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   5   <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
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  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/Hvordan_kringkaster_T_banen_i_Oslo_sine_overv__kningskamerasignaler_.html">Hvordan kringkaster T-banen i Oslo sine overvåkningskamerasignaler?</a></div>
  24   <div class="date">2011-01-05 18:30</div>
  25   <div class="body">
  26 <p>Jeg er den fornøyde eier av en håndholdt trådløs kamerascanner,
  27 dvs. en radioscanner som automatisk scanner frekvensområdet 900 - 2500
  28 MHz og snapper opp radiokilder med PAL eller NTCS TV-signal og viser
  29 signalet frem på en liten skjerm.  Veldig morsom å ha med seg for å se
  30 hva som finnes av trådløse overvåkningskamera.  En får se bildet som
  31 kameraet tar opp. :)</p>
  32
  33 <p>Men en kilde har den ikke klart å snappe opp: Sporveiens
  34 overvåkningskamera på T-banestasjonene.  Bildet sendes åpenbart
  35 trådløst til T-baneføreren, men min scanner har ikke klart å ta inn
  36 signalet.  For å forsøke å finne ut av dette tok jeg i dag en nærmere
  37 titt på en av boksene som sto på Forskningsparken T-banestasjon for å
  38 se hva det er som sendes ut.</p>
  39
  40 <p>Boksen hadde følgende tekst:</p>
  41
  42 <blockquote><pre>
  43 SupraLink
  44 Outdoor Transmitter 5.8 GHz
  45
  46 default channel [ ]
  47   identity code [ ]
  48
  49 VTQ Videotronik
  50 06268 Querfurt
  51 <a href="http://www.vtq.de/">www.vtq.de</a>
  52 Made in Germany
  53
  54 AC 230V   [strekkode]
  55 max 10W   84230936
  56 </pre></blockquote>
  57
  58 <p>Det var hyggelig av produsenten å legge inn lenke til nettsiden
  59 sin.  Der hadde de mye stilig elektronikk.  Og forklaringen på hvorfor
  60 min scanner ikke tar inn signalet er åpenbar ut fra merkelappen.  5.8
  61 GHz er langt over min scanners grense på 2.5 GHz.  Trenger visst en
  62 kraftigere scanner. :)</p>
  63 </div>
  64   <div class="tags">
  65
  66
  67
  68    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
  69
  70   </div>
  71  </div>
  72  <div class="padding"></div>
  73
  74  <div class="entry">
  75   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Inspirerende_fra_en_ukjent_Skolelinux_skole.html">Inspirerende fra en ukjent Skolelinux-skole</a></div>
  76   <div class="date">2011-01-04 07:50</div>
  77   <div class="body">
  78 <p>Følgende inspirerende historie fant jeg i
  79 <a href="http://www.digi.no/php/ny_debatt.php?id=858869#innlegg_770926">kommentarfeltet
  80 hos digi.no</a> i forbindelse med en trist sak om hvordan
  81 <a href="http://www.digi.no/858869/datakaos-etter-linux-satsing">skolen
  82 i Hemsedal har fått ødelagt</a> sin Skolelinux-installasjon.  Jeg har
  83 fikset endel åpenbare skrivefeil for lesbarhetens skyld.</p>
  84
  85 <blockquote>
  86 <p><strong>Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
  87 <br>av Inspektør Siri (gjest)
  88
  89 <p>Kommunen min har to omtrent jevnstore tettsteder, og en
  90 ungdomsskole i hvert av tettstedene. Den minste av disse har ca 300
  91 elever og til denne sogner det 3 barneskoler. Den største har ca 350
  92 elever og til denne sogner det 4 barneskoler.</p>
  93
  94 <ul>
  95
  96 <li>Kommunen har i veldig lang tid forsømt IKT i skolen, og det har
  97 bare blitt gitt smuler i ny og ne. Det er kun den største av
  98 ungdomsskolene som har hatt en skikkelig datapark, og dette takket
  99 være en naturfaglærer som ble lei av å vente på kommunen. Det gjorde
 100 at vi bestemte oss for å ta ting i egne hender, og da vha
 101 skolelinux. En testinstallasjon med 10 gamle PCer ble gjort, og vi så
 102 raskt at dette var veldig lovende. Neste etappe var å gi alle lærere
 103 egen PC på arbeidsplassene sine (2004), og så sette opp 16 PCer på to
 104 datarom. Vi har kun basert oss på å kjøpe inn brukte maskiner, og
 105 aldri dyrere enn 1000 kr pr klient. For to år siden så hadde vi
 106 klienter i alle klasserom, og totalt hadde vi da rundt 250 stk. Rundt
 107 40 klienter brukes av lærerne og kjører på en egen server. Elvene har
 108 resten, og kjører også en egen server. Servere har vi også kjøpt
 109 brukt, 2 år gamle servere koster 6-7000 kroner.</li>
 110
 111 <li>Skolen vår er et relativt gammelt bygg, men en meget dyktig
 112 vaktmester har sammen med IKT-ansvarlig/Naturfaglærer lagt kabler til alle
 113 rom. Gradvis har vi byttet ut billige svitsjer med mer solide saker
 114 som er mulig å fjernstyre.</li>
 115
 116 <li>Vi har i all hovedsak greid å få dette til over eget budsjett, men
 117 vi har også passet på å få penger når de andre skolene har fått
 118 bærbare PCer til lærere osv.</li>
 119
 120 <li>Vår IKT-ansvarlig har gjort (og gjør) en fenomenal jobb, og vi har
 121 en maskinpark som de andre av kommunens skoler bare kan drømme
 122 om.</li>
 123
 124 </ul>
 125
 126 <p>Så skjer det som ofte skjer. Det kommer en eller annen
 127 selger/blåruss og skal fikse ALT. I vårt tilfelle betyr dette også
 128 sentralisering av drift. Den ny-ansatte på kommunens IT-avdelingen
 129 skal også ha jobb, og ser for seg å ta over skoledriften. Kommunen
 130 kjøper inn eksterne driftstjenester, og nekter i samme slengen å ta
 131 hensyn til skolen vår. Dette til tross for at vi alene har like mange
 132 datamaskiner som de andre til sammen. </p>
 133
 134 <ul>
 135
 136 <li>Det blir krevd at vi skal innlemmes i de kommunale systemet, og
 137 det er VI som får ansvar for at dette kommer på plass. Og det er her
 138 de horrible tingene begynner å skje. </li>
 139
 140 <li>Det settes opp en lukket Exchange server som gjør av vi ikke kan
 141 hente epost for våre ansatte. Og det kreves at vi finner løsning på
 142 dette.</li>
 143
 144 <li>Det velges sak arkivsystem som vi pålegges å bruke, noe som gjør
 145 at vi må bruke en terminalløsning mot kommunal server. Ikke i seg selv
 146 et problem i følge IKT-ansvarlig hos oss. Men kommunens IT-avd nektet
 147 faktisk å åpne de porter OSV som vi måtte bruke.</li>
 148
 149 <li>Vi blir pålagt å flytte på innsiden av det kommunale
 150 nettverket. Dette gjorde at vi mistet hjemmekontor for lærere og
 151 elever. Å få åpnet porter i kommunal brannmur var ikke
 152 aktuelt. Mulighet for fjerndrift ble også vekk i samme slengen. </li>
 153
 154 <li>Vår LMS Moodle er ikke mulig å nå for elevene og lærerne.
