+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 30th August 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>In April we
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
+to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
+how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
+report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
+it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
+Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages). The first
+eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
+proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
+contributing using
+<a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
+hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
+<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
+translators mailing list</a>. Please also check out
+<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
+contributors</a>. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
+and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
+
+<p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
+electronic form.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 11th August 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>This summer, I read a great article
+"<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
+This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
+how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
+profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
+testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
+the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
+slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
+and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
+measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
+counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
+can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
+runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
+
+<p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
+get the system into Debian. I
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
+a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
+system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
+be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
+to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
+profiling information included in the source package.
+But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
+
+<p>The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
+on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+coz run --- program-to-run
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
+information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
+most, use a web browser and either point it to
+<a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
+or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
+site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the
+profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the
+COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
+code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
+targeted experiments.</p>
+
+<p>A video published by ACM
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
+Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
+from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
+titled
+<a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
+finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
+for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
+because it uses a
+<a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
+feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
+<a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
+it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
+
+<p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
+of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
+packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
+C++ libraries.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html">Sales number for the Free Culture translation, first half of 2016</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 5th August 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>As my regular readers probably remember, the last year I published
+a French and Norwegian translation of the classic
+<a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">Free Culture book</a> by the
+founder of the Creative Commons movement, Lawrence Lessig. A bit less
+known is the fact that due to the way I created the translations,
+using docbook and po4a, I also recreated the English original. And
+because I already had created a new the PDF edition, I published it
+too. The revenue from the books are sent to the Creative Commons
+Corporation. In other words, I do not earn any money from this
+project, I just earn the warm fuzzy feeling that the text is available
+for a wider audience and more people can learn why the Creative
+Commons is needed.</p>
+
+<p>Today, just for fun, I had a look at the sales number over at
+Lulu.com, which take care of payment, printing and shipping. Much to
+my surprise, the English edition is selling better than both the
+French and Norwegian edition, despite the fact that it has been
+available in English since it was first published. In total, 24 paper
+books was sold for USD $19.99 between 2016-01-01 and 2016-07-31:</p>
+
+<table border="0">
+<tr><th>Title / language</th><th>Quantity</th></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">Culture Libre / French</a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Fri kultur / Norwegian</a></td><td align="right">7</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">Free Culture / English</a></td><td align="right">14</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The books are available both from Lulu.com and from large book
+stores like Amazon and Barnes&Noble. Most revenue, around $10 per
+book, is sent to the Creative Commons project when the book is sold
+directly by Lulu.com. The other channels give less revenue. The
+summary from Lulu tell me 10 books was sold via the Amazon channel, 10
+via Ingram (what is this?) and 4 directly by Lulu. And Lulu.com tells
+me that the revenue sent so far this year is USD $101.42. No idea
+what kind of sales numbers to expect, so I do not know if that is a
+good amount of sales for a 10 year old book or not. But it make me
+happy that the buyers find the book, and I hope they enjoy reading it
+as much as I did.</p>
+
+<p>The ebook edition is available for free from
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Github</a>.</p>
+
+<p>If you would like to translate and publish the book in your native
+language, I would be happy to help make it happen. Please get in
+touch.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html">Techno TV broadcasting live across Norway and the Internet (#debconf16, #nuug) on @frikanalen</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 1st August 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Did you know there is a TV channel broadcasting talks from DebConf
+16 across an entire country? Or that there is a TV channel
+broadcasting talks by or about
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625529/">Linus Torvalds</a>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599/">Tor</a>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/624019/">OpenID</A>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625624/">Common Lisp</a>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625446/">Civic Tech</a>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625090/">EFF founder John Barlow</a>,
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625432/">how to make 3D
+printer electronics</a> and many more fascinating topics? It works
+using only free software (all of it
+<a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from Github</a>), and
+is administrated using a web browser and a web API.</p>
+
+<p>The TV channel is the Norwegian open channel
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, and I am involved
+via <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG member association</a> in
+running and developing the software for the channel. The channel is
+organised as a member organisation where its members can upload and
+broadcast what they want (think of it as Youtube for national
+broadcasting television). Individuals can broadcast too. The time
+slots are handled on a first come, first serve basis. Because the
+channel have almost no viewers and very few active members, we can
+experiment with TV technology without too much flack when we make
+mistakes. And thanks to the few active members, most of the slots on
+the schedule are free. I see this as an opportunity to spread
+knowledge about technology and free software, and have a script I run
+regularly to fill up all the open slots the next few days with
+technology related video. The end result is a channel I like to
+describe as Techno TV - filled with interesting talks and
+presentations.</p>
+
+<p>It is available on channel 50 on the Norwegian national digital TV
+network (RiksTV). It is also available as a multicast stream on
+Uninett. And finally, it is available as
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/">a WebM unicast stream</a> from
+Frikanalen and NUUG. Check it out. :)</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 7th July 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
+to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
+again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
+<a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
+hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
