[homepage.git] / blog / tags / video / video.rss

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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged video</title>
                <description>Entries tagged video</description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>

        
        <item>
                <title>Software video mixer on a USB stick</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;Norwegian Unix User Group&lt;/a&gt; is
recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/&quot;&gt;dvswitch&lt;/a&gt; package from
the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
source, sink and mixer applications and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kinodv.org/&quot;&gt;dvgrab&lt;/a&gt;.  To allow this setup to
work without any configuration, I&#39;ve patched dvswitch to use
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avahi.org/&quot;&gt;avahi&lt;/a&gt; to connect the various parts
together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goopen.no/&quot;&gt;Go Open 2009&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz&quot;&gt;The
USB image&lt;/a&gt; is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
larger stick as well.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>When web browser developers make a video player...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;As part of the work we do in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt;
to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
will become easier when the &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag is implemented in all
browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;object&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;embed&amp;gt; tag and
the &amp;lt;applet&amp;gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
finding the best options is a major challenge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from &lt;a
href=&quot;http://labs.opera.com&quot;&gt;labs.opera.com&lt;/a&gt;, to see how it handled
a &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
discover that I have to add the controls=&quot;true&quot; attribute to be able
to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
autoplay=&quot;true&quot; did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
playing when the download is done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/&quot;&gt;available
from the nuug site&lt;/a&gt;.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
too.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Første vellykkede videostrøm fra NUUG</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/F__rste_vellykkede_videostr__m_fra_NUUG.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/F__rste_vellykkede_videostr__m_fra_NUUG.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Jeg ble glad for å se under
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090210-compiz/&quot;&gt;gårdagens
medlemsmøte&lt;/a&gt; i NUUG Oslo at utsending av live-video fra møtet
fungerte for første gang.  Forrige gang ble det ved en teknisk tabbe
sendt video uten lyd.  Vi kan takke Ole Kristian Lien og resten av
videogruppen i NUUG for at nå NUUG-medlemmer over det ganske land 
kunne se foredraget samtidig med oss i Oslo.  Vi opplevde til og med
under møtet å motta spørsmål via IRC som ble besvart der og da.
Opptaket publiseres så snart det er kopiert over til NUUGs
webserver og komprimert.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Lisensvalg for NUUG-opptakene endelig på plass</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lisensvalg_for_NUUG_opptakene_endelig_p___plass.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lisensvalg_for_NUUG_opptakene_endelig_p___plass.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 6 Mar 2009 21:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Etter mange års meditasjon over temaet, har NUUG endelig klart å
bestemme seg for hvilken lisens vi skal bruke på videoopptakene som
gjøres av NUUGs videogruppe.  Ole Kristian har annonsert at lisensen
blir &lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/&quot;&gt;Creative
Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge&lt;/a&gt;.  Jeg er veldig
glad for at denne saken endelig er landet.  Lisensen for opptaket til
Stallman-foredraget ble en annen pga. at lisensvalget ikke var avklart
på forhånd og IFI og PING ønsket CC-BY-ND, og må ses på som et unntak
i denne sammenhengen.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Frikanalen og jul i studentrådet</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen_og_jul_i_studentr__det.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen_og_jul_i_studentr__det.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;I går
&lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.nuug.no/pipermail/interesserte/2009-March/000387.html&quot;&gt;lanserte&lt;/a&gt;
NUUGs videogruppe
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt; med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/frontpage.cgi&quot;&gt;åpne
standarder&lt;/a&gt;, og resultatet av noen intense uker med arbeide kunne
endelig presenteres.  Jeg har tro på åpen kanalkonseptet som
Frikanalen er et eksempel på, der borgerne får anledning til å
kringkaste sitt syn på en åpen og demokratisk måte.  Jeg er veldig
glad vi har fått gjort kanalen tilgjengelig i Ogg Theora, slik at alle
kan få tilgang til opptakene på web, og slipper å måtte installere MS
Silverlight for å spille av opptakene.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Frikanalen har en brokete historie, og dagens inkarnasjon er ikke
helt slik foreningen Åpen kanal planla det for mange år siden, noe som
