X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/a4fc961a32d0e35a82f7891f8bb6c6b80c08dc9d..9d0dcdc25d86de368d53bea6cfcaecc172115c55:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 1106ec4ac2..f03a482580 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,52 +20,22 @@
-
Gatemagasinet =Oslo får konkurrent fra Folk er Folk
-
19th June 2012
-

Aftenposten melder i dag at selgerne av -gatemagasinet =Oslo -er -irritert på at det er kommet en konkurrent på banen fra -organisasjonen Folk er Folk, -som støtter “rumenerne”, de mest uglesette av tiggerne i Norge. Min -første tanke da jeg leste nyheten er at slik må =Oslo-selgerne tåle -når de nekter "rumenerne" og andre utenlandske tiggere å selge -gatemagasinet sitt. Det ble rapportert for noen år siden at -utenlandske -tiggere ikke var velkomne som selgere, og å opprette en konkurrent -virker da for meg som et rasjonelt alternativ. Og at "rumerene" -utelukkes gjelder visst ikke bare i Oslo. I Adresseavisen fant jeg en -artikkel om at selgerne av gateavisen Sorgenfri i Trondheim også -utelukker -utenlandske selgere.

- -

Men situasjonen er visst ikke så rett frem som opprinnelige -artikler kunne tyde på. Mens jeg søkte opp gamle artikler og -referanser om temaet, fant jeg et -leserbrev -fra en av stifterne av =Oslo, som protesterte på -påstander -fra likestillingsombudet om diskriminering og forteller at =Oslo -krever at de som selger magasinet skal kunne kommunisere med kundene -for å kunne representere magasinet utad, og at "rumererne" ikke -ekskluderes for å være utlendinger men pga. at de ikke kan snakke -norsk. Det er jo ikke urimelig å kreve at en selger skal kunne -kommunisere med kundene, men som kjøper har jeg ikke snakket så mye -med =Oslo-selgerne at det ville vært et problem for meg om selgeren -ikke kunne snakke norsk. Jeg er dermed i tvil om hvorvidt -argumentasjonen holder når effekten er at de mest uglesette tiggerne i -Norge ekskluderes.

- -

Uansett tror jeg ikke markedet for gatemagasiner i Oslo er mettet. -Personlig kunne jeg godt tenkte meg å kjøpe flere, men gidder ikke -kjøpe den samme utgaven av =Oslo flere ganger. En konkurrent som Folk -er Folk kan dermed ende opp med å gjøre markedet større i stedet for å -spise av markedsandelene til =Oslo.

+
New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian
+
2nd January 2013
+

During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for +LEGO Mindstorm +NXT. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I +discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were +already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something +you care about, please join me on the IRC channel +#debian-lego (server +irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the +situation. :)

- Tags: norsk. + Tags: english.
@@ -73,52 +43,104 @@ spise av markedsandelene til =Oslo.

-
SQL-database med anbud publisert på Doffin
-
15th June 2012
-

Doffin er det offentlige Norges -portal for annonsering av anbudsutlysninger. Nettstedet er mye brukt, -men rådataene er ikke enkelt tilgjengelig for almenheten. For å bøte -på det har jeg som et NUUG-prosjekt -laget en Scraperwiki-skraper som -lager en -SQL-database -med nøkkelinformasjonen fra Doffin, slik at det er mulig å søke og -analysere Doffin-oppføringene. Det publiseres mellom 900-1500 anbud -hver måned via Doffin. Jeg har ingen konkrete planer for analyse, men -håper enklere tilgjengelighet gjør at flere griper sjansen. På sikt -håper jeg å bruke denne databasen som grunnlag for å lage en database -over anbudsdokumenter, som i dag ikke er tilgjengelig fra doffin, men -må bestilles fra hver enkelt utlyser.

- -

Jeg var litt usikker på om det var rettighetsproblemer knyttet til -skraping av informasjon fra Doffin, men ser i -vilkårene til -Doffin følgende:

- -

- -

Opphavsrett mv

- -

Ved innleggig av kunngjøringer på Doffin aksepterer Oppdragsgiver -at opphavsrett og andre rettigheter til materialet overføres til -Fornyings- og administrasjonsdepartementet, eller den departementet -utnevner. Oppdragsgiver har imidlertid bruksrett til materialet, og -kan benytte det til de formål de måtte ønske.

