blog/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Holder_de_ord_og_NUUG_lanserer_testtjeneste_med_stortingsinformasjon.html">Holder de ord og NUUG lanserer testtjeneste med stortingsinformasjon</a></div>
  24       <div class="date">22nd April 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>I
  26 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_har_mine_representanter_stemt_i_Storinget_.html">januar
  27 i fjor</a> startet vi i NUUG arbeid med å gjøre informasjon om hvem
  28 som har stemt hva på <a href="http://www.stortinget.no/">Stortinget</a>
  29 enklere tilgjengelig.  I løpet av få måneder fant vi sammen med
  30 organisasjonen <a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>
  31 som arbeidet mot et lignende mål.</p>
  32
  33 <p>Siden den gang har vi fått tak i maskinelt lesbart informasjon om
  34 hvem som stemte hva mellom 1990 og våren 2010, og tilgang til
  35 stortingets nye datatjeneste som har informasjon fra høsten 2011 til i
  36 dag.  Det gjenstår litt arbeid med det første datasettet, men
  37 datasettet fra høsten 2011 er klart til bruk.  Begge datasettene er
  38 tilgjengelig <a href="https://gitorious.org/nuug/folketingparser">via
  39 git</a>.</p>
  40
  41 <p>På
  42 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/holder-de-ord-datadrevet-oppfolging-av-politiske-lofter/">Go Open</a> i morgen lanserer
  43 NUUG sammen med Holder de ord <a href="http://beta.holderdeord.no/">en
  44 test-tjeneste</a> som viser hva som er og blir behandlet på Stortinget og
  45 hvem som har stemt hva siden oktober i fjor.  Du får herved mulighet
  46 til å ta en sniktitt.</p>
  47 </div>
  48       <div class="tags">
  49
  50
  51         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>.
  52
  53
  54       </div>
  55     </div>
  56     <div class="padding"></div>
  57
  58     <div class="entry">
  59       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a></div>
  60       <div class="date">19th April 2012</div>
  61       <div class="body"><p>Here in Norway, the
  62 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
  63 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
  64 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
  65 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
  66 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
  67 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
  68 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
  69 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
  70 on the same level.</p>
  71
  72 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
  73 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
  74 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
  75 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
  76 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
  77 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
  78 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
  79 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
  80 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
  81 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
  82 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
  83 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
  84 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
  85 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
  86 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
  87 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
  88 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
  89 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
  90
  91 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
  92 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
  93 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
  94 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
  95 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
  96 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
  97 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
  98 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
  99
 100 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
 101 from Simon Phipps
 102 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
 103 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
 104
 105 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
 106 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
 107 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
 108 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
 109 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
 110 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
 111 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
 112 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
 113 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
 114 </div>
 115       <div class="tags">
 116
 117
 118         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 119
 120
 121       </div>
 122     </div>
 123     <div class="padding"></div>
 124
 125     <div class="entry">
 126       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forskning___GPL_gir_lokal_frihet_og_kontroll_gjennom_omfordeling_av_makt_fra_produsent_til_bruker_.html">Forskning: "GPL gir lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling av makt fra produsent til bruker"</a></div>
 127       <div class="date">15th April 2012</div>
 128       <div class="body"><p>Da jeg googlet etter noe annet kom jeg tilfeldigvis over
 129 <a href="http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=58309">en
 130 hovedfagsoppgave</a> ved Universitetet i Oslo som diskuterer verdien
 131 av GPLs fire friheter for brukerne av IT-systemer.  Jeg ble fascinert
 132 over det som presenteres der.  Her er sammendraget:</p>
 133
 134 <p><blockquote>
 135
 136 <p>Motivasjonen til å skrive denne oppgaven er en personlig undring
 137 over hvorfor det primært, og ofte eksklusivt, fokuseres på det
 138 økonomiske aspektet ved utredninger om fri programvare er et godt valg
 139 for det offentlige. Fri og produsenteid programvare bygger på
 140 fundamentalt forskjellige ideologier som kan ha implikasjoner utover
 141 økonomiske kostnader. Kunnskapskulturen som er med på å definere fri
 142 programvare er basert på åpenhet, og er en verdi i seg selv.</p>
 143
 144 <p>Oppgavens tema er programvarelisensen GPL og frihet. GPL-lisensiert
 145 programvare gir visse friheter i forhold til produsenteid
 146 programvare. Mitt spørsmål er om, og eventuelt i hvilken utstrekning,
 147 disse frihetene blir benyttet av ulike brukere og hvordan de
 148 manifesterer seg for disse brukerne. Sentrale spørsmål i oppgaven
 149 er:</p>
 150
 151 <ul>
 152 <li>Hvordan fordeles handlekraft gjennom lisensieringen av programvaren?</li>