er bakgrunnen for at det fredag 13. mars 2009 kl 09:00 starter en
rettsak i Oslo tingrett der Kringkasterforeningen (tidligere
foreningen Åpen kanal) har saksøkt kulturdepartementet over
konsesjonsvilkårene til Frikanalen.  Jeg er spent på resultatet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I arbeidet med Frikanalen med åpne standarder, så har vi hatt glede
av å se en rekke av innslagene som er tilgjengelig.  Her er mye
religiøst sludder, fra
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=720&quot;&gt;vandring
i jerusalem&lt;/a&gt; via
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=779&quot;&gt;religiøst
vinklede nyheter&lt;/a&gt; til
&lt;a
href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=2077&quot;&gt;kreasjonisk
retorikk&lt;/a&gt;, men også fine
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=407&quot;&gt;dokumentarer
om redningsselskapet&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=2204&quot;&gt;interessante
tegneserieanmeldelser&lt;/a&gt;.  Det jeg derimot har hatt størst glede av,
er

&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=1556&quot;&gt;jul
i studentrådet&lt;/a&gt;, der hver episode var en fest å se på.  Jeg håper
NUUG lykkes med å få ut sine opptak med like stor suksess.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Recording video from cron using VLC</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 5 Apr 2009 10:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
  --sout=&quot;#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url=&#39;$SAVEFILE&#39;},dst=nodisplay}&quot; \
  --intf=dummy&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
duplicating the output stream to &quot;nodisplay&quot; and the file, using the
dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
sure no X interface is needed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
&lt;tt&gt;vlc-record&lt;/tt&gt; to use from &lt;tt&gt;at&lt;/tt&gt; or &lt;tt&gt;cron&lt;/tt&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;#!/bin/sh
set -e
URL=&quot;$1&quot;
SAVEFILE=&quot;$2&quot;
DURATION=&quot;$3&quot;
DISPLAY= vlc -q &quot;$URL&quot; \
  --sout=&quot;#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url=&#39;$SAVEFILE&#39;},dst=nodisplay}&quot; \
  --intf=dummy &lt; /dev/null &gt; /dev/null 2&gt;&amp;1 &amp;
pid=$!
sleep $DURATION
kill $pid
wait $pid&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Microsofts misvisende argumentasjon rundt multimediaformater</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/Hoeringer/Refkat_V2/MicrosoftNorge.pdf&quot;&gt;Microsoft
sin høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt; til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html?id=549422&quot;&gt;forslag
til versjon 2 av statens referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, lirer
de av seg følgende FUD-perle:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&quot;Vorbis, OGG, Theora og FLAC er alle tekniske
  spesifikasjoner overordnet styrt av xiph.org, som er en
  ikke-kommersiell organisasjon.  Etablerte og anerkjente
  standardiseringsorganisasjoner, som Oasis, W3C og Ecma, har en godt
  innarbeidet vedlikeholds- og forvaltningsprosess av en standard.
  Det er derimot helt opp til hver enkelt organisasjon å bestemme
  hvordan tekniske spesifikasjoner videreutvikles og endres, og disse
  spesifikasjonene bør derfor ikke defineres som åpne
  standarder.&quot;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;De vokter seg vel for å nevne den anerkjente
standardiseringsorganisasjonen IETF, som er organisasjonen bak HTTP,
IP og det meste av protokoller på Internet, og RFC-standardene som
IETF står bak.  Ogg er spesifisert i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3533.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 3533&lt;/a&gt;, og er uten
tvil å anse som en åpen standard.  Vorbis er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc5215.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 5215&lt;/a&gt;.  Theora er

under standardisering via IETF, med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://svn.xiph.org/trunk/theora/doc/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-theora-00.txt&quot;&gt;siste
utkast publisert 2006-07-21&lt;/a&gt; (riktignok er dermed teksten ikke
skrevet i stein ennå, men det blir neppe endringer som ikke er
bakoverkompatibel).  De kan være inne på noe når det gjelder FLAC da
jeg ikke finner tegn til at &lt;a
href=&quot;http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html&quot;&gt;spesifikasjonen
tilgjengelig på web&lt;/a&gt; er på tur via noen
standardiseringsorganisasjon, men i og med at folkene bak Ogg, Theora
og Vorbis også har involvert seg i Flac siden 2003, så ser jeg ikke
bort fra at også den organiseres via IETF.  Jeg kjenner personlig lite
til FLAC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Uredelig argumentasjon bør en holde seg for god til å komme med,
spesielt når det er så enkelt i dagens Internet-hverdag å gå
misvisende påstander etter i sømmene.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Regjerningen forlater prinsippet om ingen royalty-betaling i standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Jeg ble glad da regjeringen
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/817635/her-er-statens-nye-it-standarder&quot;&gt;annonserte&lt;/a&gt;
versjon 2 av
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Referansekatalogen_versjon2.pdf&quot;&gt;statens
referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, men trist da jeg leste hva som
faktisk var vedtatt etter
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html&quot;&gt;høringen&lt;/a&gt;.
