]> pere.pagekite.me Git - homepage.git/blob - blog/index.rss
Improve link location.
[homepage.git] / blog / index.rss
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/' xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
3 <channel>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
7 <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
8
9 <item>
10 <title>The Story of Aaron Swartz - Let us all weep!</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html</guid>
13 <pubDate>Thu, 8 Oct 2015 12:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
14 <description>&lt;p&gt;The movie &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy&quot;&gt;The
15 Internet&#39;s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is both inspiring
16 and depressing at the same time. The work of Aaron Swartz has
17 inspired me in my work, and I am grateful of all the improvements he
18 was able to initiate or complete. I wish I am able to do as much good
19 in my life as he did in his. Every minute of this 1:45 long movie is
20 inspiring in documenting how much impact a single person can have on
21 improving the society and this world. And it is depressing in
22 documenting how the law enforcement of USA (and other countries) is
23 corrupted to a point where they can push a bright kid to his death for
24 downloading too many scientific articles. Aaron is dead. Let us all
25 weep.&lt;/p&gt;
26
27 &lt;p&gt;The movie is also available on
28 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58&quot;&gt;Youtube&lt;/a&gt;. I
29 wish there were Norwegian subtitles available, so I could show it to
30 my parents.&lt;/p&gt;
31 </description>
32 </item>
33
34 <item>
35 <title>Alle Stortingets mobiltelefoner kontrolleres fra USA...</title>
36 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Alle_Stortingets_mobiltelefoner_kontrolleres_fra_USA___.html</link>
37 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Alle_Stortingets_mobiltelefoner_kontrolleres_fra_USA___.html</guid>
38 <pubDate>Wed, 7 Oct 2015 09:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
39 <description>&lt;p&gt;Jeg lot meg fascinere av
40 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/Stortinget-har-tilgang-til-a-fjernstyre-600-mobiler-8192692.html&quot;&gt;en
41 artikkel i Aftenposten&lt;/a&gt; der det fortelles at «over 600 telefoner som
42 benyttes av stortingsrepresentanter, rådgivere og ansatte på
43 Stortinget, kan «fjernstyres» ved hjelp av
44 &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airwatch.androidagent&quot;&gt;programvaren
45 Airwatch&lt;/a&gt;, et såkalte MDM-program (Mobile Device Managment)». Det
46 hele bagatelliseres av Stortingets IT-stab, men det er i hovedsak på
47 grunn av at journalisten ikke stiller de relevante spørsmålene. For
48 meg er det relevante spørsmålet hvem som har lovlig tilgang (i henhold
49 til lokal lovgiving, dvs. i hvert fall i Norge, Sverige, UK og USA)
50 til informasjon om og på telefonene, og hvor enkelt det er å skaffe
51 seg tilgang til hvor mobilene befinner seg og informasjon som befinner
52 seg på telefonene ved hjelp av utro tjenere, trusler, innbrudd og
53 andre ulovlige metoder.&lt;/p&gt;
54
55 &lt;p&gt;Bruken av AirWatch betyr i realiteten at USAs etteretning og
56 politimyndigheter har full tilgang til stortingets mobiltelefoner,
57 inkludert posisjon og innhold, takket være
58 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008&quot;&gt;FISAAA-loven&lt;/a&gt;
59 og
60 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter&quot;&gt;National
61 Security Letters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; og det enkle faktum at selskapet
62 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airwatch.com/&quot;&gt;AirWatch&lt;/a&gt; er kontrollert av et
63 selskap i USA. I tillegg er det kjent at flere lands
64 etterretningstjenester kan lytte på trafikken når den passerer
65 landegrensene.&lt;/p&gt;
66
67 &lt;p&gt;Jeg har bedt om mer informasjon
68 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/saksnummer_for_saker_anganede_br&quot;&gt;fra
69 Stortinget om bruken av AirWatch&lt;/a&gt; via Mimes brønn så får vi se hva
70 de har å fortelle om saken. Fant ingenting om &#39;airwatch&#39; i
71 postjournalen til Stortinget, så jeg trenger hjelp før jeg kan be om
72 innsyn i konkrete dokumenter.&lt;/p&gt;
73
74 &lt;p&gt;Oppdatering 2015-10-07: Jeg er blitt spurt hvorfor jeg antar at
75 AirWatch-agenten rapporterer til USA og ikke direkte til Stortingets
76 egen infrastruktur. Det stemmer at det er teknisk mulig å sette
77 opp mobiltelefonene til å rapportere til datamaskiner som eies av
78 Stortinget. Jeg antar det rapporteres til AirWatch sine sentrale
79 tjenester basert på det jeg leste fra beskrivelsen av
80 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airwatch.com/solutions/mobile-device-management/&quot;&gt;Mobile
81 Device Management&lt;/A&gt; på AirWatch sine egne nettsider, koblet med at
82 det brukes en standard app som kan hentes fra &quot;app-butikkene&quot; for å få
83 tilgang. Enten må app-en settes opp individuelt hos Stortinget, eller
84 så får den beskjed fra AirWatch i USA om hvor den skal koble seg opp.