- -

- -

Hvis informasjonen er vernet av opphavsrettsloven (hvilket jeg -tviler på, gitt lovens begrensninger om informasjon fra det -offentlige), så er det FAD som har de immaterielle rettighetene. FAD -er en del av staten, som opererer på vegne av folket, og enhver borger -skulle dermed ha rett til å videreformidle informasjonen. Ingen av -offentlighetslovens unntak kommer til anvendelse, i og med at -informasjonen allerede er publisert.

+
Lenker for 2013-01-01
+
1st January 2013
+

Her er noen lenker til tekster jeg har satt pris på å lese den +siste måneden.

+ + + +

Og et godt nytt år til dere alle!

- Tags: norsk, nuug, offentlig innsyn. + Tags: bankid, lenker, norsk, opphavsrett, personvern.
@@ -126,148 +148,24 @@ informasjonen allerede er publisert.

-
Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions
-
11th June 2012
-

During my work on -Debian Edu -based on Squeeze, I came across some issues that should be -addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally found time to wrap up my -notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit -explanation.

- -

    - -
  • We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel -changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages -with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation -system depend on tasksel tasks in -/usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package -installation.
    • - -
  • Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos -foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more -services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should -at least try to enable it for these services: -
      - -
    • CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using - quotas.
      • -
    • Nagios for admins checking the system status.
      • -
    • GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.
      • -
    • LDAP for admins updating LDAP.
      • -
    • Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.
      • -
    • ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.
      • - -
    • - -
  • When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to -authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to -use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it -is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind
    • - -
  • Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made -sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an -inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.
    • - -
  • Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before -touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is -BTS report #653305 and the -d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply -it and upload. After this is done we need to adjust -debian-edu-install to use this new hook.
    • - -
  • Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install -time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install -packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work -in Wheezy. - -
  • Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow -the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding -up KDE login on slow networks.
    • - -
  • Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to -change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on -paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require -fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.
    • - -
  • Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary. -The current command line script is not very friendly to people most -familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to -have it available where the admin will be looking for it..
    • - -
  • We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service -actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the -Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.
    • - -
  • We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles -using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less -packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.
    • - -
  • We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password -when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was -requested in BTS report -#588968 and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a -MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.
    • - -
  • We should clean up the set of applications installed by default. -
      - -
    • reduce the number of chemistry visualisers
      • -
    • consider dropping xpaint
      • -
    • and probably more?
      • -
    • - -
  • Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is -mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other -examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such -firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide -some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we -could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some -command line script to do this (one for the running system, another -for the LTSP chroot).
    • - - -
  • In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We -should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to -install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to -use.
    • - -
  • The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out -interesting educational packages. We should work on the package -tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational -packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install -new applications with a simple mouse click.
    • - -
  • The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place, -with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to -be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable -filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should -implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it, -instead of the "it is documented" method of today.
    • - -
  • A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to -"take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room. -There are at least three implementations, -italc, -controlaula og -epoptes and we should pick one of -them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is -how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room -and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a -given room.
    • - -
  • Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we -should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into -the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should -provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for -them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange -configuration and data with the central server. This should be -investigated.
    • - -

- -

I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy -version.

+
A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+
28th December 2012
+

I was happy to discover a few days ago that the +Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project also this year received a Christmas present from Another +Agency in Trondheim. NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account +December 24th. I want to express our thanks for this very welcome +present. As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on +funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer +gatherings, this donation was most welcome. One developer gathering +cost around NOK 15 000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the +development pace we want. Thus, I hope their example this year is +followed by many others. :)

+ +

The public list of donors can be found on +the +donation page for the project, which also contain instructions if +you want to donate to the project.

@@ -280,82 +178,51 @@ version.

-
Litt statistikk fra Offentlig Elektronisk postjournal
-
10th June 2012
-

De siste månedene har jeg sammen med andre i NUUG jobbet med å -gjøre det enklere å få innsyn i offentlige dokumenter, og dette -inkluderer å gjøre postjournaler enklere tilgjengelig for maskinell -analyse og søk. I den forbindelse tok jeg i dag å tittet litt på -Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -(OEP), FAD/DIFIs fellesløsning for departementer og statlige -etater.

