkastere - status mars 2015: [XPS (original), PDF]
+
+
+ - Kabelsendt fjernsyn
+
- Satellittsendt fjernsyn
+
- Nett-tv
+
- Kabelsendt radio
+
- Satellittsendt radio
+
- Nett-radio
+
-The Ogg Theora / icecast stream is not working well, as the video
-and audio is slightly out of sync. We have not been able to figure
-out how to fix it. It is generated by recoding a internal MPEG
-transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to Ogg Theora /
-Vorbis, and the result is less then stellar. If you have ideas how to
-fix it, please let us know on frikanalen (at) nuug.no. We currently
-use this with ffmpeg2theora 0.29:
-
-
-./ffmpeg2theora.linux <OBE_gemini_URL.ts> -F 25 -x 720 -y 405 \
- --deinterlace --inputfps 25 -c 1 -H 48000 --keyint 8 --buf-delay 100 \
- --nosync -V 700 -o - | oggfwd video.nuug.no 8000 <pw> /frikanalen.ogv
-
-
-If you get the multicast UDP stream working, please let me know, as
-I am curious how far the multicast stream reach. It do not make it to
-my home network, nor any other commercially available network in
-Norway that I am aware of.
+Vi må ta forbehold om at det kan være enkelte feil i oversiktene
+siden disse ikke er oppdaterte pr. dags dato. Vi vil foreta nye
+oppdateringer i august.
+
+Med hilsen
+
+Hanne Nistad Sekkelsten
+
Seniorrådgiver | Senior Legal Adviser
+
Medietilsynet | Norwegian Media Authority
+
A: Nygata 4, NO-1607 Fredrikstad
+
T: [telefonnummer fjernet]
+
E: [adresse fjernet] | W: www.medietilsynet.no
+
+
+
+
Desverre er formatene for ustrukturerte til maskinell behandling og
+mangler endel informasjon, men det er gode oversikter over hvem
+Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med. Filene er på formatene PDF, XPS
+(XML-basert PDF-lignende format fra Microsoft) og DOCX, så det vil
+være en stor jobb å strukturere informasjonen på en måte som kan
+importeres i OpenCorporates. Svaret er ikke i tråd med
+Forskrift
+om IT-standarder i offentlig forvaltning som sier epostvedlegg
+skal sendes som PDF, så jeg har gjorde PDF-utgaver av XPS og
+DOCX-utgavene tilgjengelig for å gjøre det enklere for alle å se
+innholdet.
@@ -633,118 +639,79 @@ Norway that I am aware of.
-
-
12th February 2015
-
En stund nå har jeg vært nødt til å forholde meg til
-Fronter, en nettløsning
-Osloskolen bruker for kontakt mellom hjem og skole. Løsningen
-imponerer ikke, og det er lagt opp til at vi foreldre skal logge inn
-regelmessig for å se om noe har endret seg. Idéen om å la folk stikke
-innom nettsider for å se om det har skjedd endringer er så idiotisk at
-jeg har lett etter et alternativ. Fronterløsningen har en innebygget
-løsning der en kan abonnere på forsiden (som viser en oppsummering av
-det en har tilgang til), og få tilsendt en kopi hver natt, men det
-fjerner jo bare behovet for å stikke innom, ikke den idiotiske ideen
-om at folk skal huske hvordan nettsiden så ut sist og oppdage hva som
-er endret.
-
-
For å gjøre livet enklere har jeg derfor brukt litt tid på å lage
-et program som kobler seg opp og sjekker etter endringer automatisk,
-slik at jeg kan få beskjed fra datamaskinen når noe endrer seg i
-stedet for å forsøke å finne ut av det selv. I går ble scriptet
-brukbart, og jeg er dermed klar til å dele det med deg.
