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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged standard
</title>
5 <description>Entries tagged standard
</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>ODF-bruk i staten, ikke helt på plass
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ODF_bruk_i_staten__ikke_helt_p__plass.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ODF_bruk_i_staten__ikke_helt_p__plass.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Thu,
22 Jan
2009 23:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>I går publiserte
15 <a href=
"http://universitas.no/nyhet/
52776/
">Universitas
</a
>,
16 <a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1588462.ece
">Dagens-IT
</a
>
17 og
<a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article118622.ece
">Computerworld
18 Norge
</a
> en sak om at de ansatte ved Universitetet i Oslo ikke følger
19 regjeringens pålegg om å publisere i HTML, PDF eller ODF. Det er bra
20 at det kommer litt fokus på dette, og jeg håper noen journalister tar
21 en titt på de andre statlige instansene også.
</p
>
23 <p
>Skulle ønske det var en enkel måte å sjekke om ODF-dokumenter er i
24 henholdt til ODF-spesifikasjonen, og en måte å teste om programmer som
25 hevder å støtte ODF forstår alle delene av ODF-spesifikasjonen.
26 Kjenner kun til ufullstendige løsninger for slikt.
</p
>
31 <title>Fri og åpen standard, slik Digistan ser det
</title>
32 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_og__pen_standard__slik_Digistan_ser_det.html
</link>
33 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_og__pen_standard__slik_Digistan_ser_det.html
</guid>
34 <pubDate>Sat,
31 Jan
2009 23:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
35 <description><p
>Det er mange ulike definisjoner om hva en åpen standard er for noe,
36 og NUUG hadde
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-
200506.txt
">en
37 pressemelding om dette sommeren
2005</a
>. Der ble definisjonen til
38 <a href=
"http://www.aaben-standard.dk/
">DKUUG
</a
>,
39 <a href=
"http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=
19529">EU-kommissionens
40 European Interoperability Framework ( side
9)
</a
> og
41 <a href=
"http://www.teknologiradet.no/files/
7polert_copy.htm
">teknologirådet
</a
> omtalt.
</p
>
43 <p
>Siden den gang har regjeringens standardiseringsråd dukket opp, og de
44 ser ut til å har tatt utgangspunkt i EU-kommisjonens definisjon i
45 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/kampanjer/standardiseringsradet/arbeidsmetodikk.html?id=
476407">sin
46 arbeidsmetodikk
</a
>. Personlig synes jeg det er en god ide, da
47 kravene som stilles der gjør at alle markedsaktører får like vilkår,
48 noe som kommer kundene til gode ved hjelp av økt konkurranse.
</p
>
50 <p
>I sommer kom det en ny definisjon på banen.
51 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/
">Digistan
</a
> lanserte
52 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">en
53 definisjon på en fri og åpen standard
</a
>. Jeg liker måten de bryter
54 ut av diskusjonen om hva som kreves for å kalle noe en åpen standard
55 ved å legge på et ord og poengtere at en standard som er både åpen og
56 fri har noen spesielle krav. Her er den definisjonen etter rask
57 oversettelse fra engelsk til norsk av meg:
</p
>
60 <p
><strong
>Definisjonen av en fri og åpen standard
</strong
></p
>
62 <p
>Den digitale standardorganisasjonen definierer fri og åpen standard
65 <li
>En fri og åpen standard er immun for leverandørinnlåsing i alle
66 stadier av dens livssyklus. Immuniteten fra leverandørinnlåsing gjør
67 det mulig å fritt bruke, forbedre, stole på og utvide en standard over
69 <li
>Standarden er adoptert og vil bli vedlikeholdt av en ikke-kommersiell
70 organisasjon, og dens pågående utvikling gjøres med en åpen
71 beslutningsprosedyre som er tilgjengelig for alle som er interessert i
73 <li
>Standarden er publisert og spesifikasjonsdokumentet er fritt
74 tilgjengelig. Det må være tillatt for alle å kopiere, distribuere og
75 bruke den uten begresninger.
</li
>
76 <li
>Patentene som muligens gjelder (deler av) standarden er gjort
77 ugjenkallelig tilgjengelig uten krav om betaling.
</li
>
78 <li
>Det er ingen begresninger i gjenbruk av standarden.
</li
>
80 <p
>Det økonomiske resultatet av en fri og åpen standard, som kan
81 måles, er at det muliggjør perfekt konkurranse mellom leverandører av
82 produkter basert på standarden.
</p
>
85 <p
>(Tar gjerne imot forbedringer av oversettelsen.)
</p
>
90 <title>Hva er egentlig en åpen standard?
</title>
91 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_er_egentlig_en__pen_standard_.html
</link>
92 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_er_egentlig_en__pen_standard_.html
</guid>
93 <pubDate>Sat,
28 Mar
2009 10:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
94 <description><p
>Jeg møter alle slags interessante mennesker på min vei, og et møte
95 jeg lærte mye av var å treffe på en svært kompetent IT-fyr som
96 benektet ting jeg anser som åpenbart og selvfølgelig når det gjelder
97 standarder. Det var interessant, da det fikk meg til å tenke litt
98 nøyere på hvilke mekanismer som ligger til grunn for at noe oppfattes
99 som en standard. Det hele startet med arbeid rundt integrering av NSS
100 LDAP mot Active Directory, og problemer som oppstår pga. at Active
101 Directory ikke følger LDAP-spesifikasjonen som dokumentert i RFCer fra
102 IETF (konkret, AD returnerer kun et subset av attributter hvis det er
103 mer enn
1500 atributter av en gitt type i et LDAP-objekt, og en må be
104 om resten i bolker av
1500). Jeg hevdet måten dette ble gjort på brøt
105 med LDAP-spesifikasjonen, og henviste til hvor i LDAP-spesifikasjonen
106 fra IETF det sto at oppførselen til AD ikke fulgte
107 LDAP-spesifikasjonen. AD-spesialisten overrasket meg da ved å
108 fortelle at IETF var ikke de som definerte LDAP-spesifikasjonen, og at
109 Active Directory ikke brøt den virkelige LDAP-spesifikasjonen som han
110 mente lå til grunn. Jeg ble spesielt overrasket over denne
111 tilnærmingen til problemstillingen, da til og med Microsoft så vidt
112 jeg kan se anerkjenner IETF som organisasjonen som definerer
113 LDAP-spesifikasjonen. Jeg fikk aldri spurt hvem han mente sto bak den
114 egentlige LDAP-spesifikasjonen, da det var irrelevant for problemet vi
115 måtte løse (få Linux og AD til å fungere sammen). Dette møtet
116 fortalte meg uansett at det ikke er gitt at alle aktører er enige om
117 hva en standard er, og hva som er kilden til en gitt standard. Det er
118 vanskelig å enes om felles standarder før en først enes om hvem som
119 bestemmer hva en gitt standard innebærer.
</p
>
121 <p
>Hva er så en standard? I sin abstrakte form er det noe å samles
122 om. På engelsk er en av betydningene fane brukt i krig, du vet, den
123 type fane en samlet seg rundt på kamplassen i riddertiden. En
124 standard definerer altså et felleskap, noen som har noe felles. Det
125 er naturligvis mange måter å utgjøre et felleskap på. En kan
126 f.eks. enes om å gjøre alt slik som Ole gjør det, og dermed si at Oles
127 oppførsel er standard. Hver gang Ole endrer oppførsel endrer også
128 standarden seg uten noe mer organisering og prosedyre. En variant av
129 dette er å gjøre slik som Ole har gjort det i stedet for slik Ole til
130 enhver til gjør noe. Dette er ofte litt enklere å forholde seg til,
131 da en slipper å sjekke med Ole hver gang for å vite hvordan ting skal
132 gjøres nå, men hvis det Ole gjorde noe dumt den gang en bestemte seg
133 for å følge Ole, så er det vanskeligere å få endret oppførsel for å
134 unngå dette dumme.
