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  12  <div class="title">
  13   <h1>
  14        <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16   </h1>
  17
  18  </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22  <div class="entry">
  23   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_intervju__Arnt_Ove_Gregersen.html">Skolelinux-intervju: Arnt Ove Gregersen</a></div>
  24   <div class="date">2011-01-09 12:00</div>
  25   <div class="body">
  26 <p>Inspirert av
  27 <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">intervjurunden</a>
  28 som Raphael Hertzog har startet med folk i Debianprosjektet, fikk jeg
  29 lyst til å gjøre det samme med folk i
  30 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinuxprosjektet</a>.  Håpet
  31 er at de som til daglig bidrar til å fremme fri programvare i
  32 skoleverket og utvikler en linux-distribusjon spesiallaget for
  33 skolebruk kan bli bedre kjent og kanskje inspirere flere til å bidra
  34 til Skolelinux-prosjektet.</p>
  35
  36 <p>Først ut er nyvalgt leder i
  37 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/">foreningen FRISK</a> som
  38 organiserer utviklingen av Skolelinux-distribusjonen.  FRISK trenger
  39 alltid flere medlemmer, så
  40 <a href="http://medlem.friprogramvareiskolen.no/index.php?page=signup">meld
  41 deg gjerne inn</a> hvis du vil støtte oss.</p>
  42
  43 <p><strong>Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?</strong></p>
  44
  45 <p>Mitt navn er Arnt Ove Gregersen, jeg er en småbarnfar på 32 år som
  46 for tiden bor Trondheim. Her jobber jeg som systemutvikler i et firma
  47 som heter <a href="http://www.geomatikk-ikt.no/">Geomatikk IKT AS</a>,
  48 hvor jeg er på et Vegmeldings-prosjekt for Statens Vegvesen. På
  49 fritiden er jeg styreleder i FRISK (Fri programvare i skolen) og
  50 bidrar til bl.a. Skolelinux-prosjektet når jeg får tid til det. Det er
  51 primært hjemmesiden til Skolelinux-prosjektet og
  52 <a href="http://linuxveiviseren.no/">Linux-veiviseren</a> jeg har
  53 jobbet med her, men jeg har også gjort en del arbeid i forhold til
  54 FRISK sin hjemmeside.</p>
  55
  56 <p><strong>Hvordan kom du i kontakt med Skolelinux-prosjektet?</strong></p>
  57
  58 <p>Jeg var på en presentasjon av prosjektet i regi av Knut Yrvin på
  59 Gløshaugen i Trondheim, hvor jeg fattet stor interesse for prosjektet
  60 og ville hjelpe til så godt jeg kunne.  Dette var vel i 2002 eller
  61 2003.</p>
  62
  63 <p>Jeg hadde fra før hørt om prosjektet fra før og syntes tanken bak var
  64 ganske fin, men hadde ikke noen interesse av bruke min egen fritid på
  65 det selv.</p>
  66
  67 <p>I etterkant av presentasjonen startet jeg og noen andre fra
  68 Trondheim "Skolelinux-prosjektet i Sør-Trøndelag" . Hvor vi var med å
  69 bidra til at Trondheim kommune satte igang Selsbakk ungdomskole som et
  70 pilotprosjekt med Skolelinux, som egentlig var og er en stor suksess,
  71 men det virker ut som det ikke skjer noe mer på. I tillegg var vi med
  72 på dugnad på Brundalen videregående skole hvor vi installerte
  73 Skolelinux som såvidt jeg vet fortsatt kjører på Skolelinux.</p>
  74
  75 <p><strong>Hva er fordelene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
  76
  77 <p>Det bygger på fri programvare og har lav kostnad i forhold til
  78 nytteverdien. Dette fordi det har forholdsvis lav inngangsum og bruker
  79 en arkitektur med sentral-drift som gir mange driftfordeler.  I
  80 tillegg vil det kunne frigjøre kostnader for skolene slik at de kan
  81 bruke dem til å ansette f,eks flere lærere om det er ønskelig.</p>
  82
  83 <p><strong>Hva er ulempene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
  84
  85 <P>Ikke all pedagogisk programvare er tilgjengelig der, som f.eks
  86 Drillpro om jeg ikke husker feil.</p>
  87
  88 <p><strong>Hvilken fri programvare bruker du til daglig?</strong></p>
  89
  90 <p>Til utvikling av Java-applikasjoner og Android bruker jeg Eclipse og
  91 Quanta til web-utvikling via php. For all bildebehandling bruker jeg
  92 GIMP og Blender til 3d-modellering . Dessverre har Blender en bratt
  93 læringskurve i starten, men det er absolutt verdt det.
  94
  95 <p>Til musikk bruker jeg stort Rhytmbox. Firefox til surfing på nettet og
  96 Thunderbird og Evolution til e-post,
  97
  98 <p>På database-siden bruker jeg PostgreSQL, Postgis og av og til Mysql.