De fleste av de valgte åpne standardene er gode og vil bidra til at
alle kan delta på like vilkår i å lage løsninger for staten, men
noen av dem blokkerer for de som ikke har anledning til å benytte
spesifikasjoner som krever betaling for bruk (såkalt
royalty-betaling).  Det gjelder spesifikt for H.264 for video og MP3
for lyd.  Så lenge bruk av disse var valgfritt mens Ogg Theora og Ogg
Vorbis var påkrevd, kunne alle som ønsket å spille av video og lyd
fra statens websider gjøre dette uten å måtte bruke programmer der
betaling for bruk var nødvendig.  Når det nå er gjort valgfritt for
de statlige etatene å bruke enten H.264 eller Theora (og MP3 eler
Vorbis), så vil en bli tvunget til å forholde seg til
royalty-belastede standarder for å få tilgang til videoen og
lyden.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det gjør meg veldig trist at regjeringen har forlatt prinsippet om
at alle standarder som ble valgt til å være påkrevd i katalogen skulle
være uten royalty-betaling.  Jeg håper det ikke betyr at en har mistet
all forståelse for hvilke prinsipper som må følges for å oppnå
likeverdig konkurranse mellom aktørene i IT-bransjen.  NUUG advarte
mot dette i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2&quot;&gt;sin
høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt;, men ser ut til å ha blitt ignorert.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Regjerningens oppsummering av høringen om standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h__ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h__ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;For å forstå mer om hvorfor standardkatalogens versjon 2 ble som
den ble, har jeg bedt om kopi fra FAD av dokumentene som ble lagt frem
for regjeringen da de tok sin avgjørelse.  De er nå lagt ut på NUUGs
wiki, direkte tilgjengelig via &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalogen
v2.0 - Oppsummering av høring&lt;/a&gt;&quot; og &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon-katalogutkast.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalog
for IT-standarder i offentlig sektor Versjon 2.0, dd.mm.åååå -
UTKAST&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er tre ting jeg merker meg i oppsummeringen fra
høringsuttalelsen da jeg skummet igjennom den.  Det første er at
forståelsen av hvordan programvarepatenter påvirker fri
programvareutvikling også i Norge når en argumenterer med at
royalty-betaling ikke er et relevant problem i Norge.  Det andre er at
FAD ikke har en prinsipiell forståelse av verdien av en enkelt
standard innenfor hvert område.  Det siste er at påstander i
høringsuttalelsene ikke blir etterprøvd (f.eks. påstanden fra
Microsoft om hvordan Ogg blir standardisert og påstanden fra
politidirektoratet om patentproblemer i Theora).&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Første NUUG-fordrag sendt på TV</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/F__rste_NUUG_fordrag_sendt_p___TV.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/F__rste_NUUG_fordrag_sendt_p___TV.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 8 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Endelig har NUUG klart å få kringkastet ut et av sine fordrag på
TV.  Foredraget om
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090512-bifrost/&quot;&gt;utskriftsløsningen
Biforst&lt;/a&gt; var først ute, pga. at det var det nyeste foredraget som
var holdt på norsk, og dermed slapp vi å finne ut av hvordan
teksting av video skulle gjøres.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NUUG har vært involvert i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt; en stund nå, for å
forsøke å få ut budskapet vårt også på TV, og dette første foredraget
er en sped start på det vi har planlagt.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NUUGs første foredrag sendes ut via frikanelen på digitalt
bakkenett, og alle abonnenter av riks-TV skal dermed ha mulighet til å
ta inn sendingen.  Slå på TVen 5/12 16:05 (for sent), 12/12 14:00,
19/12 16:00, 24/12 15:37 eller 26/12 16:11 i år, så skal du få se
meg, Tollef og alle andre de som deltok på møtet på TV.&lt;p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
installed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
(«&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Sep 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
without asking for permissions that is at risk.