</p
>
136 <p
>En kan også ta det et skritt videre, og istedet for å basere seg på
137 enkeltpersoners oppførsel sette seg ned og bli enige om hvordan en
138 skal gjøre ting, dvs. lage et felleskap basert på konsensus. Dette
139 tar naturligvis litt mer tid (en må diskutere ting i forkant før en
140 kan sette igang), men det kan bidra til at den oppførselen en
141 planlegger å benytte seg av er mer gjennomtenkt. Det ender også
142 typisk opp med en beskrivelse av ønsket oppførsel som flere kan forstå
143 - da flere har vært involvert i å utarbeide beskrivelsen.
</p
>
145 <p
>Dette er dessverre ikke alt som trengs for å forstå hva en åpen
146 standard er for noe. Der alle kan se på hvordan folk oppfører seg, og
147 dermed har valget om de vil oppføre seg likt eller ikke, så er det
148 endel juridiske faktorer som gjør det hele mer komplisert -
149 opphavsretten og patentlovgivningen for å være helt konkret. For å gi
150 et eksempel. Hvis noen blir enige om å alltid plystre en bestemt
151 melodi når de møtes, for å identifisere hverandre, så kan
152 opphavsretten brukes til å styre hvem som får lov til å gjøre dette.
153 De har standardisert hvordan de kjenner igjen alle som følger denne
154 standarden, men ikke alle har nødvendigvis lov til å følge den.
155 Musikk er opphavsrettsbeskyttet, og fremføring av musikk i
156 offentligheten er opphavsmannens enerett (dvs. et monopol). Det vil i
157 sin ytterste konsekvens si at alle som skal plystre en
158 opphavsrettsbeskyttet melodi i det offentlige rom må ha godkjenning
159 fra opphavsmannen. Har en ikke dette, så bryter en loven og kan
160 straffes. Det er dermed mulig for opphavsmannen å kontrollere hvem
161 som får lov til å benytte seg av denne standarden. En annen variant
162 er hvis en standard er dokumentert, så er dokumentet som definerer
163 standarden (spesifikasjonen) beskyttet av opphavsretten, og det er
164 dermed mulig for rettighetsinnehaver å begrense tilgang til
165 spesifikasjonen, og slik styre hvem som kan ta i bruk standarden på
168 <p
>Der opphavsretten innvilger et monopol på kunstneriske uttrykk med
169 verkshøyde, innvilger patentlovgivningen monopol på ideer. Hvis en
170 slik patentert idé (fortrinnsvis uttrykt i en teknisk innretning, men
171 det er kompliserende faktorer som gjør at det ikke er et krav) trengs
172 for å ta i bruk en standard, så vil den som innehar patent kunne styre
173 hvem som får ta i bruk standarden. Det er dermed ikke gitt at alle
174 kan delta i et standard-felleskap, og hvis de kan delta, så er det
175 ikke sikkert at det er på like vilkår. F.eks. kan rettighetsinnehaver
176 sette vilkår som gjør at noen faller utenfor, det være seg av
177 finansielle, avtalemessige eller prinsipielle årsaker. Vanlige slike
178 vilkår er
"må betale litt for hver kunde/bruker
" som utelukker de som
179 gir bort en løsning gratis og
"må gi fra seg retten til å håndheve
180 sine egne patentrettigheter ovenfor rettighetshaver
" som utelukker
181 alle som ønsker å beholde den muligheten.
</p
>
183 <p
>En åpen standard innebærer for meg at alle kan få innsikt i en
184 komplett beskrivelse av oppførsel som standarden skal dekke, og at
185 ingen kan nektes å benytte seg av standarden. Noen mener at det
186 holder at alle med tilstrekkelig finansiering kan få tilgang til
187 spesifikasjonen og at en kun har finansielle krav til bruk.
188 Pga. denne konflikten har et nytt begrep spredt seg de siste årene,
189 nemlig fri og åpen standard, der en har gjort det klart at alle må ha
190 komplett og lik tilgang til spesifikasjoner og retten til å gjøre bruk
191 av en standard for at en standard skal kunne kalles fri og åpen.
</p
>
196 <title>Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications
</title>
197 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</link>
198 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</guid>
199 <pubDate>Mon,
30 Mar
2009 11:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
200 <description><p
>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
201 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
202 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
203 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
204 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
205 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
206 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
207 application.
</p
>
209 <p
>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
210 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
211 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
212 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
213 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
214 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
215 blocked from doing so.
</p
>
217 <p
>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
218 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
219 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
220 requirements change.
</p
>
222 <p
>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
223 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
224 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p
>
229 <title>Hvorfor jeg ikke bruker eFaktura
</title>
230 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvorfor_jeg_ikke_bruker_eFaktura.html
</link>
231 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvorfor_jeg_ikke_bruker_eFaktura.html
</guid>
232 <pubDate>Thu,
23 Apr
2009 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
233 <description><p
>Telenors annonsering om å kreve
35 kroner i gebyr fra alle som
234 ønsker papirfaktura har satt sinnene i kok, og pressedekningen så
235 langt snakker om at eldre og folk som ikke behersker data vil få en
236 urimelig ekstrakostnad. Jeg tror ikke jeg passer inn i noen av de
237 kategoriene, men velger å holde meg unna eFaktura - som er det
238 Telenor ønsker å få folk over på - pga. systemets egenskaper.
</p
>
240 <p
>Slik jeg har sett eFaktura til forbrukere så langt, så sender
241 selger en elektronisk beskjed til kundens bank, som legger ut
242 informasjon om fakturaen i nettbanken for godkjenning. Personlig
243 ville jeg sett det som mer naturlig at det gikk en elektronisk beskjed
244 fra selger til kunde, dvs meg, og at jeg så kunne bruke den videre
245 mot banken eller andre hvis jeg ønsket dette. Mine innkjøp og
246 regninger er jo en sak mellom meg og mine leverandører, ikke en sak
247 mellom min bank og mine leverandører. Kun hvis jeg ønsker å betale
248 fakturaen skal banken involveres. En faktura bør jo inn i
249 regnskapet, og jeg ønsker mulighet til å legge det inn der. Når
250 fakturaen sendes til banken i stedet for meg, blir det vanskeligere.
251 Hele eFaktura-modellen virker på meg som en umyndiggjøring av meg
254 <p
>I tillegg har jeg ikke vært i stand til å finne
255 eFaktura-formatets spesifikasjon, og det ser ut til at utsending av
256 slike krever dyre avtaler med bankene for å få lov til å sende ut
257 eFaktura til kunder. Jeg ser vel helst at fakturering på
258 elektroniske formater kan gjøres f.eks. via epost eller HTTP uten å
259 måtte betale mellommenn for retten til å lever ut en faktura, og
260 liker rett og slett ikke dagens faktureringsmodeller.
</p
>
265 <title>Standarder fungerer best når en samler seg rundt dem
</title>
266 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standarder_fungerer_best_n_r_en_samler_seg_rundt_dem.html
</link>
267 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standarder_fungerer_best_n_r_en_samler_seg_rundt_dem.html
</guid>
268 <pubDate>Tue,
19 May
2009 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
269 <description><p
>En standard er noe man samler seg rundt, ut fra ideen om at en får
270 fordeler når mange står sammen. Jo flere som står sammen, jo
271 bedre. Når en vet dette, blir det litt merkelig å lese noen av
272 uttalelsene som er kommet inn til
273 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/
2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-
2/horingsuttalelser.html?id=
549423">høringen
274 om versjon
2 av statens referansekatalog over standarder
</a
>. Blant
275 annet Abelia, NHO og Microsoft tror det er lurt med flere standarder
276 innenfor samme område. Det blir som å si at det er fint om Norge
277 standardiserte både på A4- og Letter-størrelser på arkene, ulik
278 sporvidde på jernbaneskinnene, meter og fot som lengemål, eller
279 høyre- og venstrekjøring - slik at en kan konkurrere på hvilken
280 standard som er best. De fleste forstår heldigvis at dette ikke
281 bidrar positivt.