  99
 100 <p>Når jeg får tid til å spille bruker jeg som regel et strategi-spill
 101 som er basert på TA Spring-motoren (springrts.com), her er det et
 102 veldig bra utvalg av gratis spill som er av høy kvalitet. Veldig lett
 103 å bli hektet :)</p>
 104 </div>
 105   <div class="tags">
 106
 107
 108
 109    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 110
 111   </div>
 112  </div>
 113  <div class="padding"></div>
 114
 115  <div class="entry">
 116   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Noen_lenker_om_Datalagringsdirektivet.html">Noen lenker om Datalagringsdirektivet</a></div>
 117   <div class="date">2011-01-09 01:10</div>
 118   <div class="body">
 119 <p>Arbeiderpartiet har tvunget igjennom et forslag i regjeringen om
 120 at alle borgere i Norge skal overvåkes kontinuerlig i tilfelle vi gjør
 121 noe galt, slik at politiet får det enklere under etterforskningen.
 122 Sikkerhetstjenesten vil få tilgang uten at noen er mistenkt, mens
 123 politiet i starten må ha mistanke om noe kriminelt.  Forslaget omtales
 124 generelt som datalagringsdirektivet eller DLD, da det kommer på
 125 bakgrunn av et direktiv fra EU.</p
 126
 127 <p>Det er diskutabelt om slik datalagring er nyttig i
 128 kriminalitetsbekjemping. Når oppgaven er å finne nåla i høystakken, er
 129 det slett ikke sikkert at det hjelper å hive på mere høy. Og det er
 130 nettopp dette lagring av informasjon om alle i landet vil gjøre.
 131 Politiet har flere ganger demonstrert manglende evne til å håndtere de
 132 datamengdene de har tilgang til i dag, og det er grunn til å tro at de
 133 vil få større problemer hvis de må håndtere større datamengder. Dermed
 134 kan faktisk DLD gjøre politiet mindre effektive.</p>
 135
 136 <p>Her følger endel aktuelle lenker om saken, for deg som vil lære
 137 mer.</p>
 138
 139 <ul>
 140
 141 <li><a href="http://stoppdld.no/">Stopp DLD</a> er en organisasjon
 142   opprettet for å hindre at DLD blir innført i Norge.  14 tusen
 143   stykker har signert oppropet til Stopp DLD så langt.  Jeg anbefaler
 144   deg å gjøre det samme</li>
 145
 146 <li>Det planlegges en demonstrasjon mot DLD
 147   <a href="http://stoppdld.no/2011/01/06/demonstrasjon-mot-datalagringsdirektivet/">tirsdag
 148   2011-01-11 kl. 17:00</a> utenfor stortinget.  Det kan være en
 149   god start på ettermiddagen før en besøker NUUGs
 150   <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">presentasjon
 151   av semantisk web</a> kl. 18:30.
 152
 153 <li>Stopp DLD har fått et
 154   <a href="http://stoppdld.no/2010/12/17/regjeringen-datamisbruk/">Svarbrev
 155   fra regjeringen </a> der regjeringen innrømmer at en må regne med
 156   misbruk av informasjonen samlet inn på bakgrunn av DLD.  Får meg til
 157   å minnes det norske forsvaret som i sin høringsuttalelse anbefalte å
 158   ikke innføre DLD av sikkerhetshensyn.</li>
 159
 160 <li>I romjula 2010 gikk justisminister Storberget ut og forklarte at
 161   innføring av DLD vil styrke personvernet.  For noen dager siden gikk
 162   derfor Datatilsynet ut og forklarte at
 163   <a href="http://www.datatilsynet.no/templates/Page____3661.aspx">DLD
 164   uten tvil vil svekke personvernet</a> og at justisministeren tar
 165   feil.</li>
 166
 167 <li>I Tyskland har grunnlovsdomstolen besluttet at DLD strider mot
 168   grunnloven i Tyskland, og
 169   <a href="http://linux1.no/artikkel/4638/tysklands-justisminister-nekter-gjeninnfore-dld">en
 170   artikkel i linux1.no</a> forteller at Tysklands justisminister ikke
 171   vil forsøke på nytt å få DLD innført i Tyskland, men heller basere
 172   seg på regler om frysing av data om enkeltpersoner når politiet har
 173   konkrete mistanker.  Jeg lurer på hvorfor DLD er i strid med den
 174   tyske grunnloven, men ikke den norske.
 175
 176 <li>Det er flere EU- og EØS-land som ikke har innført DLD så langt.
 177   <a href="http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Overview_of_national_data_retention_policies">En
 178   liste</a> er tilgjengelig fra
 179   <a href="http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/">Stoppt die
 180   Vorratsdatenspeicherung</a> i Tyskland.</li>
 181
 182 <li>Det er ikke bare mobiltelefoni og Internet-bruk som planlegges
 183   overvåket i Norge.  Et mindre kjent forslag som planlegges
 184   gjennomført er mer massiv overvåkning av biler, der hver bil
 185   utstyres med en sort boks omtalt som eCall som både holder rede på
 186   hvor bilen er til enhver tid, og som kan aktivisere telefonisk
 187   forbindelse inne i bilen (dvs. høytaler og mikrofon) kontrollert av
 188   folk som ikke sitter i bilen.  Mer informasjon om dette finner en <a
 189   href="http://datatilsynet.no/templates/article____1827.aspx">på
 190   datatilsynets sider</a>.