&lt;p&gt;On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
written:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under AT&amp;T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
AT&amp;T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
standard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
(MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
read
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA&quot;&gt;Why
Our Civilization&#39;s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;H.264 Is Not
The Sort Of Free That Matters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Simon Phipps to learn more about
the issue.  The solution is to support the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;free and
open standards&lt;/a&gt; for video, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theora.org/&quot;&gt;Ogg
Theora&lt;/a&gt;, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>TED talks på norsk og NUUG-foredrag - frivillige trengs til teksting</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TED_talks_p___norsk_og_NUUG_foredrag___frivillige_trengs_til_teksting.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TED_talks_p___norsk_og_NUUG_foredrag___frivillige_trengs_til_teksting.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 1 Oct 2010 11:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Frikanalen og NUUG jobber for å få &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com&quot;&gt;TED
talks&lt;/a&gt; kringkastet på
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, for å gi et mer
variert innhold på kanalen som i dag sendes på RiksTV, Lyse og
Uninett.  Før innslagene kan sendes må det lages norske undertekster,
og dette her trengs det frivillige.  Det er hundrevis av innslag, men
mine favoritter er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com/talks/james_randi.html&quot;&gt;James Randi&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html&quot;&gt;Michael
Specter&lt;/a&gt;.  Hvis du har litt tid til overs, bli med på å oversette
TED-foredragene til norsk og få på plass undertekster.  TED har
allerede opplegg på plass for å håndtere oversettelser og
undertekster.  Registrer deg på
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ted.com/translate/forted&quot;&gt;sidene til TED&lt;/a&gt; i
dag!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NUUG holder også på å få alle opptakene fra NUUG-presentasjonene
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/frontpage.cgi?organization=NUUG&quot;&gt;publisert
på Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;.  Foredrag på engelsk må også her tekstes og
oversettes.  Ta kontakt med video@nuug.no hvis du vil bidra med
teksting og oversetting.  Arbeidet koordineres på epostlisten og på
IRC (#nuug-video på irc.oftc.org), og &lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/video/frikanalen&quot;&gt;en wikiside&lt;/a&gt;
brukes som notatblokk for arbeidet.  Mest lovende verktøy for dette
ser i dag ut til å være
&lt;a href=&quot;http://universalsubtitles.org/&quot;&gt;Universal Subtitles&lt;/a&gt;, som
lar en bidra med teksting via en nettleser.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.getgnash.org/&quot;&gt;The Gnash project&lt;/a&gt; is the
most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
AVM2 flash files.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2&quot;&gt;a pledge&lt;/a&gt; with the
following text:&lt;/P&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
  only if 10 other people will do the same.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
  format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
  web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
  format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
  days. The project web page is available from
  http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
  of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
  the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
  time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
  to get this to happen.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32&quot;&gt;http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
:)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Best å ikke fortelle noen at streaming er nedlasting...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best____ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best____ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;I dag la jeg inn en kommentar på en sak hos NRKBeta
&lt;a href=&quot;http://nrkbeta.no/2010/10/27/bakom-blindpassasjer-del-1/&quot;&gt;om
hvordan TV-serien Blindpassasjer ble laget&lt;/a&gt; i forbindelse med at
filmene NRK la ut ikke var tilgjengelig i et
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;fritt og
åpent format&lt;/a&gt;.  Dette var det jeg skrev publiserte der 07:39.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Vi fikk en kommentar rundt måten streamet innhold er beskyttet fra
nedlasting.  Mange av oss som kan mer enn gjennomsnittet om systemer
som dette, vet at det stort sett er mulig å lure ut ting med den
nødvendige forkunnskapen.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Haha.  Å streame innhold er det samme som å laste ned innhold, så å
beskytte en stream mot nedlasting er ikke mulig.  Å skrive noe slikt
er å forlede leseren.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med den bakgrunn blir forklaringen om at noen rettighetshavere kun
