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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
                <description></description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
                <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        
        <item>
                <title>The life and death of a laptop battery</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
more hard facts when the battery started to fail.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png&quot;/&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
by someone else.  I found
&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats&quot;&gt;battery-stats&lt;/a&gt;,
which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
from him.  Via
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html&quot;&gt;a
blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air&lt;/a&gt; I also
discovered
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git&quot;&gt;batlog&lt;/a&gt;, not
available in Debian.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
battery stats ever since. Now my
/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capasity.  My
colletor shell script is quite simple and look like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
#!/bin/sh
# Inspired by
# http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
# See also
# http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log

files=&quot;manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
    energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status&quot;

if [ ! -e &quot;$logfile&quot; ] ; then
    (
        printf &quot;timestamp,&quot;
        for f in $files; do
            printf &quot;%s,&quot; $f
        done
        echo
    ) &gt; &quot;$logfile&quot;
fi

log_battery() {
    # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
    # when several log processes run in parallell.
    msg=$(printf &quot;%s,&quot; $(date +%s); \
        for f in $files; do \
            printf &quot;%s,&quot; $(cat $f); \
        done)
    echo &quot;$msg&quot;
}

cd /sys/class/power_supply

for bat in BAT*; do
    (cd $bat &amp;&amp; log_battery &gt;&gt; &quot;$logfile&quot;)
done
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The script is called when the power management system detect a
change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
The code for the Debian package
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status&quot;&gt;is now
available on github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The collected log file look like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
[...]
1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of mylaptop
battery.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
&lt;a href=&quot;http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries&quot;&gt;Battery
University&lt;/a&gt;, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
I&#39;ve been told that the Tesla electric cars
&lt;a href=&quot;http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit&quot;&gt;limit
the charge of their batteries to 80%&lt;/a&gt;, with the option to charge to
100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
Linux too.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
preparation for a longer trip?  I found
&lt;a href=&quot;http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity&quot;&gt;one
recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
80%&lt;/a&gt;, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
load).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
at the start.  I also wonder why the &quot;full capacity&quot; increases some
times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
those.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Book cover for the Free Culture book finally done</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 3 Sep 2015 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Creating a good looking book cover proved harder than I expected.
I wanted to create a cover looking similar to the original cover of
the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Free
Culture&lt;/a&gt; book we are translating to Norwegian, and I wanted it in
vector format for high resolution printing.  But my inkscape knowledge
were not nearly good enough to pull that off.