 191
 192 <li>Hvis du lurer på om DLD kan omgås for mobiltelefoner, anbefaler
 193   jeg at du tar en titt på
 194   <a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/frikanalen/fetchvideo.cgi?videoId=5095">en
 195   liten video</a> som NUUG har begynt å sende på Frikanalen nå i jula.</li>
 196
 197 </ul>
 198 </div>
 199   <div class="tags">
 200
 201
 202
 203    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
 204
 205   </div>
 206  </div>
 207  <div class="padding"></div>
 208
 209  <div class="entry">
 210   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_kringkaster_T_banen_i_Oslo_sine_overv__kningskamerasignaler_.html">Hvordan kringkaster T-banen i Oslo sine overvåkningskamerasignaler?</a></div>
 211   <div class="date">2011-01-05 18:30</div>
 212   <div class="body">
 213 <p>Jeg er den fornøyde eier av en håndholdt trådløs kamerascanner,
 214 dvs. en radioscanner som automatisk scanner frekvensområdet 900 - 2500
 215 MHz og snapper opp radiokilder med PAL eller NTCS TV-signal og viser
 216 signalet frem på en liten skjerm.  Veldig morsom å ha med seg for å se
 217 hva som finnes av trådløse overvåkningskamera.  En får se bildet som
 218 kameraet tar opp. :)</p>
 219
 220 <p>Men en kilde har den ikke klart å snappe opp: Sporveiens
 221 overvåkningskamera på T-banestasjonene.  Bildet sendes åpenbart
 222 trådløst til T-baneføreren, men min scanner har ikke klart å ta inn
 223 signalet.  For å forsøke å finne ut av dette tok jeg i dag en nærmere
 224 titt på en av boksene som sto på Forskningsparken T-banestasjon for å
 225 se hva det er som sendes ut.</p>
 226
 227 <p>Boksen hadde følgende tekst:</p>
 228
 229 <blockquote><pre>
 230 SupraLink
 231 Outdoor Transmitter 5.8 GHz
 232
 233 default channel [ ]
 234   identity code [ ]
 235
 236 VTQ Videotronik
 237 06268 Querfurt
 238 <a href="http://www.vtq.de/">www.vtq.de</a>
 239 Made in Germany
 240
 241 AC 230V   [strekkode]
 242 max 10W   84230936
 243 </pre></blockquote>
 244
 245 <p>Det var hyggelig av produsenten å legge inn lenke til nettsiden
 246 sin.  Der hadde de mye stilig elektronikk.  Og forklaringen på hvorfor
 247 min scanner ikke tar inn signalet er åpenbar ut fra merkelappen.  5.8
 248 GHz er langt over min scanners grense på 2.5 GHz.  Trenger visst en
 249 kraftigere scanner. :)</p>
 250 </div>
 251   <div class="tags">
 252
 253
 254
 255    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 256
 257   </div>
 258  </div>
 259  <div class="padding"></div>
 260
 261  <div class="entry">
 262   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Inspirerende_fra_en_ukjent_Skolelinux_skole.html">Inspirerende fra en ukjent Skolelinux-skole</a></div>
 263   <div class="date">2011-01-04 07:50</div>
 264   <div class="body">
 265 <p>Følgende inspirerende historie fant jeg i
 266 <a href="http://www.digi.no/php/ny_debatt.php?id=858869#innlegg_770926">kommentarfeltet
 267 hos digi.no</a> i forbindelse med en trist sak om hvordan
 268 <a href="http://www.digi.no/858869/datakaos-etter-linux-satsing">skolen
 269 i Hemsedal har fått ødelagt</a> sin Skolelinux-installasjon.  Jeg har
 270 fikset endel åpenbare skrivefeil for lesbarhetens skyld.</p>
 271
 272 <blockquote>
 273 <p><strong>Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
 274 <br>av Inspektør Siri (gjest)
 275
 276 <p>Kommunen min har to omtrent jevnstore tettsteder, og en
 277 ungdomsskole i hvert av tettstedene. Den minste av disse har ca 300
 278 elever og til denne sogner det 3 barneskoler. Den største har ca 350
 279 elever og til denne sogner det 4 barneskoler.</p>
 280
 281 <ul>
 282
 283 <li>Kommunen har i veldig lang tid forsømt IKT i skolen, og det har
 284 bare blitt gitt smuler i ny og ne. Det er kun den største av
 285 ungdomsskolene som har hatt en skikkelig datapark, og dette takket
 286 være en naturfaglærer som ble lei av å vente på kommunen. Det gjorde
 287 at vi bestemte oss for å ta ting i egne hender, og da vha
 288 skolelinux. En testinstallasjon med 10 gamle PCer ble gjort, og vi så
 289 raskt at dette var veldig lovende. Neste etappe var å gi alle lærere
 290 egen PC på arbeidsplassene sine (2004), og så sette opp 16 PCer på to
 291 datarom. Vi har kun basert oss på å kjøpe inn brukte maskiner, og
 292 aldri dyrere enn 1000 kr pr klient. For to år siden så hadde vi