+device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
+microphone The initial idea had been to just
+<a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
+CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
+until a few days ago.</p>
+
+<p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
+loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
+'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
+machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
+oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
+the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
+site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
+or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
+apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
+running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
+require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
+come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
+on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
+him.</p>
+
+<p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
+<a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
+windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
+For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
+project named unruu</a> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
+recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
+containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
+devices it would work for.</p>
+
+<p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
+followed some instructions
+<a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
+from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
+machine with Debian testing:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+adb reboot-bootloader
+fastboot oem rebootRUU
+fastboot flash zip rom.zip
+fastboot flash zip rom.zip
+fastboot reboot
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
+as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
+The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
+device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
+too.</p>
+
+<p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
+instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
+like this:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
+</pre>
+
+<p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
+this:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
+could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
+So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
+before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
+install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 3rd July 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
+<a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
+said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
+friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
+mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
+have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
+machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
+Github source, compared it to the source in
+<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
+Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
+patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
+asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form. Here is
+the recipe how I did it.</p>
+
+<p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
+
+<pre>
+git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
+</pre>
+
+<p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
+able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
+
+<pre>
+cat <<EOF | patch -p0
+diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
+--- ./js/background.js 2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
++++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js 2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
+@@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
+ });
+ });
+
+- var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
+- var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
++ var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
++ var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
+ var messageReceiver;
+ window.getSocketStatus = function() {
+ if (messageReceiver) {
+diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
+--- ./js/expire.js 2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
++++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
+@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
+ ;(function() {
+ 'use strict';
+- var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
++ var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
+
+ window.extension = window.extension || {};
+
+EOF
+</pre>
+
+<p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
+an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
+It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
+The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
+
+<p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
+script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
+
+<pre>
+#!/bin/sh
+cd $(dirname $0)
+mkdir -p userdata
+exec chromium \
+ --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
+ --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
+</pre>
+
+<p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
+SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
+Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
+will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
+connections if they use source IP address.</p>
+
+<p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
+"Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
+repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
+Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
+'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
+registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
+pressed 'Call'. 5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
+repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
+into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
+Signal from my laptop.
+
+<p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
+whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
+but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
+setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
+content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
+exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
+So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
+connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
+to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
+those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
+avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
+using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 6th June 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
+multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
+MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
+the various players claimed support for. The range was from 55 to 130
+MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
+players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
+their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
+listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
+the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
+and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
+favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
+yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
+player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
+
+<p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
+totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
+kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
+several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
+toten and parole.</p>
+
+<p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
+supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
+desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
+audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
+video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
+video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
+it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
+players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
+formats.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 5th June 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
+decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
+talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
+wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
+the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
+the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
+started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
+that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
+started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
+present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
+loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
+slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
+be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
+three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
+shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem –
+kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
+Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
+program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we
+expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
+embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
+files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