-
-
Jeg startet med å skrive programmet i Python, og hadde en versjon
-som logget inn og hentet ned enkeltsider fra Fronter. Men
-Fronter-websidene suger golfballer gjennom en hageslange, med
-uleselig HTML, flere nivåer av iframes og en struktur på innholdet som
-er svært vanskelig å finne ut av, så jeg ga til slutt opp lxml-parsing
-med Python og forsøkte meg med WWW::Mechanize for Perl som jeg kjente
-fra før. I ettertid har jeg oppdaget at WWW:Mechanize også finnes for
-Python, så jeg kunne antagelig droppet språkbyttet. Men da jeg
-oppdaget det hadde jeg kommet så langt med Perl-utgaven, så jeg hoppet
-ikke tilbake.
-
-
For å logge inn i Fronter besøker en enten skolens websider eller
-den sentrale innloggingsiden https://fronter.com/osloskoler/.
-Perl-koden for å logge inn ser slik ut:
+
+
15th June 2015
+
It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies
+in Norway. The information is publicly available, but one need to
+recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete
+ownership graph of a given set of companies. To save me the work in
+the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the
+ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format. The data source
+is web scraping from Proff, because
+I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of
+the ownership data, Brønnøysundsregistrene.
+
+
To get an ownership graph for a set of companies, fetch
+the code from git and run it using the organisation number. I'm
+using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its
+ownership structure is very simple:
-my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
-$mech->get('https://fronter.com/osloskoler/');
-$mech->submit_form(fields => {
- username => $username,
- password => $password,
-} );
+% time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot
+
+real 0m2.841s
+user 0m0.184s
+sys 0m0.036s
+%
-
Neste steg er å få oversikt over hvilke «rom» en har tilgang til.
-På vår skole er det rom for skolen, biblioteket, elevrådet,
-aktivitetsskolen og klasser der en har unger, og dette vil være
-forskjellig fra person til person. Etter å ha romstert rundt i
-Fronter-grensesnittet endel kom jeg over en grei HTML-side med
-oversikt over rommene,
-https://fronter.com/osloskoler/adm/projects.phtml?mode=displayRoomchooser,
-så jeg bruker denne til å hente ut romoversikt med rom-ID.
+
The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line,
+allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image. The
+resulting dot file for the example above look like this. The edges
+are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the
+organisation number as their name and the name as the label:
-my %room;
-$mech->get('https://fronter.com/osloskoler/adm/projects.phtml?mode=displayRoomchooser');
-for my $link ($mech->links()) {
- my $url = $link->url();
- if ($url =~ m%/links/list_files.phtml\?edit=(\d+)$%) {
- $room{$link->text()} = $1;
- }
+digraph ownership {
+rankdir = LR;
+"Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"]
+"910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"]
+"998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"]
+"974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"]
+"958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"]
+"998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"]
+"974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"]
+"910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"]
}
-
Når en har rom-ID kan en slå opp websiden for rommet, som starter
-på
-https://fronter.com/osloskoler/contentframeset.phtml?goto_prjid=$ROMID
-(der $ROMID byttes ut med rom-ID-tallet). Det gir en side med
-iframes, og en må tre nivåer ned i iframes før en får tak i
-HTML-informasjonen som vises frem når en ser på det aktuelle rommet.
-Her ga jeg opp den robuste parsingen og hardkodet endel URL-er som i
-stedet bør spores opp maskinelt. HTML-informasjonen som vises lagres
-i en fil etter at økt- og innloggings-nøkkel er fjernet og deretter
-bruker jeg lynx --dump --nolist for å hente ut en tekstlig
-utgave av websiden. Denne tekstlige utgaven sammenlignes med forrige
-versjon og oversikt over endringer kan så sendes ut på egnet vis.
-
-
Jeg valgte å bruke git til å holde rede på endringer, så jeg
-sjekker inn HTML og tekst-utgaver i git og bruker git til å vise frem
-endringene i tekstutgavene. Programvaren for å gjøre dette er testet
-på Debian GNU/Linux og kan
-lastes
-ned fra github.