85 I det første tilfellet vil den ikke rapportere direkte til USA, men
86 til programvare utviklet av AirWatch som kjører på en maskin under
87 Stortingets kontroll. Det er litt bedre, men fortsatt vil det være
88 umulig for Stortinget å være sikker på hva programvaren som tar imot
89 forbindelser gjør. Jeg ser fra beskrivelsen av
90 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.airwatch.com/differentiators/enterprise-integration/&quot;&gt;Enterprice
91 Integration&lt;/a&gt; hos AirWatch at det er mulig å ha lokal installasjon,
92 og håper innsynsforespørsler mot Stortinget kan fortelle mer om
93 hvordan ting konkret fungerer der.&lt;/p&gt;
94 </description>
95 </item>
96
97 <item>
98 <title>French Docbook/PDF/EPUB/MOBI edition of the Free Culture book</title>
99 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html</link>
100 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html</guid>
101 <pubDate>Thu, 1 Oct 2015 13:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
102 <description>&lt;p&gt;As I wrap up the Norwegian version of
103 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Free
104 Culture&lt;/a&gt; book by Lawrence Lessig (still waiting for my final proof
105 reading copy to arrive in the mail), my great
106 &lt;a href=&quot;http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;dblatex&lt;/a&gt; helper and
107 developer of the dblatex docbook processor, Benoît Guillon, decided a
108 to try to create a French version of the book. He started with the
109 French translation available from the
110 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre&quot;&gt;Wikilivres wiki
111 pages&lt;/a&gt;, and wrote a program to convert it into a PO file, allowing
112 the translation to be integrated into the po4a based framework I use
113 to create the Norwegian translation from the English edition. We meet
114 on the &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/%23dblatex&quot;&gt;#dblatex IRC
115 channel&lt;/a&gt; to discuss the work. If you want to help create a French
116 edition, check out
117 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/marsgui/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;his git
118 repository&lt;/a&gt; and join us on IRC. If the French edition look good,
119 we might publish it as a paper book on lulu.com. A French version of
120 the drawings and the cover need to be provided for this to happen.&lt;/p&gt;
121 </description>
122 </item>
123
124 <item>
125 <title>The life and death of a laptop battery</title>
126 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</link>
127 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</guid>
128 <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
129 <description>&lt;p&gt;When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
130 But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
131 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
132 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
133 all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
134 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
135 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.&lt;/p&gt;
136
137 &lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png&quot;/&gt;
138
139 &lt;p&gt;First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
140 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
141 by someone else. I found
142 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats&quot;&gt;battery-stats&lt;/a&gt;,
143 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
144 broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
145 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
146 from him. Via
147 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html&quot;&gt;a
148 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air&lt;/a&gt; I also
149 discovered
150 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git&quot;&gt;batlog&lt;/a&gt;, not
151 available in Debian.&lt;/p&gt;
152
153 &lt;p&gt;I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
154 battery stats ever since. Now my
155 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
156 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
157 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
158 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
159
160 &lt;pre&gt;
161 #!/bin/sh
162 # Inspired by
163 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
164 # See also
165 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
166 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
167
168 files=&quot;manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
169 energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status&quot;
170
171 if [ ! -e &quot;$logfile&quot; ] ; then
172 (
173 printf &quot;timestamp,&quot;
174 for f in $files; do
175 printf &quot;%s,&quot; $f
176 done
177 echo
178 ) &gt; &quot;$logfile&quot;
179 fi
180
181 log_battery() {
182 # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
183 # when several log processes run in parallel.