 293 klienter i alle klasserom, og totalt hadde vi da rundt 250 stk. Rundt
 294 40 klienter brukes av lærerne og kjører på en egen server. Elvene har
 295 resten, og kjører også en egen server. Servere har vi også kjøpt
 296 brukt, 2 år gamle servere koster 6-7000 kroner.</li>
 297
 298 <li>Skolen vår er et relativt gammelt bygg, men en meget dyktig
 299 vaktmester har sammen med IKT-ansvarlig/Naturfaglærer lagt kabler til alle
 300 rom. Gradvis har vi byttet ut billige svitsjer med mer solide saker
 301 som er mulig å fjernstyre.</li>
 302
 303 <li>Vi har i all hovedsak greid å få dette til over eget budsjett, men
 304 vi har også passet på å få penger når de andre skolene har fått
 305 bærbare PCer til lærere osv.</li>
 306
 307 <li>Vår IKT-ansvarlig har gjort (og gjør) en fenomenal jobb, og vi har
 308 en maskinpark som de andre av kommunens skoler bare kan drømme
 309 om.</li>
 310
 311 </ul>
 312
 313 <p>Så skjer det som ofte skjer. Det kommer en eller annen
 314 selger/blåruss og skal fikse ALT. I vårt tilfelle betyr dette også
 315 sentralisering av drift. Den ny-ansatte på kommunens IT-avdelingen
 316 skal også ha jobb, og ser for seg å ta over skoledriften. Kommunen
 317 kjøper inn eksterne driftstjenester, og nekter i samme slengen å ta
 318 hensyn til skolen vår. Dette til tross for at vi alene har like mange
 319 datamaskiner som de andre til sammen. </p>
 320
 321 <ul>
 322
 323 <li>Det blir krevd at vi skal innlemmes i de kommunale systemet, og
 324 det er VI som får ansvar for at dette kommer på plass. Og det er her
 325 de horrible tingene begynner å skje. </li>
 326
 327 <li>Det settes opp en lukket Exchange server som gjør av vi ikke kan
 328 hente epost for våre ansatte. Og det kreves at vi finner løsning på
 329 dette.</li>
 330
 331 <li>Det velges sak arkivsystem som vi pålegges å bruke, noe som gjør
 332 at vi må bruke en terminalløsning mot kommunal server. Ikke i seg selv
 333 et problem i følge IKT-ansvarlig hos oss. Men kommunens IT-avd nektet
 334 faktisk å åpne de porter OSV som vi måtte bruke.</li>
 335
 336 <li>Vi blir pålagt å flytte på innsiden av det kommunale
 337 nettverket. Dette gjorde at vi mistet hjemmekontor for lærere og
 338 elever. Å få åpnet porter i kommunal brannmur var ikke
 339 aktuelt. Mulighet for fjerndrift ble også vekk i samme slengen. </li>
 340
 341 <li>Vår LMS Moodle er ikke mulig å nå for elevene og lærerne.
 342
 343 </ul>
 344
 345 <p>Den andre ungdomsskolen i kommunen begynner så å kreve at de skal
 346 få bedre datatetthet, og komme opp på et nivå som ligner det vi
 347 har. De ser at vi kan avholde eksamen hvor alle 10. klassingene får
 348 sitte ved hver sin PC. Og de har fått tilbakemelding (klager) fra VGS
 349 om manglende datakompetanse på elevene som kommer fra dem. Dette fører
 350 videre til at kommunen endelig innser at de må ta grep. </p>
 351
 352 <p>Grepet betyr sentralisering, og farvel til vår plattform får vi
 353 høre. Det blir gjort en rekke bestemmelser og vedtak som vi ikke får
 354 være en del av. Det blir helt klart at vi må redusere antall maskiner,
 355 og det skal satses på bærbare maskiner. Siden vi ikke har fått tatt
 356 del i prosessene som angår oss, så bruker vi fagforening. Vi har ikke
 357 blitt hørt i forbindelse med endringer som er betydelig for vår
 358 hverdag, og greier å stoppe omlegging. I tillegg så har vi et politisk
 359 vedtak i kommunen på at vi skal kjøre Linux på elevnett, og dette
 360 vedtaket kan ikke administrasjonen i kommunene helt uten videre
 361 tilsidesette. </p>
 362
 363 <p>I sum har dette gjort at vi har fått jobbe videre i fred. Og en del
 364 runder i kommunens kontrollutvalg har gjort det tydelig at vi har blitt
 365 systematisk motarbeidet. </p>
 366
 367 <p>I dag har de andre skolene fått sine bærbare maskiner til elever og
 368 lærere, men etter 2 år med innkjøring er det fremdeles problemer
 369 her. </p>
 370
 371 <ul>
 372
 373 <li>Ungdomsskolen med windows kan ikke kjøre eksamen med sine bærbare,
 374 det er for mye arbeid å renske disse for innhold slik at juks ikke er
 375 mulig.</li>
 376
 377 <li>Utskrift er et mareritt, etter sigende pga at utskrift først
 378 sendes til sentral server, og så sendes ut til rett skriver. I snitt
 379 så tar det 7-8 minutter før utskrift starter på enkelte av
 380 skolene.</li>
 381