</p
>
286 <title>Microsofts misvisende argumentasjon rundt multimediaformater
</title>
287 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html
</link>
288 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html
</guid>
289 <pubDate>Fri,
26 Jun
2009 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
290 <description><p
>I
291 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/Hoeringer/Refkat_V2/MicrosoftNorge.pdf
">Microsoft
292 sin høringsuttalelse
</a
> til
293 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/
2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-
2.html?id=
549422">forslag
294 til versjon
2 av statens referansekatalog over standarder
</a
>, lirer
295 de av seg følgende FUD-perle:
</p
>
297 <p
><blockquote
>"Vorbis, OGG, Theora og FLAC er alle tekniske
298 spesifikasjoner overordnet styrt av xiph.org, som er en
299 ikke-kommersiell organisasjon. Etablerte og anerkjente
300 standardiseringsorganisasjoner, som Oasis, W3C og Ecma, har en godt
301 innarbeidet vedlikeholds- og forvaltningsprosess av en standard.
302 Det er derimot helt opp til hver enkelt organisasjon å bestemme
303 hvordan tekniske spesifikasjoner videreutvikles og endres, og disse
304 spesifikasjonene bør derfor ikke defineres som åpne
305 standarder.
"</blockquote
></p
>
307 <p
>De vokter seg vel for å nevne den anerkjente
308 standardiseringsorganisasjonen IETF, som er organisasjonen bak HTTP,
309 IP og det meste av protokoller på Internet, og RFC-standardene som
310 IETF står bak. Ogg er spesifisert i
311 <a href=
"http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3533.txt
">RFC
3533</a
>, og er uten
312 tvil å anse som en åpen standard. Vorbis er
313 <a href=
"http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc5215.txt
">RFC
5215</a
>. Theora er
315 under standardisering via IETF, med
316 <a href=
"http://svn.xiph.org/trunk/theora/doc/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-theora-
00.txt
">siste
317 utkast publisert
2006-
07-
21</a
> (riktignok er dermed teksten ikke
318 skrevet i stein ennå, men det blir neppe endringer som ikke er
319 bakoverkompatibel). De kan være inne på noe når det gjelder FLAC da
320 jeg ikke finner tegn til at
<a
321 href=
"http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html
">spesifikasjonen
322 tilgjengelig på web
</a
> er på tur via noen
323 standardiseringsorganisasjon, men i og med at folkene bak Ogg, Theora
324 og Vorbis også har involvert seg i Flac siden
2003, så ser jeg ikke
325 bort fra at også den organiseres via IETF. Jeg kjenner personlig lite
328 <p
>Uredelig argumentasjon bør en holde seg for god til å komme med,
329 spesielt når det er så enkelt i dagens Internet-hverdag å gå
330 misvisende påstander etter i sømmene.
</p
>
335 <title>Regjerningen forlater prinsippet om ingen royalty-betaling i standardkatalogen versjon
2</title>
336 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html
</link>
337 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html
</guid>
338 <pubDate>Mon,
6 Jul
2009 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
339 <description><p
>Jeg ble glad da regjeringen
340 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
817635/her-er-statens-nye-it-standarder
">annonserte
</a
>
342 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Referansekatalogen_versjon2.pdf
">statens
343 referansekatalog over standarder
</a
>, men trist da jeg leste hva som
344 faktisk var vedtatt etter
345 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/
2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-
2.html
">høringen
</a
>.
346 De fleste av de valgte åpne standardene er gode og vil bidra til at
347 alle kan delta på like vilkår i å lage løsninger for staten, men
348 noen av dem blokkerer for de som ikke har anledning til å benytte
349 spesifikasjoner som krever betaling for bruk (såkalt
350 royalty-betaling). Det gjelder spesifikt for H
.264 for video og MP3
351 for lyd. Så lenge bruk av disse var valgfritt mens Ogg Theora og Ogg
352 Vorbis var påkrevd, kunne alle som ønsket å spille av video og lyd
353 fra statens websider gjøre dette uten å måtte bruke programmer der
354 betaling for bruk var nødvendig. Når det nå er gjort valgfritt for
355 de statlige etatene å bruke enten H
.264 eller Theora (og MP3 eler
356 Vorbis), så vil en bli tvunget til å forholde seg til
357 royalty-belastede standarder for å få tilgang til videoen og
360 <p
>Det gjør meg veldig trist at regjeringen har forlatt prinsippet om
361 at alle standarder som ble valgt til å være påkrevd i katalogen skulle
362 være uten royalty-betaling. Jeg håper det ikke betyr at en har mistet
363 all forståelse for hvilke prinsipper som må følges for å oppnå
364 likeverdig konkurranse mellom aktørene i IT-bransjen. NUUG advarte
366 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/
200901-standardkatalog-v2
">sin
367 høringsuttalelse
</a
>, men ser ut til å ha blitt ignorert.
</p
>
372 <title>Regjerningens oppsummering av høringen om standardkatalogen versjon
2</title>
373 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h_ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html
</link>
374 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h_ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html
</guid>
375 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Jul
2009 14:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
376 <description><p
>For å forstå mer om hvorfor standardkatalogens versjon
2 ble som
377 den ble, har jeg bedt om kopi fra FAD av dokumentene som ble lagt frem
378 for regjeringen da de tok sin avgjørelse. De er nå lagt ut på NUUGs
379 wiki, direkte tilgjengelig via
"<a
380 href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/
200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile
&do=get
&target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf
">Referansekatalogen
381 v2.0 - Oppsummering av høring
</a
>" og
"<a
382 href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/
200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile
&do=get
&target=kongelig-resolusjon-katalogutkast.pdf
">Referansekatalog
383 for IT-standarder i offentlig sektor Versjon
2.0, dd.mm.åååå -
384 UTKAST
</a
>".
</p
>
386 <p
>Det er tre ting jeg merker meg i oppsummeringen fra
387 høringsuttalelsen da jeg skummet igjennom den. Det første er at
388 forståelsen av hvordan programvarepatenter påvirker fri
389 programvareutvikling også i Norge når en argumenterer med at
390 royalty-betaling ikke er et relevant problem i Norge. Det andre er at
391 FAD ikke har en prinsipiell forståelse av verdien av en enkelt
392 standard innenfor hvert område. Det siste er at påstander i
393 høringsuttalelsene ikke blir etterprøvd (f.eks. påstanden fra
394 Microsoft om hvordan Ogg blir standardisert og påstanden fra
395 politidirektoratet om patentproblemer i Theora).
</p
>
400 <title>ISO still hope to fix OOXML
</title>
401 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html
</link>
402 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html
</guid>
403 <pubDate>Sat,
8 Aug
2009 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
404 <description><p
>According to
<a
405 href=
"http://twerner.blogspot.com/
2009/
08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html
">a
406 blog post from Torsten Werner
</a
>, the current defect report for ISO
407 29500 (ISO OOXML) is
809 pages. His interesting point is that the
408 defect report is
71 pages more than the full ODF
1.1 specification.
409 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
410 can be fixed in ISO. Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
411 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
412 close to solving the problems. I was part of the Norwegian committee
413 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
414 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.
</p
>
416 <p
>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
417 with the future ahead of it. We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
418 seminar this autumn.