- -

Her er antall oppføringer pr. måned det siste året, -summert -opp ved hjelp av -en -Scraperwiki-database. Merk at denne Scraperwikien har -ytelsesproblemer pga. mengden data.

- -

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
MÃ¥nedAntall
2011-07164355
2011-08153662
2011-09173134
2011-10170665
2011-11198409
2011-12175908
2012-01206875
2012-02202862
2012-03204225
2012-04207931
2012-05223754

- -

Det er også interessant å se hvor ofte ulike etater sender inn sine -journaloppføringer til OEP. OEP inneholder en liste med sist -innrapporteringsdato for alle som sender til OEP, og ved å se når og -hvor ofte det blir sendt inn fra etatene kan -frekvensen -beregnes. Her er bunnlista, dvs. de som leverer sjeldnere enn hver 10. -dag beregnet fra -en -Scraperwiki-database:

- -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Etat Frekvens Leveringer
Norges geologiske undersøkelse 83.7527546296 1
Medietilsynet 33.7527546296 1
Departementenes servicesenter 23.8763773148 2
Kunnskapsdepartementet 15.8763773148 2
Kompetansesenter for distriktsutvikling 15.3763773148 2
Toll- og avgiftsdirektoratet 15.3763773148 2
Fredskorpset 12.5842515432 3
Statens legemiddelverk 12.1881886574 4
Utlendingsnemnda 11.5842515432 3
Politidirektoratet 10.9175848765 3
Skattedirektoratet 10.9175848765 3
Statens innkrevingssentral 10.5842515432 3
Barne-, ungdoms- og familiedirektoratet 10.2509182099 3
Kunst i offentlige rom 10.2509182099 3

- -

En kan beregne lignende frekvenser ved å sammenligne -journalføringsdato med publiseringsdato for hver enkelt oppføring i -OEP, men den lenken legger jeg ikke ved her for å unngå at -søkemotorroboter begynner å overbelaste Scraperwiki-databasen.

- -

Jeg har spurt Norges geologiske undersøkelse om hvorfor de leverer -så sjelden, og det kommer av at de har problemer etter oppgradering av -arkivsystemet sitt og jobber med å fikse det slik at de kan gå tilbake -til å levere hver uke. Har ikke undersøkt noen av de andre.

+
How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze
+
25th December 2012
+

Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new +year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.

+ +

Bitcoin, the digital +decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins +between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting +experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in +Debian is about to improve a bit. +The new debian source +package (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting +in the NEW queue +for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package +name.

+ +

And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin +team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze +using the following steps to get a set of working packages:

+ +
+git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
+cd bitcoin
+DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
+DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
+
+ +

You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The +list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and +bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the +client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need +around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your +~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download +all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so +there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will +not be able to get all the features out of the client.

+ +

As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

- Tags: norsk, nuug, offentlig innsyn. + Tags: bitcoin, debian, english.
@@ -363,28 +230,74 @@ til å levere hver uke. Har ikke undersøkt noen av de andre.

-
TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience
-
9th June 2012
-

Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a -TV -with face recognition to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to -me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face -recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who -is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility, -company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better -evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would -be willing to pay for.

- -

I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my -household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel. -It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book -1984 by George -Orwell.

+
A word on bitcoin support in Debian
+
21st December 2012
+

It has been a while since I wrote about +bitcoin, the decentralised +peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I +have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the +state of bitcoin in +Debian again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package +is now maintained by a +team of +people, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We +owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :) +But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in +Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from +backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking +it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the +situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug +reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt +Corallo in a +PPA for +Ubuntu, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the +Debian package.

+ +

After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on +IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to +improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from +me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client +package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion +setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created +a +patch to backport the latest version. Jonas is going to look at +it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a +new version to unstable. + +

I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the +centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I +find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting +transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and +that the major credit card companies can block legal money +transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people +need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when +they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in +Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough. +Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to +pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step +in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in +use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a +quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but +have not tested them.

+ +

My +experiment +with bitcoins showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin. +I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two +years ago, as can be +seen +on the blockexplorer service. Thank you everyone for your +donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that +bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the +number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want +to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to +the same address as last time, +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

- Tags: english, surveillance. + Tags: bitcoin, debian, english.
@@ -392,38 +305,96 @@ Orwell.