&lt;p&gt;But thanks to the great inkscape community, I was able to wrap up
the cover yesterday evening.  I asked on the
&lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/%23inkscape&quot;&gt;#inkscape IRC channel&lt;/a&gt;
on Freenode for help and clues, and Marc Jeanmougin (Mc-) volunteered
to try to recreate it based on the PDF of the cover from the HTML
version.  Not only did he create a
&lt;a href=&quot;https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/copy1.svg &quot;&gt;SVG document with
the original and his vector version side by side&lt;/a&gt;, he even provided
an &lt;a href=&quot;https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/out-1.ogv&quot;&gt;instruction
video&lt;/a&gt; explaining how he did it&lt;/a&gt;.  But the instruction video is
not easy to follow for an untrained inkscape user. The video is a
recording on how he did it, and he is obviously very experienced as
the menu selections are very quick and he mentioned on IRC that he did
use some keyboard shortcuts that can&#39;t be seen on the video, but it
give a good idea about the inkscape operations to use to create the
stripes with the embossed copyright sign in the center.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I took his SVG file, copied the vector image and re-sized it to fit
on the cover I was drawing.  I am happy with the end result, and the
current english version look like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-03-free-culture-cover.png&quot; width=&quot;70%&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;/&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure about the text on the back, but guess it will
do.  I picked three quotes from the official site for the book, and
hope it will work to trigger the interest of potential readers.  The
Norwegian cover will look the same, but with the texts and bar code
replaced with the Norwegian version.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The book is very close to being ready for publication, and I expect
to upload the final draft to Lulu in the next few days and order a
final proof reading copy to verify that everything look like it should
before allowing everyone to order their own copy of Free Culture, in
English or Norwegian Bokmål.  I&#39;m waiting to give the the productive
proof readers a chance to complete their work.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>In my hand, a pocket book edition of the Norwegian Free Culture book!</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Today, finally, my first printed draft edition of the Norwegian
translation of Free Culture I have been working on for the last few
years arrived in the mail.  I had to fake a cover to get the interior
printed, and the exterior of the book look awful, but that is
irrelevant at this point.  I asked for a printed pocket book version
to get an idea about the font sizes and paper format as well as how
good the figures and images look in print, but also to test what the
pocket book version would look like.  After receiving the 500 page
pocket book, it became obvious to me that that pocket book size is too
small for this book.  I believe the book is too thick, and several
tables and figures do not look good in the size they get with that
small page sizes.  I believe I will go with the 5.5x8.5 inch size
instead.  A surprise discovery from the paper version was how bad the
URLs look in print.  They are very hard to read in the colophon page.
The URLs are red in the PDF, but light gray on paper.  I need to
change the color of links somehow to look better.  But there is a
printed book in my hand, and it feels great. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now I only need to fix the cover, wrap up the postscript with the
store behind the book, and collect the last corrections from the proof
readers before the book is ready for proper printing.  Cover artists
willing to work for free and create a Creative Commons licensed vector
file looking similar to the original is most welcome, as my skills as
a graphics designer are mostly missing.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>First paper version of the Norwegian Free Culture book heading my way</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 9 Aug 2015 10:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped.  As the translation is
mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docbook.org/&quot;&gt;docbook&lt;/a&gt; based version of the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture&lt;/a&gt; book by Lawrence
Lessig.  I&#39;ve been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
helpful in solving my formatting challenges.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/&quot;&gt;Lulu.com&lt;/a&gt; complain after uploading,
and I ordered a text version of the book on paper.  It is lacking a
proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.createspace.com/&quot;&gt;CreateSpace&lt;/a&gt;, but ended up
using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
to lack pocket book with extended distribution).  I looked for a
similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far.  Please
let me know if I am missing out on something here.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I still struggle to decide the book size.  Should I go for
pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
(5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages?  Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
smaller book is easier to carry around.  The test book I ordered was
pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
bring the prize down further.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art.  My
inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
cover in SVG format.  I also need to figure out what to write about
the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
description on web based book stores).  I would love help with this,
if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