</p
>
423 <title>Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)
</title>
424 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html
</link>
425 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html
</guid>
426 <pubDate>Wed,
12 Aug
2009 15:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
427 <description><p
>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
428 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
429 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage. I searched using
430 'filetype:odt
' and equvalent terms, and got these results:
</P
>
433 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
434 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
282000</td
> <td
>docx:
308000</td
></tr
>
435 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
75600</td
> <td
>pptx:
183000</td
></tr
>
436 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
26500 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
145000</td
></tr
>
439 <p
>Next, I added a
'site:no
' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
440 got these numbers:
</p
>
443 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
444 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
2480 </td
> <td
>docx:
4460</td
></tr
>
445 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
299 </td
> <td
>pptx:
741</td
></tr
>
446 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
187 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
372</td
></tr
>
449 <p
>I wonder how these numbers change over time.
</p
>
451 <p
>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
452 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
453 they are conduced in another country. Because of this, I did the same
454 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
455 search done from a machine here in Norway.
</p
>
459 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
460 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
129000</td
> <td
>docx:
308000</td
></tr
>
461 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
44200</td
> <td
>pptx:
93900</td
></tr
>
462 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
26500 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
82400</td
></tr
>
465 <p
>And with
'site:no
':
468 <tr
><th
>Type
</th
><th
>ODF
</th
><th
>MS Office
</th
></tr
>
469 <tr
><td
>Tekst
</td
> <td
>odt:
2480</td
> <td
>docx:
3410</td
></tr
>
470 <tr
><td
>Presentasjon
</td
> <td
>odp:
175</td
> <td
>pptx:
604</td
></tr
>
471 <tr
><td
>Regneark
</td
> <td
>ods:
186 </td
> <td
>xlsx:
296</td
></tr
>
474 <p
>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
480 <title>Danmark går for ODF?
</title>
481 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Danmark_g_r_for_ODF_.html
</link>
482 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Danmark_g_r_for_ODF_.html
</guid>
483 <pubDate>Fri,
29 Jan
2010 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
484 <description><p
>Ble nettopp gjort oppmerksom på en
485 <a href=
"http://www.version2.dk/artikel/
13690-breaking-odf-vinder-dokumentformat-krigen
">nyhet fra Version2
</a
>
486 fra Danmark, der det hevdes at Folketinget har vedtatt at ODF skal
487 brukes som dokumentutvekslingsformat i Staten.
</p
>
489 <p
>Hyggelig lesning, spesielt hvis det viser seg at de av vedtatt
490 kravlisten for hva som skal aksepteres som referert i kommentarfeltet
492 <a href=
"http://www.version2.dk/artikel/
13693-er-ooxml-doemt-ude-her-er-kravene-til-en-offentlig-dokumentstandard
">en
493 annen artikkel
</a
> i samme nett-avis. Liker spesielt godt denne:
</p
>
495 <p
><blockquote
> Det skal demonstreres, at standarden i sin helhed kan
496 implementeres af alle direkte i sin helhed på flere
497 platforme.
</blockquote
></p
>
499 <p
>Noe slikt burde være et krav også i Norge.
</p
>
504 <title>A manual for standards wars...
</title>
505 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</link>
506 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</guid>
507 <pubDate>Sun,
6 Jun
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
508 <description><p
>Via the
509 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~
3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-
10.html
">blog
510 of Rob Weir
</a
> I came across the very interesting essay named
511 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf
">The Art of
512 Standards Wars
</a
> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
513 following the standards wars of today.
</p
>
518 <title>Officeshots taking shape
</title>
519 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
</link>
520 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
</guid>
521 <pubDate>Sun,
13 Jun
2010 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
522 <description><p
>For those of us caring about document exchange and
523 interoperability,
<a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/
">OfficeShots
</a
>
524 is a great service. It is to ODF documents what
525 <a href=
"http://browsershots.org/
">BrowserShots
</a
> is for web
528 <p
>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
529 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
530 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
531 interested in supporting the project. I helped him to navigate his
532 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
533 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
534 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot. The machine is
535 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
536 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
537 see how the project is doing.
</p
>
539 <p
>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
540 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
541 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
542 in
17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
543 Windows. This is great.
</p
>
548 <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS
130 digital camera
</title>
549 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
</link>
550 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
</guid>
551 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Sep
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
552 <description><p
>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
553 camera, a Canon IXUS
130. It was instructive and very disturbing to
554 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
555 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
556 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
557 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway. What is the
558 problem, you might ask? It is software patents, MPEG-
4, H
.264 and the
559 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
560 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
562 <p
>On page
27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
566 <p
>This product is licensed under AT
&T patents for the MPEG-
4 standard
567 and may be used for encoding MPEG-
4 compliant video and/or decoding
568 MPEG-
4 compliant video that was encoded only (
1) for a personal and
569 non-commercial purpose or (
2) by a video provider licensed under the
570 AT
&T patents to provide MPEG-
4 compliant video.
</p
>
572 <p
>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-
4
576 <p
>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
577 (MPEG-
4/H
.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
578 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
579 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.
</p
>
581 <p
>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
583 "<a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA
">Why
584 Our Civilization
's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
585 MPEG-LA
</a
>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
586 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
09/
03/h-
264-and-foss/
">H
.264 Is Not
587 The Sort Of Free That Matters
</a
>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
588 the issue. The solution is to support the
589 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and
590 open standards
</a
> for video, like
<a href=
"http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg
591 Theora
</a
>, and avoid MPEG-
4 and H
.264 if you can.
</p
>
596 <title>Standardkrav inn i anbudstekster?
</title>
597 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardkrav_inn_i_anbudstekster_.html
</link>
598 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardkrav_inn_i_anbudstekster_.html
</guid>
599 <pubDate>Sun,
17 Oct
2010 19:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
600 <description><p
>Hvis det å følge standarder skal ha noen effekt overfor
601 leverandører, så må slike krav og ønsker komme inn i anbudstekster når
602 systemer kjøpes inn. Har ikke sett noen slike formuleringer i anbud
603 så langt, men har tenkt litt på hva som bør inn. Her er noen ideer og
604 forslag. Min drøm er at en kan sette krav til slik støtte i
605 anbudstekster, men så langt er det nok mer sannsynlig at en må nøye
606 seg med å skrive at det er en fordel om slik støtte er tilstede i
607 leveranser.
</p
>
609 <p
>Som systemadministrator på Universitetet er det typisk to områder
610 som er problematiske for meg. Det ene er admin-grensesnittene på
611 tjenermaskiner, som vi ønsker å bruke via ssh. Det andre er nettsider
612 som vi ønsker å bruke via en nettleser. For begge deler er det viktig
613 at protokollene og formatene som brukes følger standarder våre verktøy
616 <p
>De fleste har nå støtte for SSH som overføringsprotkoll for
617 admin-grensesnittet, men det er ikke tilstrekkelig for å kunne stille
618 inn f.eks BIOS og RAID-kontroller via ssh-forbindelsen. Det er flere
619 aktuelle protokoller for fremvisning av BIOS-oppsett og
620 oppstartmeldinger, og min anbefaling ville være å kreve
621 VT100-kompatibel protokoll, for å sikre at flest mulig
622 terminalemulatorer kan forstå hva som kommer fra admin-grensesnittet
623 via ssh. Andre aktuelle alternativer er ANSI-terminalemulering og
624 VT220. Kanskje en formulering ala dette i anbudsutlysninger vil
627 <p
><blockquote
>
628 BIOS og oppstartmeldinger i administrasjonsgrensesnittet til maskinen
629 bør/skal være tilgjengelig via SSH-protokollen som definert av IETF
630 (RFC
4251 mfl.) og følge terminalfremvisningprotokollen VT100 (ref?)