-
Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status
-
6th June 2012
-

A few days ago -I -reported how to get the support status out of Dell using an -unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was -discovered -by Daniel De Marco in february. Combined with my web scraping -code for HP, Dell and IBM -from -2009, I got inspired and wrote -a -web service based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the -support status and get a machine readable result back.

- -

This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON -output: - -

-% GET https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1
-supportstatus({"servicetag": "2v1xwn1", "warrantyend": "2013-11-24", "shipped": "2010-11-24", "scrapestamputc": "2012-06-06T20:26:56.965847", "scrapedurl": "http://143.166.84.118/services/assetservice.asmx?WSDL", "vendor": "Dell", "productid": ""})
-%
-
- -

It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add -support for other vendors. The python source is available on -Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.

+
Piratpartiet på opphavs-retrett?
+
19th December 2012
+

Jeg ble overrasket over å se at Piratpartiet i +Aftenposten +er referert på følgende:

+ +
+Når det gjelder retten til opphavsrett for kulturproduktene, mener +Piratpartiet av levetid + 14 år er tilfredsstillende. +
+ +

Det betyr en vernetid langt ut over det kommersielle livet til de +aller fleste opphavsrettsbeskyttede verker, og er i strid med slik i +hvert fall jeg har tolket punkt 5 i +kjerneprogrammet +til Piratpartiet:

+ +
+

5: Åndsverk og patenter: tilbake til start

+ + + + + +
forslag:14 års opphavsrett og ingen +programvarepatenter
grunn:Den første loven om opphavsrett spesifiserte 14 +års vernetid. Senere har mediabransjens lobbyister stadig presset +loven mot lengre vern, nå er det 70 år etter forfatters død. Dette +gjør at mange verk glemmes og går tapt, noe som er skadelig for norsk +språk og kultur. Vi til tilbake til start: 14 års +vernetid. Patentloven sier klart at dataprogrammer ikke kan +patenteres. Likevel klarer patentadvokater å lure gjennom +programvarepatenter. Slike patenter gjør dingsene våre dyrere og kan i +enkelte tilfelle stoppe dem helt.
+
+ +

Den opprinnelige opphavsretten var på 14 år totalt, ikke 14 år +etter opphavspersonens død. Jeg tenkte først dette kanskje var +feilsitering fra Aftenposten, men jeg finner samme påstand i en bloggpost +fra Geir Aaslid på Piratpartietes offisielle nettsider. Der +skriver han følgende:

+ +
+Hva vi gjør med opphavsretten er mer komplisert fordi den omfavner så +mange bransjer, med ulike behov. Enhver reform er en forbedring men +det er nærliggende å anta at en opphavsrett på levetid + 14 år er +fullt ut tilfredstillende for musikk, film, litteratur og spill. +
+ +

Det virker dermed på meg som om Piratpartiet allerede har gjort +retrett fra sin beundringsverdige holdning om at det holdt med 14 års +total vernetid, til sin nye som tar utgangspunkt i levetiden til +opphavspersonen. Jeg håper det baserer seg på en misforståelse hos +piratlederen som blir korrigert tilbake til 14 års total vernetid før +partiet stiller til valg.

+ +

Hvis du lurer på hvilke problemer lang vernetid bringer med seg, +anbefaler jeg å lese boken Free +Culture av Lawrence Lessig. Jeg og en liten gruppe andre er igang +med å +oversette +boken til bokmål og tar gjerne imot hjelp med oversettelse og +korrekturlesing.

+ +

Oppdatering 2012-12-20: Oppdaget at +bloggposten +til Geir Aaslid er endret siden i går, og nå inneholder følgende +avsnitt i stedet for det jeg siterte over:

+ +
+Hva vi gjør med opphavsretten er mer komplisert fordi den omfavner så +mange bransjer, med ulike behov. Enhver reform er en forbedring men +det er nærliggende å anta at en opphavsrett lik levetiden, evt + 14 år +er fullt ut tilfredstillende for mange skapere av musikk, film, +litteratur og spill. Det er for det meste de store forlagene som er +imot enhver reform. +
+ +

I tillegg har det dukket opp en setning nederst "Dette dokumentet +er et utkast til svar på et angrep på Piratpartiet fra Gramo. Det +endrer seg derfor over tid og den endelige versjonen er det som blir +publisert på Hardware.no", som tyder på at originalformuleringen ikke +var veloverveid og sitatet i Aftenposten kanskje var basert på en +misforståelse.