 155
 156 </ul>
 157
 158 <p>Den andre ungdomsskolen i kommunen begynner så å kreve at de skal
 159 få bedre datatetthet, og komme opp på et nivå som ligner det vi
 160 har. De ser at vi kan avholde eksamen hvor alle 10. klassingene får
 161 sitte ved hver sin PC. Og de har fått tilbakemelding (klager) fra VGS
 162 om manglende datakompetanse på elevene som kommer fra dem. Dette fører
 163 videre til at kommunen endelig innser at de må ta grep. </p>
 164
 165 <p>Grepet betyr sentralisering, og farvel til vår plattform får vi
 166 høre. Det blir gjort en rekke bestemmelser og vedtak som vi ikke får
 167 være en del av. Det blir helt klart at vi må redusere antall maskiner,
 168 og det skal satses på bærbare maskiner. Siden vi ikke har fått tatt
 169 del i prosessene som angår oss, så bruker vi fagforening. Vi har ikke
 170 blitt hørt i forbindelse med endringer som er betydelig for vår
 171 hverdag, og greier å stoppe omlegging. I tillegg så har vi et politisk
 172 vedtak i kommunen på at vi skal kjøre Linux på elevnett, og dette
 173 vedtaket kan ikke administrasjonen i kommunene helt uten videre
 174 tilsidesette. </p>
 175
 176 <p>I sum har dette gjort at vi har fått jobbe videre i fred. Og en del
 177 runder i kommunens kontrollutvalg har gjort det tydelig at vi har blitt
 178 systematisk motarbeidet. </p>
 179
 180 <p>I dag har de andre skolene fått sine bærbare maskiner til elever og
 181 lærere, men etter 2 år med innkjøring er det fremdeles problemer
 182 her. </p>
 183
 184 <ul>
 185
 186 <li>Ungdomsskolen med windows kan ikke kjøre eksamen med sine bærbare,
 187 det er for mye arbeid å renske disse for innhold slik at juks ikke er
 188 mulig.</li>
 189
 190 <li>Utskrift er et mareritt, etter sigende pga at utskrift først
 191 sendes til sentral server, og så sendes ut til rett skriver. I snitt
 192 så tar det 7-8 minutter før utskrift starter på enkelte av
 193 skolene.</li>
 194
 195 <li>Trådløst skaper store problemer, og det er i perioder helt umulig
 196 å komme seg på nett. Og lagring på felles server er bare å glemme i
 197 perioder.</li>
 198
 199 </ul>
 200
 201 <p>Vi har slitt mye, kranglet og sloss. Ikke med tekniske problemer,
 202 men med omgivelsene rundt som vil oss til livs. Men det har vært verdt
 203 hver dråpe med svette, og timer med irritasjon. Men vi har begynt å få
 204 rutine her nå. </p>
 205
 206 <ul>
 207
 208 <li>Vi har fremdeles et system som vi styrer helt selv. </li>
 209 <li>Vi har vist at argumentet med at vår IKT-ansvarlig kan finne seg annen jobb ikke holder mål. Vi har kjøpt driftskonto hos et firma i tilfelle krise, og vi har kjørt opplæring på flere av de yngre lærerne. </li>
 210 <li>Vi har til enhver tid en lærling IKT driftsfag, og velger selvsagt ut dem som satser på Linux. Vi har nå begynt å få tilbake av våre tidligere elever som vil til oss nettopp fordi vi har Linux.</li>
 211 <li>Vi har vist at vi greier å opprettholde en dobbelt så stor datapark som naboskolen, og det til en billigere penge. </li>
 212 <li>Vi har datastøtte og support på huset, ALLTID tilgjengelig. De andre skolene må vente flere dager hvis det ikke er noe kritisk. </li>
 213 <li>Vår IKT-ansvarlig har 50% stilling som lærer og 50% som IKT-ansvarlig. </li>
 214 <li>Vi har en lærer på hvert trinn som har 3 timer i uka til å drive support/støtte til de andre lærerne. </li>
 215 <li>Vi opplever at de yngste lærerne ved den andre ungdomsskolen ønsker seg over til oss. </li>
 216
 217 </ul>
 218
 219 <p>Vi skal i løpet av året starte prosess med å planlegge ny skole, og vi har fått gjennomslag for at jeg (inspektør) og IKT-ansvarlig skal ha det fulle og hele ansvar for IKT/Infrastruktur. Begrunnelsen vår som ble avgjørende her, var at IT-avd i kommunen ikke kan noe om data i skolen. </p>
 220
 221 <p>Beklager hvis dette ble litt usammenhengende, men det ble tastet i
 222 fei, og jeg har ikke lest gjennom</p>
 223 </blockquote>
 224
 225 <p>Det kom raskt et lite svar:</p>
 226
 227 <blockquote>
 228 <p><strong>SV: Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
 229 <br>av captain_obvious</p>
 230
 231 <p>Inspirerende å lese. Har dere gjort noe for å fortelle denne
 232 historien videre?</p>
 233
 234 <p>Hadde vært svært interessant om dere tok kontakt med dokument 2 eller
 235 lignende for å fortelle hvordan det egentlig står til med
 236 IT-satsningen i kommune-Norge. Om ikke annet kan du begynner med å
 237 raffinere innlegget ditt og få en gjesteartikkel på digi.no</p>
 238 </blockquote>
 239
 240 <p>Og deretter en lengre oppfølging.</p>
 241
 242 <blockquote>
 243 <p><strong>SV: Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
 244 <br>av Inspektør Siri (gjest)
 245
 246 <p>Joda, vi har lekt med tanken, og vi har t.o.m skrevet flere lengre