631 når en kobler seg til oppstart via ssh.
632 </blockquote
></p
>
634 <p
>Har ikke lykkes med å finne en god referanse for
635 VT100-spesifikasjonen.
</p
>
637 <p
>Når det gjelder nettsider, så er det det HTML, CSS og
638 JavaScript-spesifikasjonen til W3C som gjelder.
</p
>
640 <p
><blockquote
>
641 Alle systemets nettsider bør/skal være i henhold til statens
642 standardkatalogs krav om nettsider og følge HTML-standarden som
643 definert av W3C, og validere uten feil hos W3Cs HTML-validator
644 (http://validator.w3.org). Hvis det brukes CSS så bør/skal denne
645 validere uten feil hos W3Cs CSS-validator
646 (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/). Eventuelle JavaScript skal
647 være i henhold til EcmaScript-standarden. I tillegg til å følge de
648 overnevnte standardene skal websidene fungere i nettleserne (fyll inn
649 relevant liste for organisasjonen) Firefox
3.5, Internet Explorer
8,
651 </blockquote
></p
>
653 <p
>Vil et slikt avsnitt være konkret nok til å få leverandørene til å
654 lage nettsider som følger standardene og fungerer i flere
655 nettlesere?
</p
>
657 <p
>Tar svært gjerne imot innspill på dette temaet til aktive (at)
658 nuug.no, og er spesielt interessert i hva andre skriver i sine anbud
659 for å oppmuntre leverandører til å følge standardene. Kanskje NUUG
660 burde lage et dokument med forslag til standardformuleringer å ta med
661 i anbudsutlysninger?
</p
>
663 <p
>Oppdatering
2010-
12-
03: I følge Wikipedias oppføring om
664 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code
">ANSI escape
665 code
</a
>, så bruker VT100-terminaler ECMA-
48-spesifikasjonen som
666 basis for sin oppførsel. Det kan dermed være et alternativ når en
667 skal spesifisere hvordan seriell-konsoll skal fungere.
</p
>
672 <title>Best å ikke fortelle noen at streaming er nedlasting...
</title>
673 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html
</link>
674 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html
</guid>
675 <pubDate>Sat,
30 Oct
2010 11:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
676 <description><p
>I dag la jeg inn en kommentar på en sak hos NRKBeta
677 <a href=
"http://nrkbeta.no/
2010/
10/
27/bakom-blindpassasjer-del-
1/
">om
678 hvordan TV-serien Blindpassasjer ble laget
</a
> i forbindelse med at
679 filmene NRK la ut ikke var tilgjengelig i et
680 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">fritt og
681 åpent format
</a
>. Dette var det jeg skrev publiserte der
07:
39.
</p
>
683 <p
><blockquote
>
684 <p
>"Vi fikk en kommentar rundt måten streamet innhold er beskyttet fra
685 nedlasting. Mange av oss som kan mer enn gjennomsnittet om systemer
686 som dette, vet at det stort sett er mulig å lure ut ting med den
687 nødvendige forkunnskapen.
"</p
>
689 <p
>Haha. Å streame innhold er det samme som å laste ned innhold, så å
690 beskytte en stream mot nedlasting er ikke mulig. Å skrive noe slikt
691 er å forlede leseren.
</p
>
693 <p
>Med den bakgrunn blir forklaringen om at noen rettighetshavere kun
694 vil tillate streaming men ikke nedlasting meningsløs.
</p
>
696 <p
>Anbefaler forresten å lese
697 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2010/
10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm
">http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2010/
10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm
</a
>
698 om hva som ville være konsekvensen hvis digitale avspillingssperrer
699 (DRM) fungerte. Det gjør de naturligvis ikke teknisk - det er jo
700 derfor de må ha totalitære juridiske beskyttelsesmekanismer på plass,
701 men det er skremmende hva samfunnet tillater og NRK er med på å bygge
703 </blockquote
></p
>
705 <p
>Ca.
20 minutter senere får jeg følgende epost fra Anders Hofseth i
708 <p
><blockquote
>
709 <p
>From: Anders Hofseth
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>
710 <br
>To:
"pere@hungry.com
" &lt;pere@hungry.com
>
711 <br
>Cc: Eirik Solheim
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>, Jon Ståle Carlsen
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>, Henrik Lied
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>
712 <br
>Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar:
"Bakom Blindpassasjer: del
1"
713 <br
>Date: Sat,
30 Oct
2010 07:
58:
44 +
0200</p
>
716 <br
>Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon,
717 men om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt
718 om å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
719 særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.
</p
>
721 <p
>Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er
722 fjernet og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
723 konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...
</p
>
726 <br
>-anders
</p
>
728 <p
>Ring meg om noe er uklart:
95XXXXXXX
</p
>
729 </blockquote
></p
>
731 <p
>Ble så fascinert over denne holdningen, at jeg forfattet og sendte
732 over følgende svar. I og med at debatten er fjernet fra NRK Betas
733 kommentarfelt, så velger jeg å publisere her på bloggen min i stedet.
734 Har fjernet epostadresser og telefonnummer til de involverte, for å
735 unngå at de tiltrekker seg uønskede direkte kontaktforsøk.
</p
>
737 <p
><blockquote
>
738 <p
>From: Petter Reinholdtsen
&lt;pere@hungry.com
>
739 <br
>To: Anders Hofseth
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>
740 <br
>Cc: Eirik Solheim
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>,
741 <br
> Jon Ståle Carlsen
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>,
742 <br
> Henrik Lied
&lt;XXX@gmail.com
>
743 <br
>Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar:
"Bakom Blindpassasjer: del
1"
744 <br
>Date: Sat,
30 Oct
2010 08:
24:
34 +
0200</p
>
746 <p
>[Anders Hofseth]
747 <br
>> Hei Petter.
</p
>
749 <p
>Hei.
</p
>
751 <p
>> Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon, men
752 <br
>> om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt om
753 <br
>> å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
754 <br
>> særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.
</p
>
756 <p
>Godt å se at du er enig i at dette er en interessant diskusjon. Den
757 vil nok fortsette en stund til. :)
</p
>
759 <p
>Må innrømme at jeg synes det er merkelig å lese at dere i NRK med
760 vitende og vilje ønsker å forlede rettighetshaverne for å kunne
761 fortsette å legge ut arkivmateriale.
</p
>
763 <p
>Kommentarer og diskusjoner i bloggene til NRK Beta påvirker jo ikke
764 faktum, som er at streaming er det samme som nedlasting, og at innhold
765 som er lagt ut på nett kan lagres lokalt for avspilling når en ønsker
768 <p
>Det du sier er jo at klarering av arkivmateriale for publisering på
769 web krever at en holder faktum skjult fra debattfeltet på NRKBeta.
770 Det er ikke et argument som holder vann. :)
</p
>
772 <p
>> Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er fjernet
773 <br
>> og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
774 <br
>> konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...
</p
>
776 <p
>Personlig ønsker jeg at NRK skal slutte å stikke hodet i sanden og
777 heller være åpne på hvordan virkeligheten fungerer, samt ta opp kampen
778 mot de som vil låse kulturen inne. Jeg synes det er en skam at NRK
779 godtar å forlede publikum. Ville heller at NRK krever at innhold som
780 skal sendes skal være uten bruksbegresninger og kan publiseres i
781 formater som heller ikke har bruksbegresninger (bruksbegresningene til
782 H
.264 burde få varselbjellene i NRK til å ringe).
</p
>
784 <p
>At NRK er med på DRM-tåkeleggingen og at det kommer feilaktive
785 påstander om at
"streaming beskytter mot nedlasting
" som bare er egnet
786 til å bygge opp om en myte som er skadelig for samfunnet som helhet.