184 msg=$(printf &quot;%s,&quot; $(date +%s); \
185 for f in $files; do \
186 printf &quot;%s,&quot; $(cat $f); \
187 done)
188 echo &quot;$msg&quot;
189 }
190
191 cd /sys/class/power_supply
192
193 for bat in BAT*; do
194 (cd $bat &amp;&amp; log_battery &gt;&gt; &quot;$logfile&quot;)
195 done
196 &lt;/pre&gt;
197
198 &lt;p&gt;The script is called when the power management system detect a
199 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
200 and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
201 every 10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
202 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
203 The code for the Debian package
204 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status&quot;&gt;is now
205 available on github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
206
207 &lt;p&gt;The collected log file look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
208
209 &lt;pre&gt;
210 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
211 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
212 [...]
213 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
214 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
215 &lt;/pre&gt;
216
217 &lt;p&gt;I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
218 over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
219 battery.&lt;/p&gt;
220
221 &lt;p&gt;But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
222 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
223 satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
224 &lt;a href=&quot;http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries&quot;&gt;Battery
225 University&lt;/a&gt;, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
226 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
227 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
228 I&#39;ve been told that the Tesla electric cars
229 &lt;a href=&quot;http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit&quot;&gt;limit
230 the charge of their batteries to 80%&lt;/a&gt;, with the option to charge to
231 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
232 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
233 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
234 Linux too.&lt;/p&gt;
235
236 &lt;p&gt;Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
237 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
238 preparation for a longer trip? I found
239 &lt;a href=&quot;http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity&quot;&gt;one
240 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
241 80%&lt;/a&gt;, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
242 load).&lt;/p&gt;
243
244 &lt;p&gt;I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
245 at the start. I also wonder why the &quot;full capacity&quot; increases some
246 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
247 back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
248 speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
249 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
250 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
251 those.&lt;/p&gt;
252
253 &lt;p&gt;Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
254 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
255 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
256 initially, and use &#39;tlp setcharge 40 80&#39; to change when charging start
257 and stop. I&#39;ve done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
258 and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
259 specific.&lt;/p&gt;
260 </description>
261 </item>
262
263 <item>
264 <title>Book cover for the Free Culture book finally done</title>
265 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html</link>
266 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html</guid>
267 <pubDate>Thu, 3 Sep 2015 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
268 <description>&lt;p&gt;Creating a good looking book cover proved harder than I expected.
269 I wanted to create a cover looking similar to the original cover of
270 the
271 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Free
272 Culture&lt;/a&gt; book we are translating to Norwegian, and I wanted it in
273 vector format for high resolution printing. But my inkscape knowledge
274 were not nearly good enough to pull that off.
275
276 &lt;p&gt;But thanks to the great inkscape community, I was able to wrap up
277 the cover yesterday evening. I asked on the
278 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/%23inkscape&quot;&gt;#inkscape IRC channel&lt;/a&gt;
279 on Freenode for help and clues, and Marc Jeanmougin (Mc-) volunteered
280 to try to recreate it based on the PDF of the cover from the HTML
281 version. Not only did he create a
282 &lt;a href=&quot;https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/copy1.svg &quot;&gt;SVG document with
283 the original and his vector version side by side&lt;/a&gt;, he even provided
284 an &lt;a href=&quot;https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/out-1.ogv&quot;&gt;instruction
285 video&lt;/a&gt; explaining how he did it&lt;/a&gt;. But the instruction video is
286 not easy to follow for an untrained inkscape user. The video is a
287 recording on how he did it, and he is obviously very experienced as
288 the menu selections are very quick and he mentioned on IRC that he did
289 use some keyboard shortcuts that can&#39;t be seen on the video, but it
290 give a good idea about the inkscape operations to use to create the
291 stripes with the embossed copyright sign in the center.&lt;/p&gt;
292
293 &lt;p&gt;I took his SVG file, copied the vector image and re-sized it to fit
294 on the cover I was drawing. I am happy with the end result, and the
295 current english version look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
296
297 &lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-03-free-culture-cover.png&quot; width=&quot;70%&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;/&gt;
298
299 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure about the text on the back, but guess it will
300 do. I picked three quotes from the official site for the book, and
301 hope it will work to trigger the interest of potential readers. The
302 Norwegian cover will look the same, but with the texts and bar code
303 replaced with the Norwegian version.&lt;/p&gt;
304
305 &lt;p&gt;The book is very close to being ready for publication, and I expect
306 to upload the final draft to Lulu in the next few days and order a
307 final proof reading copy to verify that everything look like it should