 382 <li>Trådløst skaper store problemer, og det er i perioder helt umulig
 383 å komme seg på nett. Og lagring på felles server er bare å glemme i
 384 perioder.</li>
 385
 386 </ul>
 387
 388 <p>Vi har slitt mye, kranglet og sloss. Ikke med tekniske problemer,
 389 men med omgivelsene rundt som vil oss til livs. Men det har vært verdt
 390 hver dråpe med svette, og timer med irritasjon. Men vi har begynt å få
 391 rutine her nå. </p>
 392
 393 <ul>
 394
 395 <li>Vi har fremdeles et system som vi styrer helt selv. </li>
 396 <li>Vi har vist at argumentet med at vår IKT-ansvarlig kan finne seg annen jobb ikke holder mål. Vi har kjøpt driftskonto hos et firma i tilfelle krise, og vi har kjørt opplæring på flere av de yngre lærerne. </li>
 397 <li>Vi har til enhver tid en lærling IKT driftsfag, og velger selvsagt ut dem som satser på Linux. Vi har nå begynt å få tilbake av våre tidligere elever som vil til oss nettopp fordi vi har Linux.</li>
 398 <li>Vi har vist at vi greier å opprettholde en dobbelt så stor datapark som naboskolen, og det til en billigere penge. </li>
 399 <li>Vi har datastøtte og support på huset, ALLTID tilgjengelig. De andre skolene må vente flere dager hvis det ikke er noe kritisk. </li>
 400 <li>Vår IKT-ansvarlig har 50% stilling som lærer og 50% som IKT-ansvarlig. </li>
 401 <li>Vi har en lærer på hvert trinn som har 3 timer i uka til å drive support/støtte til de andre lærerne. </li>
 402 <li>Vi opplever at de yngste lærerne ved den andre ungdomsskolen ønsker seg over til oss. </li>
 403
 404 </ul>
 405
 406 <p>Vi skal i løpet av året starte prosess med å planlegge ny skole, og vi har fått gjennomslag for at jeg (inspektør) og IKT-ansvarlig skal ha det fulle og hele ansvar for IKT/Infrastruktur. Begrunnelsen vår som ble avgjørende her, var at IT-avd i kommunen ikke kan noe om data i skolen. </p>
 407
 408 <p>Beklager hvis dette ble litt usammenhengende, men det ble tastet i
 409 fei, og jeg har ikke lest gjennom</p>
 410 </blockquote>
 411
 412 <p>Det kom raskt et lite svar:</p>
 413
 414 <blockquote>
 415 <p><strong>SV: Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
 416 <br>av captain_obvious</p>
 417
 418 <p>Inspirerende å lese. Har dere gjort noe for å fortelle denne
 419 historien videre?</p>
 420
 421 <p>Hadde vært svært interessant om dere tok kontakt med dokument 2 eller
 422 lignende for å fortelle hvordan det egentlig står til med
 423 IT-satsningen i kommune-Norge. Om ikke annet kan du begynner med å
 424 raffinere innlegget ditt og få en gjesteartikkel på digi.no</p>
 425 </blockquote>
 426
 427 <p>Og deretter en lengre oppfølging.</p>
 428
 429 <blockquote>
 430 <p><strong>SV: Lignende situasjon i annen kommune, se bare her:</strong>
 431 <br>av Inspektør Siri (gjest)
 432
 433 <p>Joda, vi har lekt med tanken, og vi har t.o.m skrevet flere lengre
 434 leserinnlegg myntet på aviser. Disse er ikke sendt til aviser, men
 435 brukt internt i forbindelse med møter med kommune. Vår IKT-ansvarlig
 436 har også truet med å si opp jobben sin hvis det ikke ble tatt hensyn i
 437 større grad enn hva som har vært tilfelle. VI kan også dokumentere
 438 flere brudd på anbudsregler, og vi kjenner til at relativt store
 439 IT-leverandører som ikke har fått tatt del i disse anbudene, rett og
 440 slett ikke tør melde fra av redsel for å få et dårlig rykte. </p>
 441
 442 <p>Alt ser ut til å roe seg ned, og vi har fått opp øynene på
 443 politikerne. I sum gjør dette at vi ikke ønsker for mye publisitet nå,
 444 det vil bare rote til igjen. </p>
 445
 446 <p>Jeg glemte å nevne at vi nå nesten ikke bruker tid på å drifte
 447 systemet vårt, noe som gjør at det aller meste av tid blir brukt til å
 448 støtte lærerne og elevene. F.eks så bruker vår IKT-ansvarlig den
 449 første timen på jobb, 0730-0830 kun til å gå ute på arbeidsplassene
 450 til læreren. Dette for å kunne svare på små og store problem, gi tips
 451 og råd, eller bare for å plukke opp hva som er behovet ute i
 452 undervisningsarealene. Det er dessverre ikke slik at alle lærerne har
 453 nok digital kompetanse til å kunne formulere alle spørsmålene de har,
 454 men ved å kunne få vise eller lufte tanker med IKT-ansvarlig så er det
 455 utrolig hva som kommer fram. </p>
 456
 457 <ul>
 458
 459 <li>Jeg ser at mange bruker økonomi som argument i forhold til å bruke