- Tags: english, nuug. + Tags: freeculture, norsk, opphavsrett.
@@ -431,57 +402,64 @@ Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.

-
Kommentar til artikkel i Adresseavisa som omtaler FiksGataMi
-
2nd June 2012
-

Jeg oppdaget nylig en -artikkel -i Adresseavisa i Trondheim som nevner FiksGataMi, og der Trondheim -kommune ser ut til å fortelle at de ikke følger forvaltningslovens -krav ved mottak av meldinger sendt inn via FiksGataMi. La derfor -nettopp inn denne kommentaren til artikkelen:

- -

- -

Her er en liten faktaoppdatering om FiksGataMi-tjenesten, da noen -ser ut til å ha misforstått hvordan den fungerer.

- -

FiksGataMi er et privat initiativ opprettet og drevet av -medlemsforeningen NUUG. FiksGataMi tar imot meldinger om feil i -offentlig infrastruktur, og sender meldingen skriftlig videre på vegne -av innmelder til aktuell aktør i det offentlige, det være seg kommune, -fylke eller vegvesenregion. Offentlig etat blir valgt ut fra -geografisk plassering og kategori valgt av innsender. Offentlige -etater er i følge forvaltningsloven pliktig å følge opp og besvare -skriftlige henvendelser, og hvis noen av mottakerne ikke gjør dette -kan en klage på lovbrudd i det offentlige. FiksGataMi fungerer dermed -som en slags epostklient for innbyggerne der kopi av innsendte -meldinger gjøres tilgjengelig og knyttes til kartplassering for enkel -gjenfinning. Å sende inn nye problemrapporter via FiksGataMi er -dermed ikke avhengig av at kommunen aktivt må følge med på meldinger -hos FiksGataMi, da de får dem tilsendt på sine offisielle -epostmottakspunkter. Hvorvidt noe blir fikset og om innbyggerne er -opp til mottaker av meldingene. For Trondheim kommune er -mottaksadressen bydrift.vegdrift@trondheim.kommune.no, en adresse jeg -inntil jeg leste denne artikkelen trodde ble håndtert i henhold til -forvaltningslovens krav.

- -

Kan ellers fortelle at 57 kommuner lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine -nettsider, og at 37 % (4182 av 11266 ) av problemrapportene sendt inn -via FiksGataMi er markert som løst i løsningen. Trondheim kommune har -fått tilbud om å få rapportene levert på datamaskinlesbart format i -stedet for epost, men har ikke takket ja så langt.

- -

Vennlig hilsen Petter Reinholdtsen, en av NUUG-folkene bak FiksGataMi.no

- -

- -

Det høres for meg ut som om innbyggerne i Trondheim burde klage på -kommunens potensielle lovbrudd.

+
Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format
+
18th December 2012
+

A few days ago I came across +a blog post from Joey +Hess describing ledger and +hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting. I found it +interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where +accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with +the different web based systems we use. I find it hard to find what I +look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of +the systems. Ledger seem different. The accounting data is kept in +text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there + +are at least five +different implementations able to read the format. An example +entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to +generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:

+ +
+2004-05-27 Book Store
+      Expenses:Books                 $20.00
+      Liabilities:Visa
+
+ +

The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and +look for others using it. I found blog posts from +Christine +Spang, +Pete +Keen, +Andrew +Cantino and +Ronald +Ip describing how they use it, as well as a post from +Bradley +M. Kuhn at the Software Freedom Conservancy. All seemed like good +recommendations fitting my need.

+ +

The ledger +package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the +hledger +package only is available in Debian Sid. As I use Squeeze, ledger +seemed the best choice to get started.

+ +

To get some real data to test on, I wrote a +web scraper for +LODO, the accounting system used by +the NUUG association, and started to +play with the data set. I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I +am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example +using the "ledger balance" command. But I will have to +gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit +for the organisations I am involved in.