-
-
For å bruke dette selv, kjør følgende kommandoer på din
-Debian-maskin (forutsetter sudo-tilgang for installasjon av
-programvare):
+
To view the ownership graph, run "dotty dagbladet.dot" or
+convert it to a PNG using "dot -T png dagbladet.dot >
+dagbladet.png". The result can be seen below:
-
-sudo apt-get install git lynx-cur libio-prompter-perl libwww-mechanize-perl \
- libconfig-inifiles-perl
-git clone https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/fronter-scraper-oslo
-cd fronter-scraper-oslo
-./update-git
-
+
+
+
Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect
+data in the official ownership register, as that name is not
+registered in the official company register for Norway. The ownership
+register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking
+of the ownership links.
-
Det gjenstår endel, men systemet er allerede nyttig for meg. Jeg
-ønsker at systemet også skal laste ned PDF-er og slikt som er lagt ut
-for nedlasting på sidene, slik at f.eks. ukeplaner kommer inn i
-git-arkivet mitt automatisk og jeg får automatisk beskjed når ny
-ukeplan er lagt ut. Kanskje du kan bidra med å få det på plass, eller
-kanskje du har andre ting du vil fikse? Jeg tar gjerne imot endringer
-og forbedringer. Det er mye som kan gjøres bedre, og scriptet er ikke
-veldig robust mot endringer hos nettsidene til Fronter. Jeg regner
-dermed med at det vil trengs oppdateringer jevnlig etter hvert som
-Fronter-løsningen endrer seg.
+
Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources.
+The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.
+
+
Update 2015-06-15: Since the initial post I've been told that
+"Aller
+Holding A/S" is a Danish company, which explain why it did not
+have a Norwegian organisation number. I've also been told that there
+is a web
+services API available from Brønnøysundsregistrene, for those
+willing to accept the terms or pay the price.
@@ -752,39 +719,59 @@ Fronter-løsningen endrer seg.
-
-
10th February 2015
-
Aftenposten, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, today report
-that
-three
-of the nude body scanners now is put to use at Gardermoen, the
-main airport in Norway. This way the travelers can have their body
-photographed without cloths when visiting Norway. Of course this
-horrible news is presented with a positive spin, stating that "now
-travelers can move past the security check point faster and more
-efficiently", but fail to mention that the machines in question take
-pictures of their nude bodies and store them internally in the
-computer, while only presenting sketch figure of the body to the
-public. The article is written in a way that leave the impression
-that the new machines do not take these nude pictures and only create
-the sketch figures. In reality the same nude pictures are still
-taken, but not presented to everyone. They are still available for
-the owners of the system and the people doing maintenance of the
-scanners, as long as they are taken and stored.
-
-
Wikipedia have a more on
-Full body
-scanners, including example images and a summary of the
-controversy about these scanners.
-
-
Personally I will decline to use these machines, as I believe strip
-searches of my body is a very intrusive attack on my privacy, and not
-something everyone should have to accept to travel.
+
+
11th June 2015
+
Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
+everywhere. Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
+ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
+the viewers do not like this. This fact is well known to the TV
+channels. See for example the BBC white paper
+"Terminology
+for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that" from 2011 for a
+summary of the problem domain. To better address the need for even
+loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
+new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
+standardizing loudness. From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
+"Algorithms to
+measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level".
+
+
The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
+loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
+having a way to measure is not enough. To get the same loudness
+across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
+on. For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
+R128, "Loudness
+normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals", which
+specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS. In Norway, I have been
+told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
+follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.
+
+
There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
+level using the LUFS. In Debian, I am aware of a library named
+libebur128
+able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
+named bs1770gain
+capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
+for NEW processing. I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
+Debian
+multimedia umbrella.
+
+
The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
+Frikanalen, plan to follow the
+R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
+do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
+the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
+Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
+I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of the
+NUUG member organisation. The program seem to be able to measure
+the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only
+successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files. I suspect it
+should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.
@@ -792,52 +779,425 @@ something everyone should have to accept to travel.
-
-
8th February 2015
-
When running a TV station with both broadcast and web stream
-distribution, it is useful to know that the stream is working. As I
-am involved in the Norwegian open channel
-Frikanalen as part of my
-activity in the NUUG member
-organisation, I wrote a script to use mplayer to connect to a
-video stream, pick two images 35 seconds apart and compare them. If
-the images are missing or identical, something is probably wrong with
-the stream and an alarm should be triggered. The script is written as
-a Nagios plugin, allowing us to use Nagios to run the check regularly
-and sound the alarm when something is wrong. It is able to detect
-both a hanging and a broken video stream.