 460 SkoleLinux, og jeg skal ikke legge skjul på at det var dette som i
 461 utgangspunktet var årsaken til vårt valg. Men diskusjonene og kampen
 462 med kommunens IT-avdeling har gjort at vi har fått et noe annet
 463 fokus. Fordelene med drift og stabilitet, gjør at vi ville ha valgt
 464 samme løsning selv om den var dyrere. At vi slipper langt billigere
 465 unna, som følge av 0,- lisenskostnader og lave maskinvarekostnader, er
 466 bare en bonus. </li>
 467
 468 <li>Etter å ha kranglet oss til å få skikkelig oversikt over hva de
 469 andre skolene i kommunen bruker på IT, så har vi fått gehør for å få
 470 samme midler til innkjøp. Dette har gjort at vi nå kan kjøpe inn
 471 utstyr som de andre skolene bare kan se langt etter. Vi har nettopp
 472 kjøpt inn 3 videokamera i semiproff-klassen for å kunne lage film,
 473 samt sende live fra skoleteater/konserter. Vi har kjøpt inn digitale
 474 kompaktkamera til alle klassene. Vi har et team av lærere som skal i
 475 gang med å teste ut tablets på svake elever. Håpet et at teknologien
 476 kan være med på å gi noen av elevene litt mer motivasjon. Vi har kjøpt
 477 inn et halvt klassesett med pulsklokker, noe som har vist seg å være
 478 overraskende inspirerende for en del av elevene. Vi har også oss på
 479 fag på en høyskole litt lengre sør for oss, slik at 3 av oss nå skal
 480 ta faget "Linux tjenestedrift". Som inspektør og en del av skolens
 481 administrasjon er det veldig praktisk å kunne trå til hvis det
 482 kniper. Men IKT-ansvarlig har vært UTROLIG flink til å lage rene
 483 smørbrødlister for hvordan de mest vanlige driftsproblem løses, så det
 484 er lett for flere av oss å ta del i den daglige driften. Vi har svært
 485 stor nytte av lærling (som også hjelper to av naboskolene), men det er
 486 nesten blitt slik at det er om å gjøre å komme til først for å få løse
 487 problem. Det å få fingrene på problem og utfordringer er den aller
 488 beste læremester. </li>
 489
 490 </ul>
 491
 492 <p>Når vi nå tar til med planlegging av ny skole, så vil det være med
 493 tanke på at det skal være mulig med datautstyr på alle plasser. Vi
 494 kommer i all hovedsak til å legge kabel til alle tenkelige og
 495 utenkelige plasser. WiFi koster tilnærmet NULL å sette opp i
 496 ettertid.</p>
 497
 498 <p>Vi har ikke vært noe flink til å bidra til SkoleLinux-prosjektet,
 499 vi har rett og slett vært for opptatt med vår egen kamp. Vi har hentet
 500 mye inspirasjon fra diskusjoner som har gått i det miljøet, og vi
 501 håper at vi nå framover kan få tid til å bidra. Vi er i ferd med å
 502 bytte ut en av serverne våre, og da vil denne trolig bli satt opp som
 503 testserver for neste versjon av Skolelinux. På den måten vil vi i alle
 504 fall kunne gi tilbakemeldinger og rapportere feil. I tillegg så vil
 505 det kanskje gi oss noen nye utfordringer, for som lærlingen vår sier:
 506 "Skolelinux er noe herk, det skjer jo ikke noe galt og hvordan skal
 507 jeg da lære?"</p>
 508
 509 </blockquote>
 510
 511 <p>Det er veldig hyggelig å høre at
 512 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> fungerer så bra i
 513 skoleverdagen etter å ha jobbet med det i 10 år.</p>
 514 </div>
 515   <div class="tags">
 516
 517
 518
 519    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 520
 521   </div>
 522  </div>
 523  <div class="padding"></div>
 524
 525  <div class="entry">
 526   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/St__tte_for_forskjellige_kamera_ikoner_p___overv__kningskamerakartet.html">Støtte for forskjellige kamera-ikoner på overvåkningskamerakartet</a></div>
 527   <div class="date">2011-01-02 11:05</div>
 528   <div class="body">
 529 <p>I dag har jeg justert litt på kartet over overvåkningskamera, og
 530 laget støtte for å gi fotobokser (automatisk trafikk-kontroll) og
 531 andre overvåkningskamera forskjellige symboler på kartet, slik at det
 532 er enklere å se forskjell på kamera som vegvesenet kontrollerer og
 533 andre kamera.  Resultatet er lagt ut på
 534 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/surveillance-norway/">kartet
 535 over overvåkningskamera i Norge</a>.  Det er nå 93 fotobokser av 380
 536 totalt
 537 <a href="http://www.vegvesen.no/Fag/Fokusomrader/Trafikksikkerhet/Automatisk+trafikkontroll+ATK">i
 538 følge vegvesenet</a> og 80 andre kamera på kartet, totalt 173 kamera.