 247 leserinnlegg myntet på aviser. Disse er ikke sendt til aviser, men
 248 brukt internt i forbindelse med møter med kommune. Vår IKT-ansvarlig
 249 har også truet med å si opp jobben sin hvis det ikke ble tatt hensyn i
 250 større grad enn hva som har vært tilfelle. VI kan også dokumentere
 251 flere brudd på anbudsregler, og vi kjenner til at relativt store
 252 IT-leverandører som ikke har fått tatt del i disse anbudene, rett og
 253 slett ikke tør melde fra av redsel for å få et dårlig rykte. </p>
 254
 255 <p>Alt ser ut til å roe seg ned, og vi har fått opp øynene på
 256 politikerne. I sum gjør dette at vi ikke ønsker for mye publisitet nå,
 257 det vil bare rote til igjen. </p>
 258
 259 <p>Jeg glemte å nevne at vi nå nesten ikke bruker tid på å drifte
 260 systemet vårt, noe som gjør at det aller meste av tid blir brukt til å
 261 støtte lærerne og elevene. F.eks så bruker vår IKT-ansvarlig den
 262 første timen på jobb, 0730-0830 kun til å gå ute på arbeidsplassene
 263 til læreren. Dette for å kunne svare på små og store problem, gi tips
 264 og råd, eller bare for å plukke opp hva som er behovet ute i
 265 undervisningsarealene. Det er dessverre ikke slik at alle lærerne har
 266 nok digital kompetanse til å kunne formulere alle spørsmålene de har,
 267 men ved å kunne få vise eller lufte tanker med IKT-ansvarlig så er det
 268 utrolig hva som kommer fram. </p>
 269
 270 <ul>
 271
 272 <li>Jeg ser at mange bruker økonomi som argument i forhold til å bruke
 273 SkoleLinux, og jeg skal ikke legge skjul på at det var dette som i
 274 utgangspunktet var årsaken til vårt valg. Men diskusjonene og kampen
 275 med kommunens IT-avdeling har gjort at vi har fått et noe annet
 276 fokus. Fordelene med drift og stabilitet, gjør at vi ville ha valgt
 277 samme løsning selv om den var dyrere. At vi slipper langt billigere
 278 unna, som følge av 0,- lisenskostnader og lave maskinvarekostnader, er
 279 bare en bonus. </li>
 280
 281 <li>Etter å ha kranglet oss til å få skikkelig oversikt over hva de
 282 andre skolene i kommunen bruker på IT, så har vi fått gehør for å få
 283 samme midler til innkjøp. Dette har gjort at vi nå kan kjøpe inn
 284 utstyr som de andre skolene bare kan se langt etter. Vi har nettopp
 285 kjøpt inn 3 videokamera i semiproff-klassen for å kunne lage film,
 286 samt sende live fra skoleteater/konserter. Vi har kjøpt inn digitale
 287 kompaktkamera til alle klassene. Vi har et team av lærere som skal i
 288 gang med å teste ut tablets på svake elever. Håpet et at teknologien
 289 kan være med på å gi noen av elevene litt mer motivasjon. Vi har kjøpt
 290 inn et halvt klassesett med pulsklokker, noe som har vist seg å være
 291 overraskende inspirerende for en del av elevene. Vi har også oss på
 292 fag på en høyskole litt lengre sør for oss, slik at 3 av oss nå skal
 293 ta faget "Linux tjenestedrift". Som inspektør og en del av skolens
 294 administrasjon er det veldig praktisk å kunne trå til hvis det
 295 kniper. Men IKT-ansvarlig har vært UTROLIG flink til å lage rene
 296 smørbrødlister for hvordan de mest vanlige driftsproblem løses, så det
 297 er lett for flere av oss å ta del i den daglige driften. Vi har svært
 298 stor nytte av lærling (som også hjelper to av naboskolene), men det er
 299 nesten blitt slik at det er om å gjøre å komme til først for å få løse
 300 problem. Det å få fingrene på problem og utfordringer er den aller
 301 beste læremester. </li>
 302
 303 </ul>
 304
 305 <p>Når vi nå tar til med planlegging av ny skole, så vil det være med
 306 tanke på at det skal være mulig med datautstyr på alle plasser. Vi
 307 kommer i all hovedsak til å legge kabel til alle tenkelige og
 308 utenkelige plasser. WiFi koster tilnærmet NULL å sette opp i
 309 ettertid.</p>
 310
 311 <p>Vi har ikke vært noe flink til å bidra til SkoleLinux-prosjektet,
 312 vi har rett og slett vært for opptatt med vår egen kamp. Vi har hentet
 313 mye inspirasjon fra diskusjoner som har gått i det miljøet, og vi
 314 håper at vi nå framover kan få tid til å bidra. Vi er i ferd med å
 315 bytte ut en av serverne våre, og da vil denne trolig bli satt opp som
 316 testserver for neste versjon av Skolelinux. På den måten vil vi i alle
 317 fall kunne gi tilbakemeldinger og rapportere feil. I tillegg så vil
 318 det kanskje gi oss noen nye utfordringer, for som lærlingen vår sier:
 319 "Skolelinux er noe herk, det skjer jo ikke noe galt og hvordan skal
 320 jeg da lære?"</p>
 321
 322 </blockquote>
 323
 324 <p>Det er veldig hyggelig å høre at
 325 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> fungerer så bra i
 326 skoleverdagen etter å ha jobbet med det i 10 år.</p>
 327 </div>
 328   <div class="tags">
 329
 330
 331
 332    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>.