-
-
I just uploaded the code for the script into the
-Frikanalen
-git repository on github. If you run a TV station with web
-streaming, perhaps you can find it useful too.
-
-
Last year, the Frikanalen public TV station transformed into using
-only Linux based free software to administrate, schedule and
-distribute the TV content. The
-source code for the entire TV
-station is available from the Github project page. Everyone can
-use it to send their content on national TV, and we provide both a web
-GUI and a web API to
-add
-and schedule
-content. And thanks to last weeks developer gathering and
-following activity, we now have the schedule
-available as
-XMLTV too. Still a lot of work left to do, especially with the
-process to add videos and with the scheduling, so your contribution is
-most welcome. Perhaps you want to set up your own TV station?
-
-
Update 2015-02-25: Got a tip from Uninett about their
-qstream
-monitoring system, which gather connection time, jitter, packet
-loss and burst bandwidth usage. It look useful to check if UDP
-streams are working as they should.
+
+
10th June 2015
+
Helt siden jeg i 2012 fikk beskjed fra MPEG LA om at
+NRK
+trengte patentavtale med dem hvis de distribuerte H.264-video til
+sluttbrukere, har jeg lurt på hva som gjør at NRK ikke har slik
+avtale. For noen dager siden fikk jeg endelig gjort noe med min
+undring, og sendte 2015-05-28 følgende epost til info (at) nrk.no med
+tittel "Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale
+med MPEG LA?":
+
+
+Jeg lurer på en ting rundt NRKs bruk av H.264-video på sine
+websider samt distribusjon via RiksTV og kabel-TV. Har NRK vurdert om
+det er behov for en patentavtale med
+MPEG LA slik det står i
+programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe
+Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X?
+
+Hvis dere har vurdert dette, hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering?
+
+Hvis dere ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
+for patentavtale?
+
+I følge en artikkel på
+NRK
+Beta i 2012 har NRK brukt eller testet både Apple Final Cut
+Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X til bruk
+for å redigere video før sending. Alle disse har bruksvilkår
+understøttet av opphavsretten som sier at de kun kan brukes til å lage
+filmer til personlig og ikke-kommersiell bruk - med mindre en har en
+lisensavtale med MPEG LA om bruk av patenter utstedt i USA for H.264.
+Se f.eks. bruksvilkårene for Avid, Adobe Premiere og Apple Final
+Cut Studio og søk etter "MPEG LA".
+
+Dette får meg til å lure på om det er brudd på opphavsretten å bruke
+disse verktøyene i strid med bruksvilkårene uten patentavtale med MPEG
+LA. Men NRK bruker jo tilsynelatende disse verktøyene uten patentavtale
+med MPEG LA.
+
+I følge forfatteren av Open Broadcast Encoder finnes det to typer
+H.264-relaterte avtaler en kan få med MPEG LA. Det er én for å lage
+programvare og utstyr som produserer H.264-video, og en annen for å
+kringkaste video som bruker H.264. Dette forteller meg at selv om
+produsentene av utstyr og programvare som NRK bruker har en slik avtale
+med MPEG LA, så trenges det en egen avtale for å kringkaste video på det
+formatet.
+
+I følge Ryan Rodriguez hos MPEG LA, da jeg spurte ham på epost i
+juni 2012, har NRK ikke en slik avtale med MPEG LA. Han sa videre at
+NRK trenger en slik avtale hvis NRK tilbyr H.264-kodet video til
+sluttbrukere. Jeg sjekket listen med
+organisasjoner
+med avtale med MPEG LA og NRK står fortsatt ikke der.
+
+Jeg lurer dermed på hva som gjør at NRK kan bruke de overnevnte
+videoredigeringsverktøyene, som tilsynelatende har krav om avtale med
+MPEG LA for å kunne brukes slik NRK bruker dem, til å lage videofiler
+for distribusjon uten å ha en avtale med MPEG LA om distribusjon av
+H.264-video? Dette er spesielt interessant å vite for oss andre som
+også vurderer å spre H.264-video etter å ha redigert dem med disse mye
+brukte videoredigeringsverktøyene.