308 before allowing everyone to order their own copy of Free Culture, in
309 English or Norwegian Bokmål. I&#39;m waiting to give the the productive
310 proof readers a chance to complete their work.&lt;/p&gt;
311 </description>
312 </item>
313
314 <item>
315 <title>In my hand, a pocket book edition of the Norwegian Free Culture book!</title>
316 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html</link>
317 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html</guid>
318 <pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
319 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today, finally, my first printed draft edition of the Norwegian
320 translation of Free Culture I have been working on for the last few
321 years arrived in the mail. I had to fake a cover to get the interior
322 printed, and the exterior of the book look awful, but that is
323 irrelevant at this point. I asked for a printed pocket book version
324 to get an idea about the font sizes and paper format as well as how
325 good the figures and images look in print, but also to test what the
326 pocket book version would look like. After receiving the 500 page
327 pocket book, it became obvious to me that that pocket book size is too
328 small for this book. I believe the book is too thick, and several
329 tables and figures do not look good in the size they get with that
330 small page sizes. I believe I will go with the 5.5x8.5 inch size
331 instead. A surprise discovery from the paper version was how bad the
332 URLs look in print. They are very hard to read in the colophon page.
333 The URLs are red in the PDF, but light gray on paper. I need to
334 change the color of links somehow to look better. But there is a
335 printed book in my hand, and it feels great. :)&lt;/p&gt;
336
337 &lt;p&gt;Now I only need to fix the cover, wrap up the postscript with the
338 store behind the book, and collect the last corrections from the proof
339 readers before the book is ready for proper printing. Cover artists
340 willing to work for free and create a Creative Commons licensed vector
341 file looking similar to the original is most welcome, as my skills as
342 a graphics designer are mostly missing.&lt;/p&gt;
343 </description>
344 </item>
345
346 <item>
347 <title>First paper version of the Norwegian Free Culture book heading my way</title>
348 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html</link>
349 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html</guid>
350 <pubDate>Sun, 9 Aug 2015 10:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
351 <description>&lt;p&gt;Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped. As the translation is
352 mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
353 on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
354 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docbook.org/&quot;&gt;docbook&lt;/a&gt; based version of the
355 &lt;a href=&quot;http://free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture&lt;/a&gt; book by Lawrence
356 Lessig. I&#39;ve been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
357 give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
358 its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
359 helpful in solving my formatting challenges.&lt;/p&gt;
360
361 &lt;p&gt;Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
362 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/&quot;&gt;Lulu.com&lt;/a&gt; complain after uploading,
363 and I ordered a text version of the book on paper. It is lacking a
364 proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
365 should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.&lt;/p&gt;
366
367 &lt;p&gt;Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
368 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.createspace.com/&quot;&gt;CreateSpace&lt;/a&gt;, but ended up
369 using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
370 to lack pocket book with extended distribution). I looked for a
371 similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far. Please
372 let me know if I am missing out on something here.&lt;/p&gt;
373
374 &lt;p&gt;But I still struggle to decide the book size. Should I go for
375 pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
376 (5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
377 15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages? Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
378 smaller book is easier to carry around. The test book I ordered was
379 pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
380 but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
381 bring the prize down further.&lt;/p&gt;
382
383 &lt;p&gt;My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art. My
384 inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
385 cover in SVG format. I also need to figure out what to write about
386 the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
387 description on web based book stores). I would love help with this,
388 if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
389 the same CC license as the book. My artistic skills are not really up
390 to the task.&lt;/p&gt;
391
392 &lt;p&gt;I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
393 paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format. The current
394 status can as usual be found on
395 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt;
396 in the archive/ directory. So far I have spent all time on making the
397 PDF version look good. Someone should probably do the same with the
398 dbtoepub generated e-book. Help is definitely needed here, as I
399 expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
400 formatting.&lt;/p&gt;
401
402 &lt;p&gt;Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
403 discover translations that should be improved. The final proof
404 reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
405 result in a few months.&lt;/p&gt;
406 </description>
407 </item>
408
409 <item>
410 <title>Typesetting DocBook footnotes as endnotes with dblatex</title>
411 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html</link>
412 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html</guid>
413 <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2015 18:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
414 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m still working on the Norwegian version of the
415 &lt;a href=&quot;http://free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture book by Lawrence