+while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
+gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
+browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
+such file. I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
+returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
+installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
+<a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
+behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
+several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
+the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
+while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
+output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
+
+<p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
+system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
+browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
+(*.rg). I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
+rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
+included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
+how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
+from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
+
+<p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
+There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
+<tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
+shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
+type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
+information is collected from
+<a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
+desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
+one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
+activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
+can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
+selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general
+this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
+type (preferably
+<a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
+MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
+registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
+type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
+
+<p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
+<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
+Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info">
+ <mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden">
+ <sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/>
+ <comment>Rosegarden project file</comment>
+ <glob pattern="*.rg"/>
+ </mime-type>
+</mime-info>
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
+(it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
+official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
+unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
+
+<p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
+audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
+file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+% grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
+MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
+X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
+%
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
+MimeType= line.</p>
+
+<p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
+selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
+<tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
+MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
+that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
+support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
+fixed. :)</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html">Tor - from its creators mouth 11 years ago</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 28th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>A little more than 11 years ago, one of the creators of Tor, and
+the current President of <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">the Tor
+project</a>, Roger Dingledine, gave a talk for the members of the
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group</a> (NUUG). A
+video of the talk was recorded, and today, thanks to the great help
+from David Noble, I finally was able to publish the video of the talk
+on Frikanalen, the Norwegian open channel TV station where NUUG
+currently publishes its talks. You can
+<a href="http://frikanalen.no/se">watch the live stream using a web
+browser</a> with WebM support, or check out the recording on the video
+on demand page for the talk
+"<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599">Tor: Anonymous
+communication for the US Department of Defence...and you.</a>".</p>
+
+<p>Here is the video included for those of you using browsers with
+HTML video and Ogg Theora support:</p>
+
+<p><video width="70%" poster="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/large_thumb/20050421-tor-frikanalen.jpg" controls>
+ <source src="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/theora/20050421-tor-frikanalen.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
+</video></p>
+
+<p>I guess the gist of the talk can be summarised quite simply: If you
+want to help the military in USA (and everyone else), use Tor. :)</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 25th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
+system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
+related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
+hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
+install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
+are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
+needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
+proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
+and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
+install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
+command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
+hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
+
+<p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
+good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
+is going away and is generally being replaced by
+<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
+so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
+from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
+rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
+Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
+for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
+install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
+and see if it is recognised.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
+the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
+program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+% isenkram-lookup
+bluez
+cheese
+fprintd
+fprintd-demo
+gkrellm-thinkbat
+hdapsd
+libpam-fprintd
+pidgin-blinklight
+thinkfan
+tleds
+tp-smapi-dkms
+tp-smapi-source
+tpb
+%p
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
+is for packages to announce their hardware support using
+<a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
+cross distribution appstream system</a>.
+See
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
+blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 23rd May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Yesterday I updated the
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
+package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
+enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
+First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
+one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
+dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
+The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
+called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
+variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
+graph window pop up as expected.</p>
+
+<p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
+graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
+colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
+of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
+capacity.</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
+
+<p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
+statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
+visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
+line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
+
+<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
+
+<p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
+percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
+shrinking. :(</p>
+
+<p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
+more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
+information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
+collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
+both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
+machine.</p>
+
+<p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
+check out the
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
+in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
+Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
+href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
+Patches are very welcome.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html">French edition of Lawrence Lessigs book Cultura Libre on Amazon and Barnes & Noble</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 21st May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>A few weeks ago the French paperback edition of Lawrence Lessigs
+2004 book Cultura Libre was published. Today I noticed that the book