+
+
+
Samme dag fikk jeg automatisk svar om at min henvendelse hadde fått
+saksid 1294699. Jeg fikk deretter følgende respons fra NRK
+2015-06-09:
+
+
+Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som kunne
+svare på dette.
+
+For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks
+NRKs nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike
+tjenester uten betaling fra forbrukere â er det heller ikke pÃ¥krevd
+noen patentavtale.
+
+http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y
+
+Med vennlig hilsen
+
Gunn Helen Berg
+
Informasjonskonsulent, Publikumsservice
+
+NRK
+
Strategidivisjonen
+
Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
+
Post: NRK Publikumsservice, 8608 Mo i Rana
+
nrk.no / info (at) nrk.no
+
+
+Da dette ikke helt var svar på det jeg lurte på, sendte jeg samme dag
+oppfølgerepost tilbake:
+
+
+[Gunn Helen Berg]
+
> Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som
+
> kunne svare på dette.
+
+Takk for svar. Men det besvarte ikke helt det jeg spurte om.
+
+> For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks NRKs
+
> nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike tjenester
+
> uten betaling fra forbrukere â er det heller ikke pÃ¥krevd noen
+
> patentavtale.
+
>
+
> http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y
+
+Spørsmålet er ikke kun om MPEG LA krever patentavtale eller ikke
+(hvilket ikke helt besvares av pressemeldingen omtalt over, gitt at
+pressemeldingen kom i 2010, to år før MPEG LA ansvarlige for
+internasjonal lisensiering egen Ryan Rodriguez fortalte meg på epost
+at NRK trenger en lisens.
+
+Det er uklart fra pressemeldingen hva "Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video" konkret betyr, men i følge en
+presentasjon
+fra MPEG LA med tema "AVC PAtent Portfoli License Briefing" datert
+2015-05-15 gjelder "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" kun kringkasting
+på Internet som ikke tilbyr valg av enkeltinnslag ("not
+title-by-title"), hvilket jo NRK gjør på sine nettsider. I tillegg
+kringkaster jo NRK H.264-video også utenom Internet (RiksTV, kabel,
+satelitt), hvilket helt klart ikke er dekket av vilkårene omtalt i
+pressemeldingen.
+
+Spørsmålet mitt er hvordan NRK kan bruke verktøy med bruksvilkår
+som krever avtale med MPEG LA for det NRK bruker dem til, når NRK ikke
+har avtale med MPEG LA. Hvis jeg forsto spørsmålet riktig, så mener
+NRK at dere ikke trenger avtale med MPEG LA, men uten slik avtale kan
+dere vel ikke bruke hverken Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere
+Pro, Avid eller Apples Final Cut Pro X for å redigere video før
+sending?
+
+Mine konkrete spørsmål var altså:
+
+
+
+- Hvis NRK har vurdert om det er behov for en patentavtale med MPEG LA
+ slik det er krav om i programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple
+ Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X,
+ hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering? Kan jeg få kopi av vurderingen
+ hvis den er gjort skriftlig?
+
+- Hvis NRK ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
+ for patentavtale?
+
+- Hva slags saksnummer fikk min henvendelse i NRKs offentlige
+ postjournal? Jeg ser at postjournalen ikke er publisert for den
+ aktuelle perioden ennå, så jeg fikk ikke sjekket selv.
+
+
+
+
+
Det hjelper å ha funnet rette vedkommende i NRK, for denne gangen
+fikk jeg svar tilbake dagen etter (2015-06-10), fra Geir Børdalen i
+NRK:
+
+
+Hei Petter Reinholdtsen
+
+Jeg har sjekket saken med distribusjonssjef for tv, Arild Hellgren
+(som var teknologidirektør da bakkenettet ble satt opp). NRK v/
+Hellgren hadde møte med MPEG LA sammen med den europeiske
+kringkastingsunionen EBU før bakkenettet for TV ble satt opp
+(igangsatt høsten 2007). I dette møtet ble det avklart at NRK/EBU ikke
+trengte noen patentavtale for h.264 i forbindelse med oppsett av
+bakkenettet eller bruk av MPEG4 h.264 som kompresjonsalgoritme fordi
+tjenesten «in full»(nor: helt) var betalt av utsendelseselskapene og
+ikke av forbrukerne.