- Tags: fiksgatami, norsk. + Tags: debian edu, english, nuug.
@@ -489,168 +467,38 @@ kommunens potensielle lovbrudd.

-
Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel
-
2nd June 2012
-

Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the -Debian Edu and Skolelinux -mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and -thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the -Debian Edu -Squeeze version.

- -

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

- -

My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel, -Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner -(Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed -by Angela).

- -

During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator -and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work -touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During -the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in -becoming an osteopath.

- -

Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel) -have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at -introducing free software into schools. The project's name is -"IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT -skills with communication skills.

- -

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?

- -

While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for -"IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to -reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available, -people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux -distributions that target being used for school networks.

- -

At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a -commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen, -Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we -went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing -and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian -Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that -got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most -attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within -the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.

- -

In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local -people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data -protection experts, other IT professionals.

- -

We came to two conclusions:

- -

First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in -bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit -by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup -whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard -IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and -customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are -possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a -standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some -degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here -locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting -point.

- -

Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at -all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions -for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What -has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment -of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule" -tries to provide an approach for this.

- -

Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains, -defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in -Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT -equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin) -teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there -spare time.

- -

We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were -networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school -here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to -teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi -non-existent until 2010/2011.

- -

Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in -class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this -avoidance do exist.

- -

We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this -social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey -for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with -several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and -they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management -at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new -and probably a gain for all.

- -

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

- -

There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to -any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian, -the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone -workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within -project communication, honest communication within the group of -developers, etc.

- -

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

- -

Every coin has two sides:

- -

Technically: BTS issue -#311188, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network -client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation -should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think -about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into -several portions (to make it easier for new developers to -contribute).

- -

Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should -find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for -Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany -promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are -there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring -these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and -all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last -meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people -there being rather disconnected from the development department of -Debian Edu / Skolelinux.

- -

Which free software do you use daily?

- -

For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.

- -

For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For -serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for -more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.

- -

I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the -development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI. -PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently -is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.

- -

For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde -as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber -I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also -the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive -whiteboard.

- -

My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.

- -

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?

- -

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people, -enrol people.

+
61 kommuner lenker nå til FiksGataMi fra sine nettsider
+
11th December 2012
+

For noen dager siden omfavnet nok en kommune NUUGs +FiksGataMi. Med 61 kommuner +som lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine hjemmesider er «markedsandelen» 14% +(av 429 kommuner). Siden +siste +oppdatering i november har kommunene Re og Vågsøy kommet til og +slår følge med kommunene Askim, Askøy, Audnedal, Aure, Balestrand, +Bærum, Eide, Farsund, Flekkefjord, Folldal, Gran, Grue, Hadsel, +Halden, Halsa, Hamar, Hobøl, Holtålen, Hægebostad, Høyanger, +Kongsberg, Kristiansund, Kvinesdal, Kviteseid, Levanger, Lindesnes, +Luster, Lyngdal, Løten, Mandal, Marnardal, Moss, Namsos, Nissedal, +Nordreisa, Randaberg, Rindal, Sel, Sirdal, Skiptvet, Sortland, +Spydeberg, Stange, Stjørdal, Stord, Søgne, Sør-Odal, Tolga, Trysil, +Tynset, Tysvær, Ullensvang Herad, Utsira, Vennesla, Verdal, Vågan, +Vågå, Våler og Åseral. Oppdatert liste er tilgjengelig fra +NUUGs +wiki. Kartet er dog ikke oppdatert med de siste kommunene.

+ +

Kanskje du bør høre med din kommune om de vil bli mer aktive +brukere av FiksGataMi? Se +en +tidligere bloggpost med tips om hvordan det kan gjøres.

+ +

I snitt rapporteres det nå via FiksGataMi ca. 60 meldinger fra +innbyggerne i uka om feil på offentlig infrastruktur.

- Tags: debian edu, english, intervju. + Tags: fiksgatami, norsk.
@@ -658,98 +506,53 @@ enrol people.