</p
>
788 <p
>Anbefaler
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
09/
03/h-
264-and-foss/
">http://webmink.com/
2010/
09/
03/h-
264-and-foss/
</a
>> og en
790 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
</a
> >.
791 for å se hva slags bruksbegresninger H
.264 innebærer.
</p
>
793 <p
>Hvis dette innebærer at NRK må være åpne med at arkivmaterialet ikke
794 kan brukes før rettighetshaverene også innser at de er med på å skade
795 samfunnets kultur og kollektive hukommelse, så får en i hvert fall
796 synliggjort konsekvensene og antagelig mer flammer på en debatt som er
797 langt på overtid.
</p
>
799 <p
>> Ring meg om noe er uklart: XXX
</p
>
801 <p
>Intet uklart, men ikke imponert over måten dere håndterer debatten på.
802 Hadde du i stedet kommet med et tilsvar i kommentarfeltet der en
803 gjorde det klart at blindpassasjer-blogpostingen ikke var riktig sted
804 for videre diskusjon hadde dere i mine øyne kommet fra det med
805 ryggraden på plass.
</p
>
807 <p
>PS: Interessant å se at NRK-ansatte ikke bruker NRK-epostadresser.
</p
>
809 <p
>Som en liten avslutning, her er noen litt morsomme innslag om temaet.
810 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft
">http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft
</a
> > og
811 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://patentabsurdity.com/
">http://patentabsurdity.com/
</a
> > hadde vært noe å kringkaste på
814 <p
>Vennlig hilsen,
816 <br
>Petter Reinholdtsen
</p
>
821 <title>Officeshots still going strong
</title>
822 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html
</link>
823 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html
</guid>
824 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 09:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
825 <description><p
>Half a year ago I
826 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
">wrote
827 a bit
</a
> about
<a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/
">OfficeShots
</a
>,
828 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
829 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.
</p
>
831 <p
>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
832 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
833 different Office implementations handle different ODF features. Sad
834 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
835 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
836 for OfficeShots users yet). I am glad to see that the ODF community
837 got such a great test tool available.
</p
>
842 <title>The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru
</title>
843 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html
</link>
844 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html
</guid>
845 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 10:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
846 <description><p
>A few days ago
847 <a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece
">an
848 article
</a
> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
850 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework
">European
851 Interoperability Framework
</a
> has been successfully lobbied by the
852 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
853 Nothing very surprising there, given
854 <a href=
"http://news.slashdot.org/story/
10/
03/
29/
2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe
">earlier
855 reports
</a
> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
856 this work. But I find this very sad. The definition of
857 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-
200506.txt
">an
858 open standard from version
1</a
> was very good, and something I
859 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
860 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">the
861 definition from Digistan
</A
>. Version
2 have removed the open
862 standard definition from its content.
</p
>
864 <p
>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
865 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
866 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
867 in the public sector in Peru. As the text was not available from a
868 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
869 <a href=
"http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html
">my
870 source
</a
> to ensure it is available also in the future. Some
871 background information about that story is available in
872 <a href=
"http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/
6099">an article
</a
> from
873 Linux Journal in
2002.
</p
>
876 <p
>Lima,
8th of April,
2002<br
>
877 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ
<br
>
878 General Manager of Microsoft Perú
</p
>
880 <p
>Dear Sir:
</p
>
882 <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
>
884 <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
>
886 <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
>
888 <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
>
892 <li
>Free access to public information by the citizen.
</li
>
893 <li
>Permanence of public data.
</li
>
894 <li
>Security of the State and citizens.
</li
>
898 <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
>
900 <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
>
902 <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
>
904 <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
>
906 <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
>
909 <p
>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:
<br
>
910 <li
>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software
</li
>
911 <li
>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software
</li
>
912 <li
>the law does not specify which concrete software to use
</li
>
913 <li
>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought
</li
>
914 <li
>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.
</li
>
918 <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
>
920 <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
>
922 <p
>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:
</p
>
924 <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
>
926 <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
>
928 <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
>
930 <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
>
932 <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
>
934 <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
>
936 <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
>
938 <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
>
940 <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
>
942 <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
>
944 <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
>
946 <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
>
948 <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
>
950 <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
>
952 <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
>
954 <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
>
956 <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
>
958 <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
>
960 <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
>
962 <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
>
964 <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
>
966 <p
>On security:
</p
>
968 <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
>
970 <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
>
972 <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
>
974 <p
>In respect of the guarantee:
</p
>
976 <p
>As 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
>
978 <p
>On Intellectual Property:
</p
>
980 <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
>
982 <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
>
984 <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
>
986 <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
>
988 <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
>
990 <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
>
992 <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
>
994 <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
>
996 <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
>
998 <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
>
1000 <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
>
1002 <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
>
1004 <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
>
1006 <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
>
1008 <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
>
1010 <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
>
1012 <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
>
1014 <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
>
1016 <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
>
1018 <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
>
1020 <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
>
1022 <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
>
1024 <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
>
1026 <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
>
1028 <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
>
1030 <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
>
1032 <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
>
1034 <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
>
1036 <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
>
1038 <p
>Cordially,
<br
>
1039 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ
<br
>
1040 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.
</p
>
1046 <title>Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?
</title>
1047 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
</link>
1048 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
</guid>
1049 <pubDate>Sat,
25 Dec
2010 20:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1050 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">The
1051 Digistan definition
</a
> of a free and open standard reads like this:
</p
>
1055 <p
>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
1056 as follows:
</p
>
1060 <li
>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
1061 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
1062 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
</li
>
1064 <li
>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
1065 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
1066 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
1069 <li
>The standard has been published and the standard specification
1070 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
1071 distribute, and use it freely.
</li
>
1073 <li
>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
1074 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
</li
>
1076 <li
>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
</li
>
1080 <p
>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
1081 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
1082 products based on the standard.
</p
>
1085 <p
>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
1086 and open standard according to this definition. Here is a short
1087 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far. I brought up the
1088 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
1089 <a href=
"http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/
2009-July/
001632.html
">in
1090 July
2009</a
>, for those that want to see some background information.
1091 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
1092 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.
</p
>
1094 <p
><strong
>Free from vendor capture?
</strong
></p
>
1096 <p
>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
1097 Ogg Theora specification. It can be argued that the
1098 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/
">Xiph foundation
</A
> is such vendor, but
1099 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
1100 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
1101 obvious that this is a real risk. One issue with the Xiph
1102 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
1103 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web. I
've
1104 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
1105 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
1106 where is is spent in the foundation. It is thus not obvious for an
1107 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
1108 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
1109 specification. But it seem unlikely.
</p
>
1111 <p
><strong
>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?
</strong
></p
>
1113 <p
>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
1114 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled. If Xiph foundation is
1115 controlled by a single vendor, it isn
't, but I have not found any
1116 documentation indicating this.
</p
>
1118 <p
>According to
1119 <a href=
"http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf
">a report
</a
>
1120 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
1121 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
1122 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
1123 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
1124 report is correct.
</p
>
1126 <p
><strong
>Specification freely available?
</strong
></p
>
1128 <p
>The specification for the
<a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/
">Ogg
1129 container format
</a
> and both the
1130 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/
">Vorbis
</a
> and
1131 <a href=
"http://theora.org/doc/
">Theora
</a
> codeces are available on
1132 the web. This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
1136 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
1137 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
1138 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
1139 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
1140 specification compliance.
1144 <p
>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
1145 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt
">RFC
3533</a
>, and
1146 this is the term:
<p
>
1150 <p
>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
1151 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
1152 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
1153 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
1154 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
1155 included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
1156 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
1157 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
1158 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
1159 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
1160 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
1161 translate it into languages other than English.