 153 <li>Hvilke konsekvenser har programvarelisensen for de ulike brukere? </li>
 154 </ul>
 155
 156 <p>Fri programvare gir blant annet brukeren mulighet til å studere og
 157 modifisere kildekoden. Denne formen for frihet erverves gjennom
 158 kunnskap og krever at brukeren også er en ekspert. Hva skjer med
 159 frihetene til GPL når sluttbrukeren er en annen? Dette diskuteres i
 160 dialog med informantene.</p>
 161
 162 <p>Jeg har i denne oppgaven samlet inn intervjudata fra IKT-ansvarlige
 163 ved grunnskolene i Nittedal kommune, driftsansvarlig og IKT-veilederen
 164 for skolene i kommunen, samt IKT-koordinator for utdanning i Akershus
 165 fylkeskommune og bokmåloversettere av OpenOffice.org. Den empiriske
 166 delen av oppgaven er delt inn i to seksjoner; den første omhandler
 167 operativsystemet Skolelinux, den andre kontorprogrampakken
 168 OpenOffice.org.</p>
 169
 170 <p>Som vi vil se gir GPL lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling
 171 av makt fra produsent til bruker. Brukerens makt analyseres gjennom
 172 begrepene brukermedvirkning og handlingsfrihet. Det blir også lagt
 173 vekt på strukturelle forhold rundt bruken av teknologi, og spesielt de
 174 økonomiske begrepene nettverkseksternaliteter, innlåsing og
 175 stiavhengighet. Dette er begreper av spesiell nytte når objektet som
 176 omsettes eller distribueres er et kommunikasjonsprodukt, fordi verdien
 177 til et slikt gode for en potensiell bruker avhenger av antall
 178 eksisterende brukere av godet. I tilknytning til denne problematikken
 179 inneholder oppgaven også en diskusjon rundt åpne standarder og
 180 formater.</p>
 181
 182 <p>Oppgaven konkluderer med at de «fire frihetene» som GPL-lisensen er
 183 laget for å beskytte er av avgjørende betydning for bruken av
 184 OpenOffice.org og Skolelinux, i Akershus fylkeskommune såvel som i
 185 skolene i Nittedal. Distribusjonen av handlekraft er ikke helt
 186 symmetrisk. Det er først og fremst de profesjonelle utviklerne i
 187 Skolelinux som direkte kan nyttiggjøre seg friheten til å endre kode,
 188 mens en sluttbruker som Nittedal kommune nyttiggjør seg den økonomiske
 189 friheten til å kunne distribuere programmene. Det er imidlertid også
 190 slik at ingen aktør klarer seg uten alle disse «frihetene».</p>
 191 </blockquote></p>
 192
 193 <p>Jeg fant også en masteroppgave fra 2006, men der ligger ikke
 194 komplett oppgave tilgjengelig.  På tide å holde et øye med
 195 <a href="http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/search.html?q=skolelinux">Skolelinux-søket</a>
 196 til DUO...</p>
 197
 198 </div>
 199       <div class="tags">
 200
 201
 202         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 203
 204
 205       </div>
 206     </div>
 207     <div class="padding"></div>
 208
 209     <div class="entry">
 210       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a></div>
 211       <div class="date">15th April 2012</div>
 212       <div class="body"><p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
 213 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
 214 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
 215 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
 216 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
 217 up in the recently released
 218 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
 219 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
 220
 221 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 222
 223 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
 224 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
 225 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
 226 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
 227 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
 228 information technology and science/technology.</p>
 229
 230 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 231 project?</strong></p>
 232
 233 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
 234 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
 235 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
 236 contributing.</p>
 237
 238 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 239 Edu?</strong></p>
 240
 241 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
 242 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
 243 Debian Project!</p>
 244
 245 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 246 Edu?</strong></p>
 247
 248 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
 249 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
 250 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
 251 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
 252 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
 253 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
 254 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
 255
 256 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
 257 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
 258
 259 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 260
 261 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
 262 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
 263 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
 264 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
 265
 266 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 267 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 268
 269 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
 270 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
 271 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
 272 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
 273 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
 274 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
 275 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
 276
 277 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
 278 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
 279 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
 280 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
 281 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
 282 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
 283 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
 284 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
 285 </div>
 286       <div class="tags">
 287
 288
 289         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 290
 291
 292       </div>
 293     </div>
 294     <div class="padding"></div>
 295
 296     <div class="entry">
 297       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jeg_skal_p__konferansen_Go_Open_2012.html">Jeg skal på konferansen Go Open 2012</a></div>
 298       <div class="date">13th April 2012</div>
 299       <div class="body"><p>Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go