+
+http://www.nrk.no/oppdrag/digitalt-bakkenett-1.3214555
+
+Det er også klart slått fast at selskaper som leverer video basert
+på MPEG4 h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett, heller ikke påkrevd noen
+patentavtale â sÃ¥ lenge de leverer slike tjenester uten betaling fra
+sluttbrukere.
+
+http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y
+
+âMPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will
+continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to
+end users (known as âInternet Broadcast AVC Videoâ) during the entire
+life of this License. MPEG LA previously announced it would not charge
+royalties for such video through December 31, 2015 (see
+http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf),
+and todayâs announcement makes clear that royalties will continue not
+to be charged for such video beyond that time. Products and services
+other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be
+royalty-bearing.â
+
+Vi har derfor ikke noe behov for å vurdere noen patentavtale med
+MPEG LA.
+
+Understreker for øvrig at NRK ikke er lÃ¥st til MPEG4 â h.264 som
+utsendelsesformat â og at vi har brukt og bruker flere andre
+alternativer i våre tjenester. Ulike «devicer» har ofte behov for
+forskjellige løsninger â og NRK har forsøkt Ã¥ levere med best mulig
+kvalitet /økonomi /stabilitet avhengig av
+plattform. Produksjonsformater i NRK spenner for øvrig over en rekke
+forskjellige formater â hvor MPEG4 bare er en av disse. NÃ¥r NRK kjøper
+teknisk utstyr er betaling for kodekstøtte ofte en del av
+anskaffelsesprisen for denne maskinvaren (enten dette er spesialiserte
+enkodere eller forskjellige typer produksjonsutstyr).
+
+Vennlig hilsen
+
Geir Børdalen
+
+________________________________________
+
Geir Børdalen
+
Investeringsansvarlig NRK / Hovedprosjektleder - Origo
+
Avdeling for utvikling, innovasjon, investering og eiendom
+
NRK medietjenester
+
Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
+
Post: NRK, AUTV (RBM5), Pb. 8500 Majorstuen, 0340 Oslo
+
nrk.no
+
+
+
Et godt og grundig svar, som var informativt om hvordan NRK tenker
+rundt patentavtale med MPEG LA, men heller ikke helt besvarte det jeg
+lurte på, så jeg sendte epostoppfølging samme dag.
+
+
+[Geir Børdalen]
+
> Hei Petter Reinholdtsen
+
+Hei, og takk for raskt svar. Er min henvendelse journalført slik
+at den dukker opp i NRKs postjournal?
+
+Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du skriver
+at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via bakkenettet
+gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge. Hvilke saksnummer fikk dokumenter
+som ble opprettet i forbindelse med det omtalte møtet NRK v/Hellgren
+og EBU hadde med MPEG LA (dvs. referater, avtaler, etc),
+f.eks. dokumentet der formuleringen "in full" som du omtaler
+finnes?
+
+
Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår. Det ene er
+hvorfor NRKs forståelse av hva "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" dekker
+ser ut til å avvike fra det som presenteres i
+lysark
+fra MPEG LA i mai, der MPEG LA på lysark med overskriften
+"AVC/H.264 License Terms Participation Fees" og undertittel "Where
+remuneration is from other sources" skriver "Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video (not title-by-title, not subscription) â no royalty for life of
+the AVC Patent Portfolio License".