</p
>
1163 <p
>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
1164 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
</p
>
1167 <p
>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
1168 this term seem to be fulfilled. There might be a problem with the
1169 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
1170 thus reuse it in other specifications. Not quite sure if that is a
1171 requirement for the Digistan definition.
</p
>
1173 <p
><strong
>Royalty-free?
</strong
></p
>
1175 <p
>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
1177 <a href=
"http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=
65782">MPEG-LA
</a
>
1179 <a href=
"http://yro.slashdot.org/story/
10/
04/
30/
237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit
">Steve
1180 Jobs
</a
> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
1181 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
1182 them. Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
1183 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
1184 without paying any royalties. For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
1185 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H
.264 codec
1186 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.
</p
>
1188 <p
><strong
>No constraints on re-use?
</strong
></p
>
1190 <p
>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.
</p
>
1192 <p
><strong
>Conclusion
</strong
></p
>
1194 <p
>3 of
5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining
2
1195 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation. Given the
1196 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
1197 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
1198 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
1201 <p
>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
1202 see if they are free and open standards.
</p
>
1207 <title>The many definitions of a open standard
</title>
1208 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html
</link>
1209 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html
</guid>
1210 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Dec
2010 14:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1211 <description><p
>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
1212 "<a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">Free and
1213 Open Standard
</a
>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
1214 the term has been decided by Digistan. The term
"Open Standard
" has
1215 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
1216 about standards. One end up discussing which definition is the best
1217 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
1218 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.
</p
>
1220 <p
>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
1221 standards, here are a few that I know about. This list is not
1222 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
1223 complete survey. More definitions are available on the
1224 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
">wikipedia
1225 page
</a
>.
</p
>
1227 <p
>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
1228 Interoperability Framework version
1.0. Really sad to notice that BSA
1229 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version
2.0 of the
1230 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
1231 their own people. Anyway, the definition is still available and it
1232 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
1233 specification on equal terms.
</p
>
1237 <p
>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
1238 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
1239 open standard:
</p
>
1243 <li
>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
1244 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
1245 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
1246 (consensus or majority decision etc.).
</li
>
1248 <li
>The standard has been published and the standard specification
1249 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
1250 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
1251 nominal fee.
</li
>
1253 <li
>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
1254 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
1255 free basis.
</li
>
1257 <li
>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
</li
>
1262 <p
>Another one originates from my friends over at
1263 <a href=
"http://www.dkuug.dk/
">DKUUG
</a
>, who coined and gathered
1264 support for
<a href=
"http://www.aaben-standard.dk/
">this
1265 definition
</a
> in
2004. It even made it into the Danish parlament as
1266 <a href=
"http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/
20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm
">their
1267 definition of a open standard
</a
>. Another from a different part of
1268 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.
</p
>
1272 <p
>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:
</p
>
1276 <li
>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
1277 tilgængelig.
</li
>
1279 <li
>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
1280 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.
</li
>
1282 <li
>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
1283 "standardiseringsorganisation
") via en åben proces.
</li
>
1289 <p
>Then there is
<a href=
"http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html
">the
1290 definition
</a
> from Free Software Foundation Europe.
</p
>
1294 <p
>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is
</p
>
1298 <li
>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
1299 manner equally available to all parties;
</li
>
1301 <li
>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
1302 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
1303 Standard themselves;
</li
>
1305 <li
>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
1306 any party or in any business model;
</li
>
1308 <li
>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
1309 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
1312 <li
>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
1313 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
1320 <p
>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
1322 <a href=
"http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%
20Standard%
20Definition.pdf
">Open
1323 Standards Checklist
</a
> with a fairly detailed description.
</p
>
1326 <p
>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
1330 <li
>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
1335 <li
>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
1336 participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
1337 imposed by the organization under which it is developed
1338 and managed.
</li
>
1340 <li
>The processes must be documented and, through a known
1341 method, can be changed through input from all
1342 participants.
</li
>
1344 <li
>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
1345 the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.
</li
>
1347 <li
>Development and management should strive for consensus,
1348 and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.
</li
>
1350 <li
>The standard specification must be open to extensive
1351 public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
1352 comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.
</li
>
1360 <p
>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard
</p
>
1363 <li
>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
1364 and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
1365 implementations to the interface described in the standard without
1366 undue or restrictive constraints. Interfaces include APIs,
1367 protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.
</li
>
1369 <li
> The standard must not contain any proprietary
"hooks
" that create
1370 a technical or economic barriers
</li
>
1372 <li
>Faithful implementations of the standard must
1373 interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
1374 program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
1375 programs and mutually to use the information which has been
1376 exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
1377 file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
1378 conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
1379 computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
1380 intended to function.
</li
>
1382 <li
>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
1383 standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
1384 must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.
</li
>
1386 <li
>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
1387 fees; also known as
"royalty free
"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
1388 perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
1389 sell products based on the standard. The only exceptions are
1390 terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
1391 outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
1392 patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
1393 only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
1397 <li
> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
1398 licensees
' patent claims essential to practice that standard
1399 (also known as a reciprocity clause)
</li
>
1401 <li
> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
1402 or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
1403 essential to practice that standard (also known as a
1404 "defensive suspension
" clause)
</li
>
1406 <li
> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
1412 <li
>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
1413 implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
1414 or restricted licensing terms
</li
>
1420 <p
>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
1421 there are so many of them. As you can see, the same holds true for
1422 open standard definitions. Most of the definitions have a lot in
1423 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
1424 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
1425 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
1426 competition to downplay the significance of open standards. I hope we
1427 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
1428 Standards.
</p
>
1433 <title>What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?
</title>
1434 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html
</link>
1435 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html
</guid>
1436 <pubDate>Thu,
30 Dec
2010 23:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1437 <description><p
>After trying to
1438 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
">compare
1439 Ogg Theora
</a
> to
1440 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">the Digistan
1441 definition
</a
> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
1442 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
1443 this. As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
1444 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-
8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
1445 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others. But to be able to complete this in a
1446 reasonable time frame, I will need help.
</p
>
1448 <p
>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
1449 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse
">the
1450 wiki pages I have set up for this
</a
>, and let me know that you want
1451 to help out. The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
1452 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
1453 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
1454 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).
</p
>
1456 <p
>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do. Do not be
1457 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)
</p
>
1462 <title>Chrome plan to drop H
.264 support for HTML5
&lt;video
&gt;
</title>
1463 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html
</link>
1464 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html
</guid>
1465 <pubDate>Wed,
12 Jan
2011 22:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1466 <description><p
>Today I discovered
1467 <a href=
"http://www.digi.no/
860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome
">via
1468 digi.no
</a
> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
1469 <a href=
"http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html
">yesterday
1470 announced
</a
> plans to drop H
.264 support for HTML5
&lt;video
&gt; in
1471 the browser. The argument used is that H
.264 is not a
"completely
1472 open
" codec technology. If you believe H
.264 was free for everyone
1473 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
1474 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-
264/
">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
1475 Free That Matters
</a
>". It is not free of cost for creators of video
1476 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
1477 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
1478 licensing the patents needed for H
.264. Some background information
1479 on the Google announcement is available from
1480 <a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome
">OSnews
</a
>.
1481 A good read. :)
</p
>
1483 <p
>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
1484 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
1485 the Internet. This can only be done by publishing using free and open
1486 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
1487 for these free and open standards. At the moment there seem to be two
1488 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support. Some
1489 browsers support H
.264, and others support
1490 <a href=
"http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg Theora
</a
> and
1491 <a href=
"http://www.webmproject.org/
">WebM
</a
>
1492 (
<a href=
"http://www.diracvideo.org/
">Dirac
</a
> is not really an option
1493 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
1494 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
1495 H
.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
1496 Wikipedia keep
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video
">an
1497 updated summary
</a
> of the current browser support.