the same CC license as the book.  My artistic skills are not really up
to the task.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format.  The current
status can as usual be found on
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt;
in the archive/ directory.  So far I have spent all time on making the
PDF version look good.  Someone should probably do the same with the
dbtoepub generated e-book.  Help is definitely needed here, as I
expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
formatting.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
discover translations that should be improved.  The final proof
reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
result in a few months.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Typesetting DocBook footnotes as endnotes with dblatex</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2015 18:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m still working on the Norwegian version of the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture book by Lawrence
Lessig&lt;/a&gt;, and is now working on the final typesetting and layout.
One of the features I want to get the structure similar to the
original book is to typeset the footnotes as endnotes in the notes
chapter.  Based on the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/685063&quot;&gt;feedback from the Debian
maintainer and the dblatex developer&lt;/a&gt;, I came up with this recipe I
would like to share with you.  The proposal was to create a new LaTeX
class file and add the LaTeX code there, but this is not always
practical, when I want to be able to replace the class using a make
file variable.  So my proposal misuses the latex.begindocument XSL
parameter value, to get a small fragment into the correct location in
the generated LaTeX File.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First, decide where in the DocBook document to place the endnotes,
and add this text there:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
&amp;lt;?latex \theendnotes ?&amp;gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Next, create a xsl stylesheet file dblatex-endnotes.xsl to add the
code needed to add the endnote instructions in the preamble of the
generated LaTeX document, with content like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
&amp;lt;?xml version=&#39;1.0&#39;?&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform&quot; version=&#39;1.0&#39;&amp;gt;
  &amp;lt;xsl:param name=&quot;latex.begindocument&quot;&amp;gt;
    &amp;lt;xsl:text&amp;gt;
\usepackage{endnotes}
\let\footnote=\endnote
\def\enoteheading{\mbox{}\par\vskip-\baselineskip }
\begin{document}
    &amp;lt;/xsl:text&amp;gt;
  &amp;lt;/xsl:param&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;/xsl:stylesheet&amp;gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, load this xsl file when running dblatex, for example like
this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
dblatex --xsl-user=dblatex-endnotes.xsl freeculture.nb.xml
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The end result can be seen on github, where
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;my
book project&lt;/a&gt; is located.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Mimes brønn, norsk utgave av Alaveteli / WhatDoTheyKnow, endelig lansert</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mimes_br_nn__norsk_utgave_av_Alaveteli___WhatDoTheyKnow__endelig_lansert.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mimes_br_nn__norsk_utgave_av_Alaveteli___WhatDoTheyKnow__endelig_lansert.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Jul 2015 11:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I går fikk vi endelig lansert en norsk version av mySocietys
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/&quot;&gt;WhatDoTheyKnow&lt;/a&gt;.
Tjenesten heter Mimes brønn, og ble
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/news/NUUG_lanserer_innsynstjenesten_Mimes_Br_nn.shtml&quot;&gt;annonsert
av NUUG&lt;/a&gt; via blogg, epost og twitter til NUUG-assosierte personer.
Det har tatt noen år, men de siste dagene fikk vi endelig tid til å få
på plass de siste bitene.  Vi er to, Gorm og meg selv, som har vært
primus motor for det hele, men vi har fått hjelp med oversettelser og
oppsett fra mange flere.  Jeg vil si tusen takk til hver og en av dem,
og er veldig fornøyd med at vi klarte å få tjenesten opp å kjøre før
ferietiden slo inn for fullt.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vi er usikker på hvor mye belastning den virtuelle maskinen der
tjenesten kjører klarer, så vi har lansert litt i det stille og ikke
til for mange folk for å se hvordan maskinen klarer seg over sommeren,
før vi går mer aktivt ut og annonserer til høsten.  Ta en titt, og se
om du kanskje har et spørsmål til det offentlige som er egnet å sende
inn via Mimes brønn.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis du lurer på hva i alle dager en slik tjenestes kan brukes til,
anbefaler jeg deg å se
&lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625321&quot;&gt;TED-foredraget til
Heather Brook&lt;/a&gt; om hvordan hun brukte WhatDoTheyKnow til å lære
hvordan offentlige midler ble misbrukt.  Det er en inspirerende
historie.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>MPEG LA on &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot; licensing and non-private use</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 7 Jul 2015 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html&quot;&gt;why
they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
the MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt;, I was wiser, but still confused.  So I asked MPEG LA
if their understanding matched that of NRK.  As far as I can tell, it
does not.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started by asking for more information about the various
licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:

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

&lt;p&gt;According to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf&quot;&gt;a
MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02&lt;/a&gt;, there is no charge when
using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
Video&quot;.  I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is, and wondered if you could help me.  What
exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
PDF named
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf&quot;&gt;AVC
Patent Portfolio License Briefing&lt;/a&gt;, which states this about the
fees:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Where End User pays for AVC Video
  &lt;ul&gt;
   &lt;li&gt;Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
     subscribers/yr = no royalty; &amp;gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
     $25,000; &amp;gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &amp;gt;500,000 to
     1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &amp;gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000&lt;/li&gt;

   &lt;li&gt;Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &amp;gt;12 minutes in
     length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;

 &lt;li&gt;Where remuneration is from other sources
  &lt;ul&gt;
   &lt;li&gt;Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
     (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &amp;gt; 100,000 HH rising to
     maximum $10,000 for &amp;gt;1,000,000 HH&lt;/li&gt;

   &lt;li&gt;Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
     – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is the category for things that do not fall into
one of the other three categories?  Can you point me to a good source
explaining what is ment by &quot;title-by-title&quot; and &quot;Free Television&quot; in
the license terms for AVC/H.264?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
&quot;video on demand&quot; fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot;, ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
Portfolio license?  Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
access to personalized services?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
Internet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
with the MPEG LA:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA.  We
appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10).  Specifically, coverage is
provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
technology.  Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
paying the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
the Internet free-of-charge.  Therefore, if a party offers a service
which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
License.  This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
AVC Video content.  In other words, as long as the End User is given
access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
video would constitute Subscription AVC Video.  In cases where AVC
Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video.  If a party offers
Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
through an &quot;over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission&quot;, then
such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
subject to the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For your reference, I have attached
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf&quot;&gt;a
.pdf copy of the AVC License&lt;/a&gt;. You will find the relevant
sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License.  Please note that the
electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
be used for execution.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope the above information is helpful.  If you have additional
questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
free to contact me directly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
But I still had a few questions:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have a small followup question.  Would it be possible for me to get
a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid?  The
reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA.  The clauses
typically look similar to this:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
  This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
  the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
  video in compliance with the AVC standard (&quot;AVC video&quot;) and/or (b)
  decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
  personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
  obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
  license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
  information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA.  I suspect it will
differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway.  What is
MPEG LAs view on this?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
reads:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
STANDARD (&quot;AVC VIDEO&quot;) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party&#39;s AVC
Product as their own branded AVC Product).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
payable under the License.  On the other hand, if that party (either a
Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
Products by the licensed supplier.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
Norway.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope this clarification is helpful.  If I may be of any further
assistance, just let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
asked for more information:&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;But one minor question at the end.  If I understand you correctly,
you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
Portfolio that are valid in Norway.  This make me believe I read the
list available from &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;gt; incorrectly, as I believed the &quot;NO&quot; prefix in front of patents
were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
Electric Corporation expired in 2012.  Which patents are you referring
to that are relevant for Norway?&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
in that list:&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012.  Therefore, where AVC
Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
the last Norwegian AVC patent expired.  I would also like to clarify
that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
Patents (for example, Norway).  Similarly, a party would need to
conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
content.  I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid.  Will the
copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
the patents are not valid in Norway?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 5 Jul 2015 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.francecrans.com/&quot;&gt;FrancEcrans&lt;/a&gt;, but it
might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One tip I got was to use the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb&quot;&gt;Skinflint&lt;/a&gt; web service to
compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.

&lt;p&gt;When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
(which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
Debian Sid/Unstable according to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.corsac.net/X250/&quot;&gt;Corsac.net&lt;/a&gt;.  The reports I
got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
replace it.  I&#39;m also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I&#39;m
also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
&lt;a href=&quot;http://pro-star.com&quot;&gt;Pro-Star&lt;/a&gt;, another was
&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/&quot;&gt;Libreboot&lt;/a&gt;.
The latter look very attractive to me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
as I keep looking for a replacement.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
&lt;a href=&quot;&quot;&gt;lapstore.de&lt;/a&gt; web shop for used laptops.  They got several
different
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/&quot;&gt;old
thinkpad X models&lt;/a&gt;, and provide one year warranty.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 3 Jul 2015 07:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
flickering.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
still as
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html&quot;&gt;I
described them in 2013&lt;/a&gt;.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
good help from
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353&quot;&gt;prisjakt.no&lt;/a&gt;
where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
deteriorated since X41.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
have suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom&quot;&gt;list
of endorsed hardware&lt;/a&gt;, which is useful background information.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 2 Jul 2015 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt; with recording the talks at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.makercon.no/&quot;&gt;MakerCon Nordic&lt;/a&gt;, a conference for
the Maker movement.  Since then it has been the plan to publish the
recordings on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, which
finally happened the last few days.  A few talks are missing because
the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
talks are available.  The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
from the Frikanalen web site.  The unedited recordings are
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/&quot;&gt;available on
Youtube too&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is the list of talks available at the moment.  Visit the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon&quot;&gt;Frikanalen video
pages&lt;/a&gt; to view them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
      to robotics (Kyrre Glette)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making a one year school course for young makers
      (Olav Helland)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
      Inspiration (Hege Langlo)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
      Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
      Sevens)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
      (Jennifer Turliuk)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
      Connected Exploration (David Lang)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
      Dyvik)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
argument changes).  In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
which sent me on a detour to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html&quot;&gt;package
bs1770gain for Debian&lt;/a&gt;.  Now this is in place and it became a lot
easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
</rss>