vil tillate streaming men ikke nedlasting meningsløs.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anbefaler forresten å lese
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm&quot;&gt;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;
om hva som ville være konsekvensen hvis digitale avspillingssperrer
(DRM) fungerte.  Det gjør de naturligvis ikke teknisk - det er jo
derfor de må ha totalitære juridiske beskyttelsesmekanismer på plass,
men det er skremmende hva samfunnet tillater og NRK er med på å bygge
opp under.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ca. 20 minutter senere får jeg følgende epost fra Anders Hofseth i
NRKBeta:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From: Anders Hofseth &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: &quot;pere@hungry.com&quot; &amp;lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Eirik Solheim &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;, Jon Ståle Carlsen &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;, Henrik Lied &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar: &quot;Bakom Blindpassasjer: del 1&quot;
&lt;br&gt;Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 07:58:44 +0200&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hei Petter.
&lt;br&gt;Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon,
men om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt
om å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er
fjernet og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med hilsen,
&lt;br&gt;-anders&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ring meg om noe er uklart: 95XXXXXXX&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ble så fascinert over denne holdningen, at jeg forfattet og sendte
over følgende svar.  I og med at debatten er fjernet fra NRK Betas
kommentarfelt, så velger jeg å publisere her på bloggen min i stedet.
Har fjernet epostadresser og telefonnummer til de involverte, for å
unngå at de tiltrekker seg uønskede direkte kontaktforsøk.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Anders Hofseth &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Eirik Solheim &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;,
&lt;br&gt;        Jon Ståle Carlsen &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;,
&lt;br&gt;        Henrik Lied &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar: &quot;Bakom Blindpassasjer: del 1&quot;
&lt;br&gt;Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:24:34 +0200&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;[Anders Hofseth]
&lt;br&gt;&gt; Hei Petter.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hei.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon, men
&lt;br&gt;&gt; om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt om
&lt;br&gt;&gt; å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
&lt;br&gt;&gt; særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Godt å se at du er enig i at dette er en interessant diskusjon.  Den
vil nok fortsette en stund til.  :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Må innrømme at jeg synes det er merkelig å lese at dere i NRK med
vitende og vilje ønsker å forlede rettighetshaverne for å kunne
fortsette å legge ut arkivmateriale.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kommentarer og diskusjoner i bloggene til NRK Beta påvirker jo ikke
faktum, som er at streaming er det samme som nedlasting, og at innhold
som er lagt ut på nett kan lagres lokalt for avspilling når en ønsker
det.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det du sier er jo at klarering av arkivmateriale for publisering på
web krever at en holder faktum skjult fra debattfeltet på NRKBeta.
Det er ikke et argument som holder vann. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er fjernet
&lt;br&gt;&gt; og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
&lt;br&gt;&gt; konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Personlig ønsker jeg at NRK skal slutte å stikke hodet i sanden og
heller være åpne på hvordan virkeligheten fungerer, samt ta opp kampen
mot de som vil låse kulturen inne.  Jeg synes det er en skam at NRK
godtar å forlede publikum.  Ville heller at NRK krever at innhold som
skal sendes skal være uten bruksbegresninger og kan publiseres i
formater som heller ikke har bruksbegresninger (bruksbegresningene til
H.264 burde få varselbjellene i NRK til å ringe).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At NRK er med på DRM-tåkeleggingen og at det kommer feilaktive
påstander om at &quot;streaming beskytter mot nedlasting&quot; som bare er egnet
til å bygge opp om en myte som er skadelig for samfunnet som helhet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anbefaler &amp;lt;URL:&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&lt;/a&gt;&gt; og en
titt på
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html&lt;/a&gt; &gt;.
for å se hva slags bruksbegresninger H.264 innebærer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis dette innebærer at NRK må være åpne med at arkivmaterialet ikke
kan brukes før rettighetshaverene også innser at de er med på å skade
samfunnets kultur og kollektive hukommelse, så får en i hvert fall
synliggjort konsekvensene og antagelig mer flammer på en debatt som er
langt på overtid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Ring meg om noe er uklart: XXX&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Intet uklart, men ikke imponert over måten dere håndterer debatten på.