 539 Takk til de 26 stykkene som har bidratt til kamerainformasjonen så
 540 langt.</p>
 541 </div>
 542   <div class="tags">
 543
 544
 545
 546    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 547
 548   </div>
 549  </div>
 550  <div class="padding"></div>
 551
 552  <div class="entry">
 553   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a></div>
 554   <div class="date">2010-12-30 23:15</div>
 555   <div class="body">
 556 <p>After trying to
 557 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
 558 Ogg Theora</a> to
 559 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
 560 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
 561 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
 562 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
 563 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
 564 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
 565 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
 566
 567 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
 568 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
 569 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
 570 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
 571 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
 572 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
 573 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
 574
 575 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
 576 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
 577 </div>
 578   <div class="tags">
 579
 580
 581
 582    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 583
 584   </div>
 585  </div>
 586  <div class="padding"></div>
 587
 588  <div class="entry">
 589   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a></div>
 590   <div class="date">2010-12-27 14:45</div>
 591   <div class="body">
 592 <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
 593 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
 594 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
 595 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
 596 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
 597 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
 598 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
 599 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
 600
 601 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
 602 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
 603 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
 604 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
 605 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
 606 page</a>.</p>
 607
 608 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
 609 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
 610 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
 611 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
 612 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
 613 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
 614 specification on equal terms.</p>
 615
 616 <blockquote>
 617
 618 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
 619 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
 620 open standard:</p>
 621
 622 <ul>
 623
 624 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
 625 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
 626 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
 627 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
 628
 629 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
 630 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
 631 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
 632 nominal fee.</li>
 633
 634 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
 635 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
 636 free basis.</li>
 637
 638 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
 639
 640 </ul>
 641 </blockquote>
 642
 643 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
 644 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
 645 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
 646 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
 647 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
 648 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
 649 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
 650
 651 <blockquote>
 652
 653 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
 654
 655 <ol>
 656
 657 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
 658 tilgængelig.</li>
 659
 660 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
 661 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
 662
 663 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
 664 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
 665
 666 </ol>
 667
 668 </blockquote>
 669
 670 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
 671 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
 672
 673 <blockquote>
 674
 675 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
 676
 677 <ol>
 678
 679 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
 680 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
 681
 682 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
 683 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
 684 Standard themselves;</li>
 685
 686 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
 687 any party or in any business model;</li>
 688
 689 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
 690 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
 691 parties;</li>
 692
 693 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
 694 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
 695 parties.</li>
 696
 697 </ol>
 698
 699 </blockquote>
 700
 701 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
 702 its
 703 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
 704 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
 705
 706 <blockquote>
 707 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
 708
 709 <ul>
 710
 711 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
 712   democratic:
 713
 714          <ul>
 715
 716          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
 717             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
 718             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
 719             and managed.</li>
 720
 721          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
 722             method, can be changed through input from all
 723             participants.</li>
 724
 725          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
 726             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
 727
 728          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
 729             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
 730
 731          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
 732             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
 733             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
 734
 735          </ul>
 736
 737 </li>
 738
 739 </ul>
 740
 741 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
 742 <ul>
 743
 744 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
 745   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
 746   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
 747   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
 748   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
 749
 750 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
 751   a technical or economic barriers</li>
 752
 753 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
 754   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
 755   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
 756   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
 757   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
 758   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
 759   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
 760   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
 761   intended to function.</li>
 762
 763 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
 764   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
 765   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
 766
 767 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
 768   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
 769   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
 770   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
 771   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
 772   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
 773   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
 774   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
 775
 776       <ul>
 777
 778       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
 779         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
 780         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
 781
 782       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
 783         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
 784         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
 785         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
 786
 787       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
 788         licensor</li>
 789
 790       </ul>
 791 </li>
 792
 793 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
 794   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
 795   or restricted licensing terms</li>
 796
 797 </ul>
 798
 799 </blockquote>
 800
 801 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
 802 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
 803 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
 804 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
 805 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
 806 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
 807 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
 808 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
 809 Standards.</p>
 810 </div>
 811   <div class="tags">
 812
 813
 814
 815    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 816
 817   </div>
 818  </div>
 819  <div class="padding"></div>
 820
 821  <div class="entry">
 822   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</a></div>
 823   <div class="date">2010-12-25 20:25</div>
 824   <div class="body">
 825 <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
 826 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
 827
 828 <blockquote>
 829
 830 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
 831 as follows:</p>
 832
 833 <ol>
 834
 835 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
 836 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
 837 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
 838
 839 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
 840 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
 841 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
 842 parties.</li>
 843
 844 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
 845 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
 846 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
 847
 848 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
 849 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
 850
 851 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
 852
 853 </ol>
 854
 855 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
 856 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
 857 products based on the standard.</p>
 858 </blockquote>
 859
 860 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
 861 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
 862 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
 863 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
 864 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
 865 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
 866 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
 867 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
 868
 869 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
 870
 871 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
 872 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
 873 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
 874 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
 875 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
 876 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
 877 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
 878 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
 879 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
 880 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
 881 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
 882 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
 883 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
 884 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
 885
 886 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
 887
 888 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
 889 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
 890 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
 891 documentation indicating this.</p>
 892
 893 <p>According to
 894 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
 895 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
 896 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
 897 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
 898 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
 899 report is correct.</p>
 900
 901 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
 902
 903 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
 904 container format</a> and both the
 905 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
 906 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
 907 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
 908
 909 <blockquote>
 910
 911 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
 912 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
 913 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
 914 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
 915 specification compliance.