 333
 334   </div>
 335  </div>
 336  <div class="padding"></div>
 337
 338  <div class="entry">
 339   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/St__tte_for_forskjellige_kamera_ikoner_p___overv__kningskamerakartet.html">Støtte for forskjellige kamera-ikoner på overvåkningskamerakartet</a></div>
 340   <div class="date">2011-01-02 11:05</div>
 341   <div class="body">
 342 <p>I dag har jeg justert litt på kartet over overvåkningskamera, og
 343 laget støtte for å gi fotobokser (automatisk trafikk-kontroll) og
 344 andre overvåkningskamera forskjellige symboler på kartet, slik at det
 345 er enklere å se forskjell på kamera som vegvesenet kontrollerer og
 346 andre kamera.  Resultatet er lagt ut på
 347 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/surveillance-norway/">kartet
 348 over overvåkningskamera i Norge</a>.  Det er nå 93 fotobokser av 380
 349 totalt
 350 <a href="http://www.vegvesen.no/Fag/Fokusomrader/Trafikksikkerhet/Automatisk+trafikkontroll+ATK">i
 351 følge vegvesenet</a> og 80 andre kamera på kartet, totalt 173 kamera.
 352 Takk til de 26 stykkene som har bidratt til kamerainformasjonen så
 353 langt.</p>
 354 </div>
 355   <div class="tags">
 356
 357
 358
 359    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 360
 361   </div>
 362  </div>
 363  <div class="padding"></div>
 364
 365  <div class="entry">
 366   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a></div>
 367   <div class="date">2010-12-30 23:15</div>
 368   <div class="body">
 369 <p>After trying to
 370 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
 371 Ogg Theora</a> to
 372 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
 373 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
 374 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
 375 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
 376 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
 377 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
 378 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
 379
 380 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
 381 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
 382 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
 383 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
 384 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
 385 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
 386 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
 387
 388 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
 389 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
 390 </div>
 391   <div class="tags">
 392
 393
 394
 395    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 396
 397   </div>
 398  </div>
 399  <div class="padding"></div>
 400
 401  <div class="entry">
 402   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a></div>
 403   <div class="date">2010-12-27 14:45</div>
 404   <div class="body">
 405 <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
 406 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
 407 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
 408 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
 409 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
 410 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
 411 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
 412 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
 413
 414 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
 415 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
 416 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
 417 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
 418 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
 419 page</a>.</p>
 420
 421 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
 422 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
 423 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
 424 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
 425 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
 426 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
 427 specification on equal terms.</p>
 428
 429 <blockquote>
 430
 431 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
 432 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
 433 open standard:</p>
 434
 435 <ul>
 436
 437 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
 438 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
 439 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
 440 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
 441
 442 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
 443 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
 444 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
 445 nominal fee.</li>
 446
 447 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
 448 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
 449 free basis.</li>
 450
 451 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
 452
 453 </ul>
 454 </blockquote>
 455
 456 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
 457 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
 458 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
 459 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
 460 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
 461 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
 462 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
 463
 464 <blockquote>
 465
 466 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
 467
 468 <ol>
 469
 470 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
 471 tilgængelig.</li>
 472
 473 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
 474 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
 475
 476 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
 477 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
 478
 479 </ol>
 480
 481 </blockquote>
 482
 483 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
 484 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
 485
 486 <blockquote>
 487
 488 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
 489
 490 <ol>
 491
 492 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
 493 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
 494
 495 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
 496 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
 497 Standard themselves;</li>
 498
 499 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
 500 any party or in any business model;</li>
 501
 502 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
 503 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
 504 parties;</li>
 505
 506 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
 507 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
 508 parties.</li>
 509
 510 </ol>
 511
 512 </blockquote>
 513
 514 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
 515 its
 516 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
 517 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
 518
 519 <blockquote>
 520 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
 521
 522 <ul>
 523
 524 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
 525   democratic:
 526
 527          <ul>
 528
 529          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
 530             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
 531             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
 532             and managed.</li>
 533
 534          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
 535             method, can be changed through input from all
 536             participants.</li>
 537
 538          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
 539             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
 540
 541          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
 542             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
 543
 544          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
 545             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
 546             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
 547
 548          </ul>
 549
 550 </li>
 551
 552 </ul>
 553
 554 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
 555 <ul>
 556
 557 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
 558   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
 559   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
 560   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
 561   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
 562
 563 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
 564   a technical or economic barriers</li>
 565
 566 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
 567   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
 568   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
 569   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
 570   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
 571   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
 572   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
 573   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
 574   intended to function.</li>
 575
 576 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
 577   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
 578   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
 579
 580 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
 581   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
 582   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
 583   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
 584   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
 585   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
 586   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
 587   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
 588
 589       <ul>
 590
 591       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
 592         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
 593         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
 594
 595       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
 596         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
 597         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
 598         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
 599
 600       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
 601         licensor</li>
 602
 603       </ul>
 604 </li>
 605
 606 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
 607   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
 608   or restricted licensing terms</li>
 609
 610 </ul>
 611
 612 </blockquote>
 613
 614 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
 615 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
 616 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
 617 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
 618 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
 619 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
 620 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
 621 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
 622 Standards.</p>
 623 </div>
 624   <div class="tags">
 625
 626
 627
 628    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 629
 630   </div>
 631  </div>
 632  <div class="padding"></div>
 633
 634  <div class="entry">
 635   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</a></div>
 636   <div class="date">2010-12-25 20:25</div>
 637   <div class="body">
 638 <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
 639 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
 640
 641 <blockquote>
 642
 643 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
 644 as follows:</p>
 645
 646 <ol>
 647
 648 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
 649 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
 650 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
 651
 652 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
 653 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
 654 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
 655 parties.</li>
 656
 657 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
 658 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
 659 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
 660
 661 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
 662 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
 663
 664 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
 665
 666 </ol>
 667
 668 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
 669 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
 670 products based on the standard.</p>
 671 </blockquote>
 672
 673 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
 674 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
 675 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
 676 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
 677 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
 678 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
 679 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
 680 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
 681
 682 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
 683
 684 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
 685 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
 686 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
 687 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
 688 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
 689 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
 690 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
 691 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
 692 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
 693 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
 694 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
 695 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
 696 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
 697 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
 698
 699 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
 700
 701 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
 702 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
 703 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
 704 documentation indicating this.</p>
 705
 706 <p>According to
 707 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
 708 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
 709 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
 710 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
 711 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
 712 report is correct.</p>
 713
 714 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
 715
 716 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
 717 container format</a> and both the
 718 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
 719 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
 720 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
 721
 722 <blockquote>
 723
 724 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
 725 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
 726 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
 727 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
 728 specification compliance.