+
+Her leser jeg MPEG LA dithen at det kun er kringkasting uten
+abonnement via Internet som er dekket at vilkårne omtalt i
+pressemeldingen, mens jeg forstår deg dithen at NRK mener NRKs
+nettsider som også har enkeltfilmer og innslag (som jeg forstår dekket
+av formuleringen "title-by-title") dekkes av "Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video" fra MPEG LA. Hva baserer dere denne tolkningen på? Jeg har
+ikke sett noe skriftlig fra MPEG LA som støtter NRKs tolkning, og
+lurer på om dere har andre kilder enn den pressemeldingen fra 5 år
+tilbake, der NRKS forståelse av hva "Internet Broadcast AVC Video"
+dekker er beskrevet?
+
+Det andre er at eposten din ikke nevnte spørsmålet mitt om
+bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene som NRK bruker. Disse
+har som tidligere nevnt krav om at de kun skal brukes til private og
+ikke-kommersielle formål med mindre en har avtale med MPEG LA, og uten
+avtale med MPEG LA kan det jo virke som om NRK bruker verktøyene i
+strid med bruksvilkårene. Hva gjør at disse bruksvilkårene ikke
+gjelder for NRK?
+
+
+
Noen minutter senere får jeg foreløpig siste svar i
+føljetongen:
+
+
+Hei igjen
+
+Vårt dokumentarkiv har fått en kopi (journalføringsnr kan jeg
+dessverre ikke gi deg).
+
+
> Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du
+
> skriver at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via
+
> bakkenettet gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge.
+
+Svar: Kan ikke svare for andre enn for NRK/EBU - og for bakkenettet
+i Norge er det kun NRK som er et lisensbasert selskap. Kan ikke gi noe
+svar på saksnr på dokumenter eller ytterligere informasjon da jeg selv
+ikke var del i dette.
+
+> Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår. ...
+
+Svar: Kan ikke gå ytterligere inn i dette fra min side og mitt
+fagfelt som er produksjon/publisering og systemstrukturene bak
+disse. For øvrig ligger det etter vår formening ingen begrensninger
+for NRK i mulighetene til publisering mht til kodek i
+produksjonssystemer. Som tidligere skrevet mener vi at NRK ikke
+trenger noen avtale med MPEG LA og støtter oss til det vi allerede har
+kommunisert i forrige epost.
+
+Mvh
+
Geir Børdalen
+
+
+
Det syntes vanskelig å komme videre når NRK ikke ønsker å gå inn i
+problemstillingen rundt bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene
+NRK bruker, så jeg sendte takk for svarene og avsluttet utvekslingen
+så langt:
+
+
+Tusen takk for rask respons, og oppklarende forklaring om hvordan
+NRK tenker rundt MPEG LA.
+
+Jeg vil høre med NRK-arkivet for å se om de kan spore opp de
+omtalte dokumentene. Jeg setter pris på om du kan dele titler, dato
+eller annen informasjon som kan gjøre det enklere for arkivet å finne
+dem.
+
+Når det gjelder hvordan bruksvilkårene til
+videoredigeringsverktøyene skal tolkes, så skal jeg høre med MPEG LA
+og produsentene av verktøyene for å forsøke å få klarhet i hva de
+mener er rikgig rettstilstand.
+
+
+
Jeg ble litt klokere, men fortsatt er det uklart for meg hva som er
+grunnlaget til NRK for å se bort fra bruksvilkår i
+videoredigeringsprogramvare som krever MPEG LA-avtale til alt annet
+enn privat og ikke-kommersiell bruk.
+
+
+
+
+
+
12th May 2015
+
Noen finner det vanskelig å tro at Stortinget faktisk har vedtatt å
+kreve at alle norske borgerne må avgi fingeravtrykk til politiet for å
+fungere i samfunnet. Jeg er blitt spurt hva som er grunnlaget for
+min
+påstand i forrige bloggpost om at det nå blir krav om å avgi
+fingeravtrykk til politiet for å fungere som borger i Norge. De som
+spør klarer ikke lese det ut fra det som er vedtatt. Her er en liten
+oppsummering om hva jeg baserer det på. Det sies ikke direkte i
+hverken proposisjon, innstilling eller vedtak, men fremgår når en ser
+på indirekte formuleringer.