 916
 917 </blockquote>
 918
 919 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
 920 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
 921 this is the term:<p>
 922
 923 <blockquote>
 924
 925 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
 926 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
 927 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
 928 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
 929 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
 930 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
 931 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
 932 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
 933 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
 934 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
 935 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
 936 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
 937
 938 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
 939 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
 940 </blockquote>
 941
 942 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
 943 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
 944 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
 945 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
 946 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
 947
 948 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
 949
 950 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
 951 Theora format.
 952 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
 953 and
 954 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
 955 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
 956 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
 957 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
 958 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
 959 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
 960 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
 961 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
 962
 963 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
 964
 965 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
 966
 967 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
 968
 969 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
 970 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
 971 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
 972 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
 973 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
 974 this.</p>
 975
 976 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
 977 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
 978 </div>
 979   <div class="tags">
 980
 981
 982
 983    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 984
 985   </div>
 986  </div>
 987  <div class="padding"></div>
 988
 989  <div class="entry">
 990   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a></div>
 991   <div class="date">2010-12-25 10:50</div>
 992   <div class="body">
 993 <p>A few days ago
 994 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
 995 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
 996 2.0 of
 997 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
 998 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
 999 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
1000 Nothing very surprising there, given
1001 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
1002 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
1003 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
1004 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
1005 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
1006 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
1007 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
1008 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
1009 standard definition from its content.</p>
1010
1011 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
1012 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
1013 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
1014 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
1015 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
1016 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
1017 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
1018 background information about that story is available in
1019 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
1020 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
1021
1022 <blockquote>
1023 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
1024 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
1025 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
1026
1027 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
1028
1029 <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>
1030
1031 <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>
1032
1033 <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>
1034
1035 <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>
1036
1037 <p>
1038 <ul>
1039 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
1040 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
1041 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
1042 </ul>
1043 </p>
1044
1045 <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>
1046
1047 <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>
1048
1049 <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>
1050
1051 <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>
1052
1053 <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>
1054
1055
1056 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
1057 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
1058 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
1059 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
1060 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
1061 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
1062
1063 </p>
1064
1065 <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>
1066
1067 <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>
1068
1069 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
1070
1071 <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>
1072
1073 <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>
1074
1075 <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>
1076
1077 <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>
1078
1079 <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>
1080
1081 <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>
1082
1083 <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>
1084
1085 <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>
1086
1087 <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>
1088
1089 <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>
1090
1091 <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>
1092
1093 <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>
1094
1095 <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>
1096
1097 <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>
1098
1099 <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>
1100
1101 <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>
1102
1103 <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>
1104
1105 <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>
1106
1107 <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>
1108
1109 <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>
1110
1111 <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>
1112
1113 <p>On security:</p>
1114
1115 <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>
1116
1117 <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>
1118
1119 <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>
1120
1121 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
1122
1123 A<p>s you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.</p>
1124
1125 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
1126
1127 <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>
1128
1129 <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>
1130
1131 <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>
1132
1133 <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>
1134
1135 <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>
1136
1137 <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>
1138
1139 <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>
1140
1141 <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>
1142
1143 <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>
1144
1145 <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>
1146
1147 <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>
1148
1149 <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>
1150
1151 <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>
1152
1153 <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>
1154
1155 <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>
1156
1157 <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>
1158
1159 <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>
1160
1161 <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>
1162
1163 <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>
1164
1165 <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>
1166
1167 <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>
1168
1169 <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>
1170
1171 <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>
1172
1173 <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>
1174
1175 <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>
1176
1177 <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>
1178
1179 <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>
1180
1181 <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>
1182
1183 <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>
1184
1185 <p>Cordially,<br>
1186 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
1187 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
1188 </blockquote>
1189 </div>
1190   <div class="tags">
1191
1192
1193
1194    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
1195
1196   </div>
1197  </div>
1198  <div class="padding"></div>
1199
1200  <div class="entry">
1201   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a></div>
1202   <div class="date">2010-12-25 09:40</div>
1203   <div class="body">
1204 <p>Half a year ago I
1205 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
1206 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
1207 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
1208 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
1209
1210 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
1211 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
1212 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
1213 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
1214 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
1215 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
1216 got such a great test tool available.</p>
1217 </div>
1218   <div class="tags">
1219
1220
1221
1222    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
1223
1224   </div>
1225  </div>
1226  <div class="padding"></div>
1227
1228  <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14"></a></p>
1229
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1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236 <h2>Archive</h2>
1237 <ul>
1238
1239 <li>2011
1240 <ul>
1241
1242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (5)</a></li>
1243
1244 </ul></li>
1245
1246 <li>2010
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1248
1249 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
1250
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1256
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1260
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1262
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1264
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1266
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1268
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1270
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1272
1273 </ul></li>
1274
1275 <li>2009
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1277
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1279
1280 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
1281
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1291
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1293
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1295
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1297
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1299
1300 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
1301
1302 </ul></li>
1303
1304 <li>2008
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1306
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1308
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1310
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1312
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1314
1315
1316
1317 <h2>Tags</h2>
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1371
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