 729
 730 </blockquote>
 731
 732 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
 733 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
 734 this is the term:<p>
 735
 736 <blockquote>
 737
 738 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
 739 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
 740 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
 741 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
 742 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
 743 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
 744 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
 745 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
 746 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
 747 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
 748 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
 749 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
 750
 751 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
 752 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
 753 </blockquote>
 754
 755 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
 756 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
 757 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
 758 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
 759 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
 760
 761 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
 762
 763 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
 764 Theora format.
 765 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
 766 and
 767 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
 768 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
 769 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
 770 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
 771 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
 772 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
 773 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
 774 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
 775
 776 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
 777
 778 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
 779
 780 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
 781
 782 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
 783 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
 784 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
 785 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
 786 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
 787 this.</p>
 788
 789 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
 790 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
 791 </div>
 792   <div class="tags">
 793
 794
 795
 796    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
 797
 798   </div>
 799  </div>
 800  <div class="padding"></div>
 801
 802  <div class="entry">
 803   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a></div>
 804   <div class="date">2010-12-25 10:50</div>
 805   <div class="body">
 806 <p>A few days ago
 807 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
 808 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
 809 2.0 of
 810 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
 811 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
 812 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
 813 Nothing very surprising there, given
 814 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
 815 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
 816 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
 817 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
 818 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
 819 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
 820 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
 821 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
 822 standard definition from its content.</p>
 823
 824 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
 825 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
 826 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
 827 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
 828 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
 829 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
 830 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
 831 background information about that story is available in
 832 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
 833 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
 834
 835 <blockquote>
 836 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
 837 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
 838 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
 839
 840 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
 841
 842 <p>First of all, I thank you for your letter of March 25, 2002 in which you state the official position of Microsoft relative to Bill Number 1609, Free Software in Public Administration, which is indubitably inspired by the desire for Peru to find a suitable place in the global technological context. In the same spirit, and convinced that we will find the best solutions through an exchange of clear and open ideas, I will take this opportunity to reply to the commentaries included in your letter.</p>
 843
 844 <p>While acknowledging that opinions such as yours constitute a significant contribution, it would have been even more worthwhile for me if, rather than formulating objections of a general nature (which we will analyze in detail later) you had gathered solid arguments for the advantages that proprietary software could bring to the Peruvian State, and to its citizens in general, since this would have allowed a more enlightening exchange in respect of each of our positions.</p>
 845
 846 <p>With the aim of creating an orderly debate, we will assume that what you call "open source software" is what the Bill defines as "free software", since there exists software for which the source code is distributed together with the program, but which does not fall within the definition established by the Bill; and that what you call "commercial software" is what the Bill defines as "proprietary" or "unfree", given that there exists free software which is sold in the market for a price like any other good or service.</p>
 847
 848 <p>It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that can by made by using free software in state institutions. That is in any case a marginal aggregate value, but in no way is it the chief focus of the Bill. The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law, such as:</p>
 849
 850 <p>
 851 <ul>
 852 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
 853 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
 854 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
 855 </ul>
 856 </p>
 857
 858 <p>To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software.</p>
 859
 860 <p>To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.</p>
 861
 862 <p>To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*. </p>
 863
 864 <p>In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens, both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing *spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.</p>
 865
 866 <p>In this sense, the Bill is limited to establishing the conditions under which the state bodies will obtain software in the future, that is, in a way compatible with these basic principles.</p>
 867
 868
 869 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
 870 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
 871 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
 872 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
 873 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
 874 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
 875
 876 </p>
 877
 878 <p>What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must satisfy a series of requirements regarding the license, without which the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data, watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal functioning.</p>
 879
 880 <p>We agree, Mr. Gonzalez, that information and communication technology have a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizens (whether it be positive or negative). We surely also agree that the basic values I have pointed out above are fundamental in a democratic state like Peru. So we are very interested to know of any other way of guaranteeing these principles, other than through the use of free software in the terms defined by the Bill.</p>
 881
 882 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
 883
 884 <p>Firstly, you point out that: "1. The bill makes it compulsory for all public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution."</p>
 885
 886 <p>This understanding is in error. The Bill in no way affects the rights you list; it limits itself entirely to establishing conditions for the use of software on the part of state institutions, without in any way meddling in private sector transactions. It is a well established principle that the State does not enjoy the wide spectrum of contractual freedom of the private sector, as it is limited in its actions precisely by the requirement for transparency of public acts; and in this sense, the preservation of the greater common interest must prevail when legislating on the matter.</p>
 887
 888 <p>The Bill protects equality under the law, since no natural or legal person is excluded from the right of offering these goods to the State under the conditions defined in the Bill and without more limitations than those established by the Law of State Contracts and Purchasing (T.U.O. by Supreme Decree No. 012-2001-PCM).</p>
 889