+
+
I
+stortingsproposisjon
+66, avsnitt 6.3.5 (Avgivelse av biometriske personopplysninger)
+står det
+
+
+
+ Departementet foreslår at både ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk skal
+ kunne opptas og lagres som identifikasjonsdata i de nasjonale
+ ID-kortene, på samme måte som i passene. Lovforslaget er derfor
+ utformet i tråd med passloven § 6 annet ledd, som fastslår at det
+ til bruk for senere verifisering eller kontroll av passinnehaverens
+ identitet kan innhentes og lagres i passet biometrisk
+ personinformasjon i form av ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk (to
+ fingre). Dagens ordning med lagring av ansiktsfoto og fingeravtrykk
+ i et kontaktløst smartkort i passet er basert på internasjonale
+ standarder. Fingeravtrykkene i nasjonalt ID-kort vil bli beskyttet
+ på samme måte som fingeravtrykkene i passene.
+
+ [...]
+
+ For norske forhold understreker departementet at innføring av
+ nasjonale ID-kort sammen med innføring av nye systemer for sikrere
+ utstedelse og kontroll av pass og relaterte dokumenter gir mulighet
+ til å utforme ordningen slik at den best mulig møter utfordringene
+ forbundet med identitetskriminalitet. Det tilsier at fingeravtrykk
+ opptas og lagres i alle nasjonale ID-kort.
+
+
+
Departementet sier altså at sin anbefaling er at fingeravtrykk skal
+opptas og lagres i alle nasjonale ID-kort. Det skrives som om det
+blir valgfritt, på samme måten som det skrives passloven, der det i
+loven sier at det kan
+«innhentes
+og lagres i passet biometrisk personinformasjon i form av ansiktsfoto
+og fingeravtrykk (to fingre)». Men på tross av bruken av «kan» i
+passloven er det innført krav om å avgi fingeravtrykk for å få et pass
+i Norge. Proposisjonen sier i tillegg i del 1 (Proposisjonens
+hovedinnhold) at ID-kortene skal være like pålitelig som pass og ha
+samme sikkerhetsnivå som pass. Departementet foreslår altså at
+ID-kortene skal gis etter samme regler som for pass.
+
+
Formuleringene fra hovedinnholdet i proposisjonen er videreført i
+innstillingen
+fra stortingskomiteen, der det konkret står «De foreslåtte reglene
+vil gi befolkningen tilbud om et offentlig utstedt identitetsbevis som
+vil være like pålitelig som passet, og mer praktisk å bruke som
+legitimasjon» og «Det nasjonale ID-kortet skal også holde samme
+sikkerhetsnivå som passet». Komiteen har altså ingen kommentarer
+eller innsigelser til dette forslaget, og gjorde i debatten da saken
+ble vedtatt det klart at dette var en god sak og at en enstemmig
+komité var glad for resultatet. Stortinget har dermed stilt seg helt
+og fullt bak departementets forslag.
+
+
For meg er det åpenbart når en leser proposisjonen at «like
+pålitelig» og «samme sikkerhetsnivå» vil bli tolket av departementet
+som «med samme biometrisk informasjon som i passene», og departementet
+forklarer i tillegg i proposisjonen at de har tenkt at
+fingeravtrykkene «vil bli beskyttet på samme måte som fingeravtrykkene
+i passene». Jeg ser det dermed som åpenbart at den samme
+tvangsinnhentingen av fingeravtrykk som gjelder for pass vil bli
+viderført til de nasjonale ID-kortene.
+
+
Det eneste som kan endre dette er massive protester fra
+befolkningen på at folk som ikke er mistenkt for noe kriminelt skal
+tvinges til å gi fingeravtrykket til politiet for å f.eks. kunne få
+bankkonto eller stemme ved valg. Det kunne få departementet til å
+snu. Det tror jeg ikke vil skje.
+
+
@@ -863,6 +1223,12 @@ streams are working as they should.
April (4)
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2014
@@ -1071,7 +1437,7 @@ streams are working as they should.
chrpath (2)
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drivstoffpriser (4)
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intervju (42)
@@ -1111,19 +1479,19 @@ streams are working as they should.
mesh network (8)
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skepsis (4)
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valg (8)
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