 300 Open 2012</a> i Oslo 23. april.
 301 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Medlemsforeningen NUUG</a> deler ut
 302 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/prisen/">prisen for fremme av fri
 303 programvare i Norge</a> der i år.  Kommer du?</p>
 304 </div>
 305       <div class="tags">
 306
 307
 308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 309
 310
 311       </div>
 312     </div>
 313     <div class="padding"></div>
 314
 315     <div class="entry">
 316       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a></div>
 317       <div class="date"> 8th April 2012</div>
 318       <div class="body"><p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
 319 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
 320 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
 321 contributor to the
 322 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
 323 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
 324
 325 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 326
 327 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
 328 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
 329
 330 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 331 project?</strong></p>
 332
 333 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
 334 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
 335 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
 336 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
 337 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
 338 "localisation".</p>
 339
 340 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 341 Edu?</strong></p>
 342
 343 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 344 Edu?</strong></p>
 345
 346 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
 347 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
 348 education system.</p>
 349
 350 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
 351 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
 352 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
 353 money on the latest hardware.</p>
 354
 355 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 356
 357 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
 358 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
 359 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
 360
 361 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 362 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 363
 364 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
 365 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
 366 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
 367 </div>
 368       <div class="tags">
 369
 370
 371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 372
 373
 374       </div>
 375     </div>
 376     <div class="padding"></div>
 377
 378     <div class="entry">
 379       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html">Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround</a></div>
 380       <div class="date"> 6th April 2012</div>
 381       <div class="body"><p>Recently I have spent time with
 382 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
 383 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
 384 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
 385 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
 386 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
 387 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
 388 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
 389 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
 390
 391 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
 392 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
 393 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
 394 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
 395 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
 396 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
 397 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
 398 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
 399
 400 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
 401 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
 402 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
 403 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
 404 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
 405 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
 406 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
 407 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
 408
 409 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
 410 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
 411 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
 412 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
 413 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
 414 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
 415 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
 416 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
 417 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
 418 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
 419
 420 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
 421 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
 422 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
 423 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
 424
 425 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
 426 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
 427 </div>
 428       <div class="tags">
 429
 430
 431         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 432
 433
 434       </div>
 435     </div>
 436     <div class="padding"></div>
 437
 438     <div class="entry">
 439       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a></div>
 440       <div class="date"> 5th April 2012</div>
 441       <div class="body"><p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
 442 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
 443 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
 444 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
 445 for schools.  Check out his article
 446 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
 447 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
 448 </div>
 449       <div class="tags">
 450
 451
 452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 453
 454
 455       </div>
 456     </div>
 457     <div class="padding"></div>
 458
 459     <div class="entry">
 460       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a></div>
 461       <div class="date"> 1st April 2012</div>
 462       <div class="body"><p>Germany is a core area for the
 463 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 464 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
 465 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
 466
 467 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 468
 469 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
 470 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
 471 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
 472 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
 473 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
 474 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
 475 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
 476 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
 477
 478 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
 479 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
 480 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
 481 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
 482 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
 483 the end of April this year.</p>
 484
 485 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 486 project?</strong></p>
 487
 488 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
 489 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
 490 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
 491 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
 492 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
 493 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
 494 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
 495 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
 496 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
 497 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
 498 Skolelinux.</p>
 499
 500 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
 501 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
 502 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
 503 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
 504 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
 505 the admin teachers.</p>
 506
 507 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 508 Edu?</strong></p>