-
SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status
-
1st June 2012
-

A few years ago I wrote -how -to extract support status for your Dell and HP servers. Recently -I have learned from colleges here at the -University of Oslo that Dell have -made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given -the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine -readable information about the support status. This perl code -demonstrate how to do it:

- -

-use strict;
-use warnings;
-use SOAP::Lite;
-use Data::Dumper;
-my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
-my $App = 'test';
-my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
-my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
-my $s = SOAP::Lite
-    -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
-    -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
-    -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
-    ;
-my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
-    SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
-    SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
-    SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
-);
-print Dumper($a -> result) ;
-

- -

The output can look like this:

- -

-$VAR1 = {
-          'Asset' => {
-                     'Entitlements' => {
-                                       'EntitlementData' => [
-                                                            {
-                                                              'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
-                                                              'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'Provider' => '',
-                                                              'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'DaysLeft' => '0'
-                                                            },
-                                                            {
-                                                              'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
-                                                              'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'Provider' => '',
-                                                              'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'DaysLeft' => '0'
-                                                            },
-                                                            {
-                                                              'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
-                                                              'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'Provider' => '',
-                                                              'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
-                                                              'DaysLeft' => '0'
-                                                            }
-                                                          ]
-                                     },
-                     'AssetHeaderData' => {
-                                          'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
-                                          'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
-                                          'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
-                                          'Buid' => '2323',
-                                          'Region' => 'Europe',
-                                          'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
-                                          'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
-                                        }
-                   }
-        };
-

- -

I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this -service outside the -inline -documentation, and according to -one -comment it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than -scraping HTML pages. :)

- -

Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If -you know of one, drop me an email. :)

+
Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC
+
6th December 2012
+

Where I work at the University of +Oslo, we use the +Cerebrum user +administration system to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc. +I've known since the system was written that the server is providing +an XML-RPC API, but +I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we +always use the bofh command line client at work. Until today. I want +to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up +virtual machines. Here are a few notes on how to use it with +Python.

+ +

I started by looking at the source of the Java +bofh +client, to figure out how it connected to the API server. I also +googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found +a +simple example in the XML-RPC howto.

+ +

This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of +commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the +user currently logged in:

+ +
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+import getpass
+import xmlrpclib
+server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
+username = getpass.getuser()
+password = getpass.getpass()
+server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
+#print server.get_commands(sessionid)
+sessionid = server.login(username, password)
+print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
+result = server.logout(sessionid)
+print result
+
+ +

Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS +and DHCP updates I wanted to do.

- Tags: english, nuug. + Tags: english, sysadmin.
@@ -757,44 +560,52 @@ you know of one, drop me an email. :)

-
Veileder fra DIFI om publisering av offentlige data
-
1st June 2012
-

På onsdag rakk jeg såvidt innom -Oslo Open Data Forums -møte, og fikk lagt hendene mine på DIFIs helt nye veileder -"Åpne data. Del og skap -verdier. Veileder i tilgjengeliggjøring av offentlig data" (også -tilgjengelig -som PDF fra DIFI).

- -

Veilederen er veldig bra, og nevner viktige problemstillinger og -skisserer f.eks. både verdiskapningspotensialet og formatmulighetene -som en bør ha i bakhodet når en publiserer offentlig informasjon på -maskinlesbart format. Kildekoden til veilederen er -tilgjengelig via -github, og en kan rapportere tilbakemeldinger og forslag til -forbedringer der (eller via epost og twitter for de som ønsker -det).

- -

Det eneste jeg virkelig savnet i veilederen var omtale av -w3cs -stjerneklassifisering av åpne datakilder, som jeg tror ville være -nyttige mentale knagger for de som vurderer å publisere sin -informasjon på som åpne data. Jeg har -rapportert -en github-bug om dette, så får vi se hvordan den blir behandlet.

- -

Det slo meg at det var veldig lite konkret i veilederen om valg av -bruksvilkår ved publisering (aka lisens), men jeg er ikke sikker på om -det hører hjemme der, da det er et vanskelig tema som kanskje heller -hører hjemme i sin egen veileder. Uansett, anbefaler alle å ta en -titt på veilederen og sikre at alle offentlige etater en har kontakt -med får en kopi.

+
Lenker for 2012-11-28
+
28th November 2012
+

Mye interessant har skjedd de siste ukene. Her er noen dokumenter +jeg har hatt glede av å lese.

+ +

- Tags: norsk, opphavsrett, web. + Tags: lenker, norsk, opphavsrett, personvern.
@@ -809,6 +620,13 @@ med får en kopi.

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