416 Lessig&lt;/a&gt;, and is now working on the final typesetting and layout.
417 One of the features I want to get the structure similar to the
418 original book is to typeset the footnotes as endnotes in the notes
419 chapter. Based on the
420 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/685063&quot;&gt;feedback from the Debian
421 maintainer and the dblatex developer&lt;/a&gt;, I came up with this recipe I
422 would like to share with you. The proposal was to create a new LaTeX
423 class file and add the LaTeX code there, but this is not always
424 practical, when I want to be able to replace the class using a make
425 file variable. So my proposal misuses the latex.begindocument XSL
426 parameter value, to get a small fragment into the correct location in
427 the generated LaTeX File.&lt;/p&gt;
428
429 &lt;p&gt;First, decide where in the DocBook document to place the endnotes,
430 and add this text there:&lt;/p&gt;
431
432 &lt;pre&gt;
433 &amp;lt;?latex \theendnotes ?&amp;gt;
434 &lt;/pre&gt;
435
436 &lt;p&gt;Next, create a xsl stylesheet file dblatex-endnotes.xsl to add the
437 code needed to add the endnote instructions in the preamble of the
438 generated LaTeX document, with content like this:&lt;/p&gt;
439
440 &lt;pre&gt;
441 &amp;lt;?xml version=&#39;1.0&#39;?&amp;gt;
442 &amp;lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform&quot; version=&#39;1.0&#39;&amp;gt;
443 &amp;lt;xsl:param name=&quot;latex.begindocument&quot;&amp;gt;
444 &amp;lt;xsl:text&amp;gt;
445 \usepackage{endnotes}
446 \let\footnote=\endnote
447 \def\enoteheading{\mbox{}\par\vskip-\baselineskip }
448 \begin{document}
449 &amp;lt;/xsl:text&amp;gt;
450 &amp;lt;/xsl:param&amp;gt;
451 &amp;lt;/xsl:stylesheet&amp;gt;
452 &lt;/pre&gt;
453
454 &lt;p&gt;Finally, load this xsl file when running dblatex, for example like
455 this:&lt;/p&gt;
456
457 &lt;pre&gt;
458 dblatex --xsl-user=dblatex-endnotes.xsl freeculture.nb.xml
459 &lt;/pre&gt;
460
461 &lt;p&gt;The end result can be seen on github, where
462 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;my
463 book project&lt;/a&gt; is located.&lt;/p&gt;
464 </description>
465 </item>
466
467 <item>
468 <title>Mimes brønn, norsk utgave av Alaveteli / WhatDoTheyKnow, endelig lansert</title>
469 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mimes_br_nn__norsk_utgave_av_Alaveteli___WhatDoTheyKnow__endelig_lansert.html</link>
470 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mimes_br_nn__norsk_utgave_av_Alaveteli___WhatDoTheyKnow__endelig_lansert.html</guid>
471 <pubDate>Thu, 9 Jul 2015 11:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
472 <description>&lt;p&gt;I går fikk vi endelig lansert en norsk version av mySocietys
473 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/&quot;&gt;WhatDoTheyKnow&lt;/a&gt;.
474 Tjenesten heter Mimes brønn, og ble
475 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/news/NUUG_lanserer_innsynstjenesten_Mimes_Br_nn.shtml&quot;&gt;annonsert
476 av NUUG&lt;/a&gt; via blogg, epost og twitter til NUUG-assosierte personer.