 890 <p>The Bill does not introduce any discrimination whatever, since it only establishes *how* the goods have to be provided (which is a state power) and not *who* has to provide them (which would effectively be discriminatory, if restrictions based on national origin, race religion, ideology, sexual preference etc. were imposed). On the contrary, the Bill is decidedly antidiscriminatory. This is so because by defining with no room for doubt the conditions for the provision of software, it prevents state bodies from using software which has a license including discriminatory conditions.</p>
 891
 892 <p>It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above. This free initiative is of course compatible with the freedom of industry and freedom of contract (in the limited form in which the State can exercise the latter). Any private subject can produce software under the conditions which the State requires, or can refrain from doing so. Nobody is forced to adopt a model of production, but if they wish to provide software to the State, they must provide the mechanisms which guarantee the basic principles, and which are those described in the Bill.</p>
 893
 894 <p>By way of an example: nothing in the text of the Bill would prevent your company offering the State bodies an office "suite", under the conditions defined in the Bill and setting the price that you consider satisfactory. If you did not, it would not be due to restrictions imposed by the law, but to business decisions relative to the method of commercializing your products, decisions with which the State is not involved.</p>
 895
 896 <p>To continue; you note that:" 2. The bill, by making the use of open source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public bodies..."</p>
 897
 898 <p>This statement is just a reiteration of the previous one, and so the response can be found above. However, let us concern ourselves for a moment with your comment regarding "non-competitive ... practices."</p>
 899
 900 <p>Of course, in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start, this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing, but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles.</p>
 901
 902 <p>Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement.</p>
 903
 904 <p>On the other hand, the central aspect of competivity is the chance to provide better choices to the consumer. Now, it is impossible to ignore the fact that marketing does not play a neutral role when the product is offered on the market (since accepting the opposite would lead one to suppose that firms' expenses in marketing lack any sense), and that therefore a significant expense under this heading can influence the decisions of the purchaser. This influence of marketing is in large measure reduced by the bill that we are backing, since the choice within the framework proposed is based on the *technical merits* of the product and not on the effort put into commercialization by the producer; in this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations.</p>
 905
 906 <p>It is necessary to stress that there is no position more anti-competitive than that of the big software producers, which frequently abuse their dominant position, since in innumerable cases they propose as a solution to problems raised by users: "update your software to the new version" (at the user's expense, naturally); furthermore, it is common to find arbitrary cessation of technical help for products, which, in the provider's judgment alone, are "old"; and so, to receive any kind of technical assistance, the user finds himself forced to migrate to new versions (with non-trivial costs, especially as changes in hardware platform are often involved). And as the whole infrastructure is based on proprietary data formats, the user stays "trapped" in the need to continue using products from the same supplier, or to make the huge effort to change to another environment (probably also proprietary).</p>
 907
 908 <p>You add: "3. So, by compelling the State to favor a business model based entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector."</p>
 909
 910 <p>I do not agree with your statement. Partly because of what you yourself point out in paragraph 6 of your letter, regarding the relative weight of services in the context of software use. This contradiction alone would invalidate your position. The service model, adopted by a large number of companies in the software industry, is much larger in economic terms, and with a tendency to increase, than the licensing of programs.</p>
 911
 912 <p>On the other hand, the private sector of the economy has the widest possible freedom to choose the economic model which best suits its interests, even if this freedom of choice is often obscured subliminally by the disproportionate expenditure on marketing by the producers of proprietary software.</p>
 913
 914 <p>In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money.</p>
 915
 916 <p>In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it. With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.</p>
 917
 918 <p>It is a common phenomenon in developing countries that local software industries obtain the majority of their takings in the service sector, or in the creation of "ad hoc" software. Therefore, any negative impact that the application of the Bill might have in this sector will be more than compensated by a growth in demand for services (as long as these are carried out to high quality standards). If the transnational software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in terms of payment for licenses; however, considering that these firms continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious. Certainly, in any case their fortune will be determined by market laws, changes in which cannot be avoided; many firms traditionally associated with proprietary software have already set out on the road (supported by copious expense) of providing services associated with free software, which shows that the models are not mutually exclusive.</p>
 919
 920 <p>With this bill the State is deciding that it needs to preserve certain fundamental values. And it is deciding this based on its sovereign power, without affecting any of the constitutional guarantees. If these values could be guaranteed without having to choose a particular economic model, the effects of the law would be even more beneficial. In any case, it should be clear that the State does not choose an economic model; if it happens that there only exists one economic model capable of providing software which provides the basic guarantee of these principles, this is because of historical circumstances, not because of an arbitrary choice of a given model.</p>
 921
 922 <p>Your letter continues: "4. The bill imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties."</p>
 923
 924 <p>Alluding in an abstract way to "the dangers this can bring", without specifically mentioning a single one of these supposed dangers, shows at the least some lack of knowledge of the topic. So, allow me to enlighten you on these points.</p>
 925
 926 <p>On security:</p>
 927
 928 <p>National security has already been mentioned in general terms in the initial discussion of the basic principles of the bill. In more specific terms, relative to the security of the software itself, it is well known that all software (whether proprietary or free) contains errors or "bugs" (in programmers' slang). But it is also well known that the bugs in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in proprietary software. It is not in vain that numerous public bodies responsible for the IT security of state systems in developed countries require the use of free software for the same conditions of security and efficiency.</p>
 929
 930 <p>What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more secure than free, without the public and open inspection of the scientific community and users in general. This demonstration is impossible because the model of proprietary software itself prevents this analysis, so that any guarantee of security is based only on promises of good intentions (biased, by any reckoning) made by the producer itself, or its contractors.</p>
 931
 932 <p>It should be remembered that in many cases, the licensing conditions include Non-Disclosure clauses which prevent the user from publicly revealing security flaws found in the licensed proprietary product.</p>
 933
 934 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
 935
 936 A<p>s you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.</p>
 937
 938 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
 939
 940 <p>Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity).</p>
 941
 942 <p>You go on to say that: "The bill uses the concept of open source software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its position."</p>
 943
 944 <p>This observation is wrong; in principle, freedom and lack of cost are orthogonal concepts: there is software which is proprietary and charged for (for example, MS Office), software which is proprietary and free of charge (MS Internet Explorer), software which is free and charged for (Red Hat, SuSE etc GNU/Linux distributions), software which is free and not charged for (Apache, Open Office, Mozilla), and even software which can be licensed in a range of combinations (MySQL).</p>
 945
 946 <p>Certainly free software is not necessarily free of charge. And the text of the bill does not state that it has to be so, as you will have noted after reading it. The definitions included in the Bill state clearly *what* should be considered free software, at no point referring to freedom from charges. Although the possibility of savings in payments for proprietary software licenses are mentioned, the foundations of the bill clearly refer to the fundamental guarantees to be preserved and to the stimulus to local technological development. Given that a democratic State must support these principles, it has no other choice than to use software with publicly available source code, and to exchange information only in standard formats.</p>
 947