</p
>
1499 <p
>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
1500 promoting H
.264, and John Gruber
1501 <a href=
"http://daringfireball.net/
2011/
01/simple_questions
">presents
1502 the mind set
</a
> of these people quite well. His rhetorical questions
1503 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
1504 <a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/
24245/
10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM
">presenting
1505 the issues with H
.264</a
>. Both are worth a read.
</p
>
1507 <p
>Some argue that if Google is dropping H
.264 because it isn
't free,
1508 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin. This
1509 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
1510 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2011/
01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm
">todays
1511 blog post
</a
>, which I find to put the issue in context. To me it
1512 make perfect sense to drop native H
.264 support for HTML5 in the
1513 browser while still allowing plugins.
</p
>
1515 <p
>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
1516 is that all the users and promoters of H
.264 suddenly get an uneasy
1517 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse. A lot of TV
1518 broadcasters have been moving to H
.264 the last few years, and a lot
1519 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
1520 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
1521 publishing. Suddenly this belief is shaken.
</p
>
1523 <p
>An interesting question is why Google is doing this. While the
1524 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
1525 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
1526 perspective. One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
1527 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
1528 feeling that dropping H
.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
1529 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
1530 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
1531 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
1532 video format not requiring royalties at all. A third reason might be
1533 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
1534 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
1535 I guess time will tell.
</p
>
1537 <p
>Update
2011-
01-
15: The Google Chrome team provided
1538 <a href=
"http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html
">more
1539 background and information on the move
</a
> it a blog post yesterday.
</p
>
1544 <title>The video format most supported in web browsers?
</title>
1545 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html
</link>
1546 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html
</guid>
1547 <pubDate>Sun,
16 Jan
2011 00:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1548 <description><p
>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
1549 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H
.264 and WebM. Most video sites
1550 seem to use H
.264, while others use Ogg Theora. Interestingly enough,
1551 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
1552 H
.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
1553 the Wikipedia article on
1554 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video
">HTML5 video
</a
>,
1555 this is not true. Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
1556 different browsers there. The format supported by most browsers is
1557 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
1558 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
1559 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
1560 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
1561 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
1562 Firefox. H
.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
1563 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
1564 Explorer. Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
1565 Safari can install plugins to get it.
</p
>
1567 <p
>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
1568 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
1569 HTML5 video tag. Of course to reach all those without a browser
1570 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms. In
1571 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG
</a
>, we provide first fallback to a
1572 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
1573 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
1574 Theora. This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an
<a
1575 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20110111-semantic-web/
">example
1576 from last week
</a
>.
</p
>
1578 <p
>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H
.264 is
1579 the least supported is simple. Implementing and using H
.264
1580 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
1581 are incompatible with free software licensing. If you believed H
.264
1582 was without royalties and license terms, check out
1583 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-
264/
">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
1584 Free That Matters
</a
>" by Simon Phipps.
</p
>
1586 <p
>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
1588 <a href=
"http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos
">the
1589 Xiph.org wiki
</a
>, if you want to have a look. I
'm not aware of a
1590 similar list for WebM nor H
.264.
</p
>
1592 <p
>Update
2011-
01-
16 09:
40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
1593 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
1594 &lt;video
&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
1595 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.
</p
>
1600 <title>RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory
</title>
1601 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html
</link>
1602 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html
</guid>
1603 <pubDate>Thu,
19 Apr
2012 22:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1604 <description><p
>Here in Norway, the
1605 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=
339"> Ministry of
1606 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs
</a
> is behind
1607 a
<a href=
"http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder
">directory of
1608 standards
</a
> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
1609 government. When the directory was created, the people behind it made
1610 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
1611 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
1612 to the government. Free software and non-free software could compete
1613 on the same level.
</p
>
1615 <p
>But recently, some standards with RAND
1616 (
<a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing
">Reasonable
1617 And Non-Discriminatory
</a
>) terms have made their way into the
1618 directory. And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
1619 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
1620 implementing them. The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
1621 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
1622 willing to pay will get a license. Both sound great in theory. In
1623 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
1624 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user. By
1625 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
1626 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
1627 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
1628 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
1629 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
1630 to implement a standard when the income available is zero. The result
1631 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
1632 implementing standards with RAND terms.
</p
>
1634 <p
>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
1635 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
1636 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory. Because free
1637 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
1638 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
1639 in Norway. The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
1640 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
1641 attention to these issues in the future.
</p
>
1643 <p
>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
1645 (
<a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2010/
11/rand-not-so-reasonable/
">RAND:
1646 Not So Reasonable?
</a
>).
</p
>
1648 <p
>Update
2012-
04-
21: Just came across a
1649 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm
">blog
1650 post from Glyn Moody
</a
> over at Computer World UK warning about the
1651 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government. I
1652 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
1653 <a href=
"http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder
">the
1654 hearing taking place at the moment
</a
> (respond before
2012-
04-
27).
1655 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
1656 specifications with RAND terms.
</p
>
1661 <title>HTC One X - Your video? What do you mean?
</title>
1662 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html
</link>
1663 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html
</guid>
1664 <pubDate>Thu,
26 Apr
2012 13:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1665 <description><p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece
">an
1666 article today
</a
> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
1667 <a href=
"http://www.urke.com/eirik/
">Eirik Helland Urke
</a
> reports
1668 that the video editor application included with
1669 <a href=
"http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs
">HTC One
1670 X
</a
> have some quite surprising terms of use. The article is mostly
1671 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
1673 <p
><blockquote
>
1674 "<a href=
"http://twitter.com/urke/status/
194062269724897280">Drøy
1675 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
1676 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.
</a
>"
1677 </blockquote
></p
>
1679 <p
>I quickly translated it to this English message:
</p
>
1681 <p
><blockquote
>
1682 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
1683 commercially. Although I can ONLY use them privately.
"
1684 </blockquote
></p
>
1686 <p
>I
've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
1687 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
1688 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
">discovered
1689 with my Canon IXUS
130</a
>. The HTC One X specification specifies that
1690 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
1692 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues
">Adaptive
1693 Multi-Rate audio codec
</a
> with patents which according to the
1694 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
1695 <a href=
"http://www.voiceage.com/
">VoiceAge
</a
>. MP4 is
1696 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
.264/MPEG-
4_AVC#Patent_licensing
">MPEG4 with
1697 H
.264</a
>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
1698 with
<a href=
"http://www.mpegla.com/
">MPEG-LA
</a
>.
</p
>
1700 <p
>I know why I prefer
1701 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and open
1702 standards
</a
> also for video.
</p
>
1707 <title>NUUGs leverer høringsuttalelse om v3.1 av statens referansekatalog
</title>
1708 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUGs_leverer_h_ringsuttalelse_om_v3_1_av_statens_referansekatalog.html
</link>
1709 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUGs_leverer_h_ringsuttalelse_om_v3_1_av_statens_referansekatalog.html
</guid>
1710 <pubDate>Fri,
27 Apr
2012 15:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1711 <description><p
>NUUG-styremedlem Hans-Petter Fjeld
1712 <a href=
"https://plus.google.com/u/
0/
110394259537201279374/posts/AGzRmAuFdW1
">meldte
1713 nettopp
</a
> at han har sendt inn
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG
</a
>s
1714 høringsuttalelse angående Difi sin standardkatalog v3.1. Jeg er veldig
1715 glad for at så mange bidro og sikret at vår stemme blir hørt i denne
1716 høringen. Anbefaler alle å lese våre
1717 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/
201204-standardkatalog-v3.1
">to
1718 sider med innspill
</a
>.
</p
>
projects / homepage.git / blob