477 Det har tatt noen år, men de siste dagene fikk vi endelig tid til å få
478 på plass de siste bitene. Vi er to, Gorm og meg selv, som har vært
479 primus motor for det hele, men vi har fått hjelp med oversettelser og
480 oppsett fra mange flere. Jeg vil si tusen takk til hver og en av dem,
481 og er veldig fornøyd med at vi klarte å få tjenesten opp å kjøre før
482 ferietiden slo inn for fullt.&lt;/p&gt;
483
484 &lt;p&gt;Vi er usikker på hvor mye belastning den virtuelle maskinen der
485 tjenesten kjører klarer, så vi har lansert litt i det stille og ikke
486 til for mange folk for å se hvordan maskinen klarer seg over sommeren,
487 før vi går mer aktivt ut og annonserer til høsten. Ta en titt, og se
488 om du kanskje har et spørsmål til det offentlige som er egnet å sende
489 inn via Mimes brønn.&lt;/p&gt;
490
491 &lt;p&gt;Hvis du lurer på hva i alle dager en slik tjenestes kan brukes til,
492 anbefaler jeg deg å se
493 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625321&quot;&gt;TED-foredraget til
494 Heather Brook&lt;/a&gt; om hvordan hun brukte WhatDoTheyKnow til å lære
495 hvordan offentlige midler ble misbrukt. Det er en inspirerende
496 historie.&lt;/p&gt;
497 </description>
498 </item>
499
500 <item>
501 <title>MPEG LA on &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot; licensing and non-private use</title>
502 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</link>
503 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</guid>
504 <pubDate>Tue, 7 Jul 2015 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
505 <description>&lt;p&gt;After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
506 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html&quot;&gt;why
507 they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
508 the MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt;, I was wiser, but still confused. So I asked MPEG LA
509 if their understanding matched that of NRK. As far as I can tell, it
510 does not.&lt;/p&gt;
511
512 &lt;p&gt;I started by asking for more information about the various
513 licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the &quot;Internet
514 Broadcast AVC Video&quot; class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
515 did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
516
517 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
518
519 &lt;p&gt;According to
520 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf&quot;&gt;a
521 MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02&lt;/a&gt;, there is no charge when
522 using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
523 Video&quot;. I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of &quot;Internet
524 Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is, and wondered if you could help me. What
525 exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?&lt;/p&gt;
526
527 &lt;p&gt;The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
528 PDF named
529 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf&quot;&gt;AVC
530 Patent Portfolio License Briefing&lt;/a&gt;, which states this about the
531 fees:&lt;/p&gt;
532
533 &lt;ul&gt;
534 &lt;li&gt;Where End User pays for AVC Video
535 &lt;ul&gt;
536 &lt;li&gt;Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
537 subscribers/yr = no royalty; &amp;gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
538 $25,000; &amp;gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &amp;gt;500,000 to
539 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &amp;gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000&lt;/li&gt;
540
541 &lt;li&gt;Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &amp;gt;12 minutes in
542 length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title&lt;/li&gt;
543 &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
544
545 &lt;li&gt;Where remuneration is from other sources
546 &lt;ul&gt;
547 &lt;li&gt;Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
548 (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &amp;gt; 100,000 HH rising to
549 maximum $10,000 for &amp;gt;1,000,000 HH&lt;/li&gt;
550
551 &lt;li&gt;Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
552 – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License&lt;/li&gt;
553 &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
554 &lt;/ul&gt;
555
556 &lt;p&gt;Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
557 categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that &quot;Internet
558 Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is the category for things that do not fall into
559 one of the other three categories? Can you point me to a good source
560 explaining what is ment by &quot;title-by-title&quot; and &quot;Free Television&quot; in
561 the license terms for AVC/H.264?&lt;/p&gt;
562
563 &lt;p&gt;Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
564 &quot;video on demand&quot; fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
565 subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
566 get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the &quot;Internet
567 Broadcast AVC Video&quot;, ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
568 Portfolio license? Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
569 access to personalized services?&lt;/p&gt;
570
571 &lt;p&gt;Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
572 Internet.&lt;/p&gt;
573 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
574
575 &lt;p&gt;The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
576 with the MPEG LA:&lt;/p&gt;
577
578 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
579 &lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA. We
580 appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.&lt;/p&gt;
581
582 &lt;p&gt;As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
583 which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
584 the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10). Specifically, coverage is
585 provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
586 technology. Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
587 video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
588 paying the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;
589
590 &lt;p&gt;Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
591 defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
592 the Internet free-of-charge. Therefore, if a party offers a service
593 which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
594 AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
595 receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
596 Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
597 License. This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
598 free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
599 AVC Video content. In other words, as long as the End User is given
600 access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
601 no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.&lt;/p&gt;
602
603 &lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
604 specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
605 video would constitute Subscription AVC Video. In cases where AVC
606 Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
607 content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video. If a party offers
608 Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
609 be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.&lt;/p&gt;
610
611 &lt;p&gt;Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
612 through an &quot;over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission&quot;, then
613 such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