 948 <p>If the State does not use software with these characteristics, it will be weakening basic republican principles. Luckily, free software also implies lower total costs; however, even given the hypothesis (easily disproved) that it was more expensive than proprietary software, the simple existence of an effective free software tool for a particular IT function would oblige the State to use it; not by command of this Bill, but because of the basic principles we enumerated at the start, and which arise from the very essence of the lawful democratic State.</p>
 949
 950 <p>You continue: "6. It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only 8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational and truly beneficial use of the technology. The other 92% consists of: installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and down-time."</p>
 951
 952 <p>This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs. However, allow me to point out that your conclusion is logically false: even if according to Gartner Group the cost of software is on average only 8% of the total cost of use, this does not in any way deny the existence of software which is free of charge, that is, with a licensing cost of zero.</p>
 953
 954 <p>In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3. Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation, support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation, enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing) since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability.</p>
 955
 956 <p>You further state that: "7. One of the arguments behind the bill is the supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous for the State, as has happened in other countries."</p>
 957
 958 <p>I have already pointed out that what is in question is not the cost of the software but the principles of freedom of information, accessibility, and security. These arguments have been covered extensively in the preceding paragraphs to which I would refer you.</p>
 959
 960 <p>On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately preceding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.</p>
 961
 962 <p>You continue: "8. In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (I) is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration, and (II) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the market."</p>
 963
 964 <p>Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely.</p>
 965
 966 <p>The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating interoperable software given the availability of the source code.</p>
 967
 968 <p>You then say that: "9. The majority of open source code does not offer adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an open source software solution and to use commercial software in its place."</p>
 969
 970 <p>This observation is without foundation. In respect of the guarantee, your argument was rebutted in the response to paragraph 4. In respect of support services, it is possible to use free software without them (just as also happens with proprietary software), but anyone who does need them can obtain support separately, whether from local firms or from international corporations, again just as in the case of proprietary software.</p>
 971
 972 <p>On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favor of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.</p>
 973
 974 <p>You continue by observing that: "10. The bill discourages the creativity of the Peruvian software industry, which invoices 40 million US$/year, exports 4 million US$ (10th in ranking among non-traditional exports, more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment. With a law that encourages the use of open source, software programmers lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of payment."</p>
 975
 976 <p>It is clear enough that nobody is forced to commercialize their code as free software. The only thing to take into account is that if it is not free software, it cannot be sold to the public sector. This is not in any case the main market for the national software industry. We covered some questions referring to the influence of the Bill on the generation of employment which would be both highly technically qualified and in better conditions for competition above, so it seems unnecessary to insist on this point.</p>
 977
 978 <p>What follows in your statement is incorrect. On the one hand, no author of free software loses his intellectual property rights, unless he expressly wishes to place his work in the public domain. The free software movement has always been very respectful of intellectual property, and has generated widespread public recognition of its authors. Names like those of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Andrea Arcangeli, Bruce Perens, Darren Reed, Alan Cox, Eric Raymond, and many others, are recognized world-wide for their contributions to the development of software that is used today by millions of people throughout the world. On the other hand, to say that the rewards for authors rights make up the main source of payment of Peruvian programmers is in any case a guess, in particular since there is no proof to this effect, nor a demonstration of how the use of free software by the State would influence these payments.</p>
 979
 980 <p>You go on to say that: "11. Open source software, since it can be distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary to stimulate local industry."</p>
 981
 982 <p>This statement shows once again complete ignorance of the mechanisms of and market for free software. It tries to claim that the market of sale of non- exclusive rights for use (sale of licenses) is the only possible one for the software industry, when you yourself pointed out several paragraphs above that it is not even the most important one. The incentives that the bill offers for the growth of a supply of better qualified professionals, together with the increase in experience that working on a large scale with free software within the State will bring for Peruvian technicians, will place them in a highly competitive position to offer their services abroad.</p>
 983
 984 <p>You then state that: "12. In the Forum, the use of open source software in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State employees who founded the project now state that open source software did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in schools."</p>
 985
 986 <p>In fact Mexico has gone into reverse with the Red Escolar (Schools Network) project. This is due precisely to the fact that the driving forces behind the Mexican project used license costs as their main argument, instead of the other reasons specified in our project, which are far more essential. Because of this conceptual mistake, and as a result of the lack of effective support from the SEP (Secretary of State for Public Education), the assumption was made that to implant free software in schools it would be enough to drop their software budget and send them a CD ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it couldn't have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they use proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making the use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to create a viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the technical transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the advantages of free software.</p>
 987
 988 <p>You end with a rhetorical question: "13. If open source software satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products give most benefits or value?"</p>
 989
 990 <p>We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whether these requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.</p>
 991
 992 <p>The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software; secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogeneous entity, but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of management and communication of information used today, it is based on the republican principle of openness to the public.</p>
 993
 994 <p>In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the citizen has the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by well- founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.</p>
 995
 996 <p>I wish you the greatest respect, and would like to repeat that my office will always be open for you to expound your point of view to whatever level of detail you consider suitable.</p>
 997
 998 <p>Cordially,<br>
 999 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
1000 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
1001 </blockquote>
1002 </div>
1003   <div class="tags">
1004
1005
1006
1007    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
1008
1009   </div>
1010  </div>
1011  <div class="padding"></div>
1012
1013  <div class="entry">
1014   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a></div>
1015   <div class="date">2010-12-25 09:40</div>
1016   <div class="body">
1017 <p>Half a year ago I
1018 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
1019 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
1020 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
1021 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
1022
1023 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
1024 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
1025 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
1026 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
1027 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
1028 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
1029 got such a great test tool available.</p>
1030 </div>
1031   <div class="tags">
1032
1033
1034
1035    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
1036
1037   </div>
1038  </div>
1039  <div class="padding"></div>
1040
1041  <div class="entry">