Hadde du i stedet kommet med et tilsvar i kommentarfeltet der en
gjorde det klart at blindpassasjer-blogpostingen ikke var riktig sted
for videre diskusjon hadde dere i mine øyne kommet fra det med
ryggraden på plass.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;PS: Interessant å se at NRK-ansatte ikke bruker NRK-epostadresser.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Som en liten avslutning, her er noen litt morsomme innslag om temaet.
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft&quot;&gt;http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft&lt;/a&gt; &gt; og
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://patentabsurdity.com/&quot;&gt;http://patentabsurdity.com/&lt;/a&gt; &gt; hadde vært noe å kringkaste på
NRK1. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vennlig hilsen,
&lt;br&gt;--
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Why isn&#39;t Debian Edu using VLC?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
mplayer in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;last
tested the browser plugins&lt;/a&gt; available in Debian, the VLC plugin
failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.&lt;/P&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 25 Dec 2010 20:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;The
Digistan definition&lt;/a&gt; of a free and open standard reads like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
as follows:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;

&lt;li&gt;A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
open decision-making procedure available to all interested
parties.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;The standard has been published and the standard specification
document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
distribute, and use it freely.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
products based on the standard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
&lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html&quot;&gt;in
July 2009&lt;/a&gt;, for those that want to see some background information.
According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Free from vendor capture?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiph.org/&quot;&gt;Xiph foundation&lt;/A&gt; is such vendor, but
given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I&#39;ve
been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
specification.  But it seem unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
controlled by a single vendor, it isn&#39;t, but I have not found any
documentation indicating this.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;According to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf&quot;&gt;a report&lt;/a&gt;
prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
report is correct.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Specification freely available?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The specification for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/&quot;&gt;Ogg
container format&lt;/a&gt; and both the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/&quot;&gt;Vorbis&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://theora.org/doc/&quot;&gt;Theora&lt;/a&gt; codeces are available on
the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:

&lt;blockquote&gt;

Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
specification compliance.

&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 3533&lt;/a&gt;, and
this is the term:&lt;p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
translate it into languages other than English.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
requirement for the Digistan definition.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Royalty-free?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
Theora format.
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782&quot;&gt;MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;
and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit&quot;&gt;Steve
Jobs&lt;/a&gt; in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
than any real problem with Ogg Theora.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No constraints on re-use?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
this.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
see if they are free and open standards.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &amp;lt;video&amp;gt;</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html</link>        
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>
&lt;p&gt;Today I discovered
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome&quot;&gt;via
digi.no&lt;/a&gt; that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html&quot;&gt;yesterday
announced&lt;/a&gt; plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; in
the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a &quot;completely
open&quot; codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/&quot;&gt;H.264 – Not The Kind Of
Free That Matters&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.  It is not free of cost for creators of video
tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
on the Google announcement is available from
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome&quot;&gt;OSnews&lt;/a&gt;.
A good read. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
browsers support H.264, and others support
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theora.org/&quot;&gt;Ogg Theora&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webmproject.org/&quot;&gt;WebM&lt;/a&gt;
(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.diracvideo.org/&quot;&gt;Dirac&lt;/a&gt; is not really an option
yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
Wikipedia keep &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video&quot;&gt;an
updated summary&lt;/a&gt; of the current browser support.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
promoting H.264, and John Gruber
&lt;a href=&quot;http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions&quot;&gt;presents
the mind set&lt;/a&gt; of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM&quot;&gt;presenting
the issues with H.264&lt;/a&gt;. Both are worth a read.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn&#39;t free,
they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm&quot;&gt;todays
blog post&lt;/a&gt;, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
browser while still allowing plugins.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
present the argument if the change make sense from a business
perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
I guess time will tell.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
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