 509
 510 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
 511 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
 512 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
 513
 514 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
 515 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
 516 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
 517 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
 518 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
 519
 520 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 521 Edu?</strong></p>
 522
 523 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
 524
 525 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 526
 527 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
 528 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
 529 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
 530 LibreOffice.</p>
 531
 532 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 533 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 534
 535 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
 536 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
 537 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
 538 </div>
 539       <div class="tags">
 540
 541
 542         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 543
 544
 545       </div>
 546     </div>
 547     <div class="padding"></div>
 548
 549     <div class="entry">
 550       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/56_kommuner_omfavner_FiksGataMi.html">56 kommuner omfavner FiksGataMi</a></div>
 551       <div class="date">30th March 2012</div>
 552       <div class="body"><p>I dag omfavnet nok en kommune NUUGs
 553 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>.  Med 56 kommuner
 554 som lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine hjemmesider er "markedsandelen"
 555 oppe i 13% (av 429 kommuner).  Sist ut er Sel kommune, som slår følge
 556 med kommunene Askim, Askøy, Audnedal, Aure, Bærum, Eide, Farsund,
 557 Flekkefjord, Folldal, Gran, Grue, Hadsel, Halden, Halsa, Hamar, Hobøl,
 558 Holtålen, Hægebostad, Høyanger, Kongsberg, Kristiansund, Kvinesdal,
 559 Kviteseid, Levanger, Lindesnes, Luster, Lyngdal, Lørenskog, Løten,
 560 Mandal, Marnardal, Moss, Namsos, Nissedal, Nordreisa, Randaberg,
 561 Rindal, Sirdal, Skiptvet, Sortland, Spydeberg, Stjørdal, Stord, Søgne,
 562 Sør-Odal, Tolga, Trysil, Tynset, Tysvær, Ullensvang Herad, Vennesla,
 563 Verdal, Vågan, Vågå og Åseral.</p>
 564
 565 <p>I snitt rapporteres det nå 150 meldinger fra innbyggerne i uka via
 566 FiksGataMi.</p>
 567 </div>
 568       <div class="tags">
 569
 570
 571         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 572
 573
 574       </div>
 575     </div>
 576     <div class="padding"></div>
 577
 578     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
 579     <div id="sidebar">
 580
 581
 582
 583 <h2>Archive</h2>
 584 <ul>
 585
 586 <li>2012
 587 <ul>
 588
 589 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 590
 591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 592
 593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 594
 595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (9)</a></li>
 596
 597 </ul></li>
 598
 599 <li>2011
 600 <ul>
 601
 602 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 603
 604 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 605
 606 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 607
 608 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 609
 610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 611
 612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 613
 614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 615
 616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 617
 618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 619
 620 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 621
 622 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 623
 624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 625
 626 </ul></li>
 627
 628 <li>2010
 629 <ul>
 630
 631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 632
 633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 634
 635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 636
 637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 638
 639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 640
 641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 642
 643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 644
 645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 646
 647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 648
 649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 650
 651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 652
 653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 654
 655 </ul></li>
 656
 657 <li>2009
 658 <ul>
 659
 660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 661
 662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 663
 664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 665
 666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 667
 668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 669
 670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 671
 672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 673
 674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 675
 676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 677
 678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 679
 680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 681
 682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 683
 684 </ul></li>
 685
 686 <li>2008
 687 <ul>
 688
 689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 690
 691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 692
 693 </ul></li>
 694
 695 </ul>
 696
 697
 698
 699 <h2>Tags</h2>
 700 <ul>
 701
 702  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 703
 704  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 705
 706  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 707
 708  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
 709
 710  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
 711
 712  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 713
 714  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (54)</a></li>
 715
 716  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (99)</a></li>
 717
 718  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (7)</a></li>
 719
 720  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (123)</a></li>
 721
 722  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (15)</a></li>
 723
 724  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 725
 726  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (23)</a></li>
 727
 728  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (15)</a></li>
 729
 730  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 731
 732  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
 733
 734  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 735
 736  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (15)</a></li>
 737
 738  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (159)</a></li>
 739
 740  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (123)</a></li>
 741
 742  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 743
 744  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (24)</a></li>
 745
 746  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (46)</a></li>
 747
 748  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 749
 750  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 751
 752  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 753
 754  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
 755
 756  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 757
 758  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 759
 760  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
 761
 762  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 763
 764  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (25)</a></li>
 765
 766  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 767
 768  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (4)</a></li>
 769
 770  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (9)</a></li>
 771
 772  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (6)</a></li>
 773
 774  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (24)</a></li>
 775
 776  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 777
 778  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (18)</a></li>
 779
 780 </ul>
 781
 782
 783     </div>
 784     <p style="text-align: right">
 785  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
 786 </p>
 787
 788   </body>
 789 </html>