614 subject to the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;
615
616 &lt;p&gt;For your reference, I have attached
617 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf&quot;&gt;a
618 .pdf copy of the AVC License&lt;/a&gt;. You will find the relevant
619 sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
620 2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
621 You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
622 Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
623 Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License. Please note that the
624 electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
625 be used for execution.&lt;/p&gt;
626
627 &lt;p&gt;I hope the above information is helpful. If you have additional
628 questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
629 free to contact me directly.&lt;/p&gt;
630 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
631
632 &lt;p&gt;Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
633 that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
634 me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
635 But I still had a few questions:&lt;/p&gt;
636
637 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
638 &lt;p&gt;I have a small followup question. Would it be possible for me to get
639 a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid? The
640 reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
641 clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA. The clauses
642 typically look similar to this:
643
644 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
645 This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
646 the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
647 video in compliance with the AVC standard (&quot;AVC video&quot;) and/or (b)
648 decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
649 personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
650 obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
651 license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
652 information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
653 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
654
655 &lt;p&gt;It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
656 an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
657 there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA. I suspect it will
658 differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway. What is
659 MPEG LAs view on this?&lt;/p&gt;
660 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
661
662 &lt;p&gt;According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
663 non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:&lt;/p&gt;
664
665 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
666
667 &lt;p&gt;With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
668 clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
669 reads:&lt;/p&gt;
670
671 &lt;p&gt;THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
672 THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
673 RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
674 STANDARD (&quot;AVC VIDEO&quot;) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
675 BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
676 A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
677 OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
678 OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM&lt;/p&gt;
679
680 &lt;p&gt;The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
681 personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
682 with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
683 product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
684 licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
685 deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
686 Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party&#39;s AVC
687 Product as their own branded AVC Product).&lt;/p&gt;
688
689 &lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
690 Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
691 Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
692 conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
693 payable under the License. On the other hand, if that party (either a
694 Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
695 own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
696 above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
697 Products by the licensed supplier.&lt;/p&gt;
698
699 &lt;p&gt;Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
700 countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
701 Norway.&lt;/p&gt;
702
703 &lt;p&gt;I hope this clarification is helpful. If I may be of any further
704 assistance, just let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
705 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
706
707 &lt;p&gt;The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
708 asked for more information:&lt;/p&gt;
709
710 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
711
712 &lt;p&gt;But one minor question at the end. If I understand you correctly,
713 you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
714 Portfolio that are valid in Norway. This make me believe I read the
715 list available from &amp;lt;URL:
716 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&lt;/a&gt;
717 &amp;gt; incorrectly, as I believed the &quot;NO&quot; prefix in front of patents
718 were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
719 Electric Corporation expired in 2012. Which patents are you referring
720 to that are relevant for Norway?&lt;/p&gt;
721
722 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
723
724 &lt;p&gt;Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
725 in that list:&lt;/p&gt;
726
727 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
728
729 &lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
730 Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012. Therefore, where AVC
731 Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
732 royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
733 With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
734 Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
735 the last Norwegian AVC patent expired. I would also like to clarify
736 that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
737 country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;
738
739 &lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
740 a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
741 Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
742 coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
743 initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
744 Patents (for example, Norway). Similarly, a party would need to
745 conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
746 country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
747 such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
748 Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;
749 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
750
751 &lt;p&gt;As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
752 Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
753 license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
754 anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
755 Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
756 content. I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
757 none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid. Will the
758 copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
759 the patents are not valid in Norway?&lt;/p&gt;
760 </description>
761 </item>
762
763 </channel>
764 </rss>