1042   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/165_norske_overv__kningskamera_registert_s___langt_i_OpenStreetmap_org.html">165 norske overvåkningskamera registert så langt i OpenStreetmap.org</a></div>
1043   <div class="date">2010-12-24 11:20</div>
1044   <div class="body">
1045 <p>Jeg flikket litt på OpenStreetmap.org i går, og oppdaget ved en
1046 tilfeldighet at det er en rekke noder som representerer
1047 overvåkningskamera som ikke blir med på kartet med overvåkningskamera
1048 i Norge som
1049 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kart_over_overv__kningskamera_i_Norge.html">jeg
1050 laget</a> for snart to år siden.  Fra før tok jeg med noder merket med
1051 man_made=surveillance, mens det er en rekke noder som kun er merket
1052 med highway=speed_camera.  Endret på koden som henter ut kameralisten
1053 fra OSM, og vips er antall kamera økt til 165.</p>
1054
1055 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.no/pere/surveillance-norway/">Kartet</a>
1056 er fortsatt ikke komplett, så hvis du ser noen kamera som mangler,
1057 legg inn ved å følge instruksene fra
1058 <a href="http://personvern.no/wiki/index.php/Kameraovervåkning">prosjektsiden</a>.
1059 Hvis du vet om noen flere måter å merke overvåkningskamera i OSM, ta
1060 kontakt slik at jeg kan få med også disse.</p>
1061 </div>
1062   <div class="tags">
1063
1064
1065
1066    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1067
1068   </div>
1069  </div>
1070  <div class="padding"></div>
1071
1072  <div class="entry">
1073   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a></div>
1074   <div class="date">2010-12-22 14:55</div>
1075   <div class="body">
1076 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
1077 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of oslo</a> testing if the new
1078 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
1079 years the university have organized shared bid of a few thousand
1080 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
1081 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
1082 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
1083 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
1084 university.</p>
1085
1086 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
1087 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
1088 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
1089 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
1090 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
1091 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
1092 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
1093 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
1094
1095 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
1096 I perform on a new model.</p>
1097
1098 <ul>
1099
1100 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
1101 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
1102 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
1103
1104 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
1105 installation, X.org is working.</li>
1106
1107 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
1108 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
1109 reported by the program.</li>
1110
1111 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
1112 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
1113 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
1114 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
1115 normally test this by playing
1116 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
1117 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
1118
1119 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
1120 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1121
1122 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
1123 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1124
1125 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
1126 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
1127
1128 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
1129 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
1130 few.</li>
1131
1132 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
1133 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
1134 notice this.</li>
1135
1136 <li>For laptops, is suspecd/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
1137 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
1138 resume.</li>
1139
1140 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
1141 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
1142 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
1143 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
1144 not.</li>
1145
1146 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
1147 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
1148 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
1149 existence.</li>
1150
1151 </ul>
1152
1153 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
1154 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
1155 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
1156 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
1157 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
1158 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
1159 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the framerate than
1160 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
1161 </div>
1162   <div class="tags">
1163
1164
1165
1166    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
1167
1168   </div>
1169  </div>
1170  <div class="padding"></div>
1171
1172  <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>
1173
1174 <div id="sidebar">
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180 <h2>Archive</h2>
1181 <ul>
1182
1183 <li>2011
1184 <ul>
1185
1186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (3)</a></li>
1187
1188 </ul></li>
1189
1190 <li>2010
1191 <ul>
1192
1193 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
1194
1195 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
1196
1197 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
1198
1199 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
1200
1201 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
1202
1203 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
1204
1205 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
1206
1207 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
1208
1209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
1210
1211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
1212
1213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
1214
1215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
1216
1217 </ul></li>
1218
1219 <li>2009
1220 <ul>
1221
1222 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
1223
1224 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
1225
1226 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
1227
1228 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
1229
1230 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
1231
1232 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
1233
1234 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
1235
1236 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
1237
1238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
1239
1240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
1241
1242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
1243
1244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
1245
1246 </ul></li>
1247
1248 <li>2008
1249 <ul>
1250
1251 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
1252
1253 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
1254
1255 </ul></li>
1256
1257 </ul>
1258
1259
1260
1261 <h2>Tags</h2>
1262 <ul>
1263
1264  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
1265
1266  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
1267
1268  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
1269
1270  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
1271
1272  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
1273
1274  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (46)</a></li>
1275
1276  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (54)</a></li>
1277
1278  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (82)</a></li>
1279
1280  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
1281
1282  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (11)</a></li>
1283
1284  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (5)</a></li>
1285
1286  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
1287
1288  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
1289
1290  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
1291
1292  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (11)</a></li>
1293
1294  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (97)</a></li>
1295
1296  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (114)</a></li>
1297
1298  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (18)</a></li>
1299
1300  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (32)</a></li>
1301
1302  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
1303
1304  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
1305
1306  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
1307
1308  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (22)</a></li>
1309
1310  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
1311
1312  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (21)</a></li>
1313
1314  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
1315
1316  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (5)</a></li>
1317
1318  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (17)</a></li>
1319
1320  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
1321
1322  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (14)</a></li>
1323
1324 </ul>
1325
1326 </div>
1327
1328 <p style="text-align: right">
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