+is now available from book stores. You can now buy it from
+<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Libre-French-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018260">Amazon</a>
+($19.99),
+<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/culture-libre-lawrence-lessig/1123776705">Barnes
+& Noble</a> ($?) and as always from
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">Lulu.com</a>
+($19.99). The revenue is donated to the Creative Commons project. If
+you buy from Lulu.com, they currently get $10.59, while if you buy
+from one of the book stores most of the revenue go to the book store
+and the Creative Commons project get much (not sure how much
+less).</p>
+
+<p>I was a bit surprised to discover that there is a kindle edition
+sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC on Amazon. Not quite sure how
+that edition was created, but if you want to download a electronic
+edition (PDF, EPUB, Mobi) generated from the same files used to create
+the paperback edition, they are
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">available
+from github</a>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html">I want the courts to be involved before the police can hijack a news site DNS domain (#domstolkontroll)</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I just donated to the
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">NUUG defence
+"fond"</a> to fund the effort in Norway to get the seizure of the news
+site popcorn-time.no tested in court. I hope everyone that agree with
+me will do the same.</p>
+
+<p>Would you be worried if you knew the police in your country could
+hijack DNS domains of news sites covering free software system without
+talking to a judge first? I am. What if the free software system
+combined search engine lookups, bittorrent downloads and video playout
+and was called Popcorn Time? Would that affect your view? It still
+make me worried.</p>
+
+<p>In March 2016, the Norwegian police seized (as in forced NORID to
+change the IP address pointed to by it to one controlled by the
+police) the DNS domain popcorn-time.no, without any supervision from
+the courts. I did not know about the web site back then, and assumed
+the courts had been involved, and was very surprised when I discovered
+that the police had hijacked the DNS domain without asking a judge for
+permission first. I was even more surprised when I had a look at
+<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://popcorn-time.no">the web
+site content on the Internet Archive</A>, and only found news coverage
+about Popcorn Time, not any material published without the right
+holders permissions.</p>
+
+<p>The seizure was widely covered in the Norwegian press (see for
+example <a href="http://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Naeringsliv/2016/03/Popcorn-time.no-beslaglagt-av-OEkokrim">Hegnar Online</a> and
+<a href="http://itavisen.no/2016/03/08/okokrim-har-beslaglagt-popcorn-time-no/">ITavisen<a/>
+and
+<a href="http://www.nrk.no/kultur/okokrim-gar-til-aksjon-mot-popcorn-time-1.12842452">NRK</a>),
+at first due to the press release sent out by Økokrim, but then based
+on
+<a href="http://blogg.torvund.net/2016/03/09/okokrims-beslag-i-domenet-popcorn-time-no/">protests
+from the law professor Olav Torvund</a> and
+<a href="http://www.klassekampen.no/article/20160311/ARTICLE/160319995">lawyer
+Jon Wessel-Aas</a>. It even got some
+<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/norwegian-authorities-sued-over-popcorn-time-domain-seizure-160418/">coverage
+on TorrentFreak</a>.</p>
+
+<p>I
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html">
+wrote about the case a month ago</a>, when the
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> (NUUG),
+where I am an active member, decided to ask the courts to test this seizure.
+The request was denied, but NUUG and its co-requestor EFN have not
+given up, and now they are rallying for support to get the seizure
+legally challenged. They accept both bank and Bitcoin transfer for
+those that want to support the request.</p>
+
+<p>If you as me believe news sites about free software should not be
+censored, even if the free software have both legal and illegal
+applications, and that DNS hijacking should be tested by the courts, I
+suggest you <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">show
+your support by donating to NUUG</a>.</a>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 12th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
+<a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
+Debian. The package status can be seen on
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
+for zfs-linux</a>. and
+<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
+team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
+<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
+source code</a> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
+great if you could help out with
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
+it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 8th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
+Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
+
+<p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
+plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
+Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
+for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
+plugin supported most file formats / media types.
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
+result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
+not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
+these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
+players.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
+player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
+Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
+desktop file</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
+of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
+only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
+two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
+compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
+instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
+support most file formats.</p>
+
+<p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
+table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
+in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
+listed first in the table.</p>
+
+</p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
+parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
+kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
+support?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 4th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ A friend of mine made me aware of
+<a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
+handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
+would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
+
+<p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
+plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
+LCD touch screen. The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
+day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
+confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
+last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
+production started.</p>
+
+<p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
+Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
+first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html">NUUG contests Norwegian police DNS seizure of popcorn-time.no</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 18th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>It is days like today I am really happy to be a member of
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User group</a>, a
+member association for those of us believing in free software, open
+standards and unix-like operating systems. NUUG announced today it
+will
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__NUUG_og_EFN_begj_rer_rettslig_pr_ving_for_DNS_domenebeslag_av_popcorn_time_no.shtml">try
+to bring the seizure of the DNS domain popcorn-time.no as
+unlawful</a>, to stand up for the principle that writing about a
+controversial topic is not infringing copyrights, and censuring web
+pages by hijacking DNS domain should be decided by the courts, not the
+police. The DNS domain was seized by the Norwegian National Authority
+for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime
+a month ago. I hope this bring more paying members to NUUG to give
+the association the financial muscle needed to bring this case as far
+as it must go to stop this kind of DNS hijacking.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_F__Stone___an_inspiration_for_us_all.html">I.F. Stone - an inspiration for us all</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 13th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I first got to know I.F. Stone when I came across an article by Jon
+Schwarz on The Intercept
+<a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/new-documentary-legacy-f-stone/">about
+his extraordinary contribution to investigative journalism in
+USA</a>. The article is about a new documentary in two parts
+(<a href="https://vimeo.com/123974841">part one is 12 minutes</a> and
+<a href="https://vimeo.com/123974842">part two is 30 minutes</a>), and
+I found both truly fascinating. It is amazing what he was able to
+find by digging up public sources and government papers. He
+documented lots of government abuse and cover ups, and I find
+<a href="http://www.ifstone.org/weekly.php">his weekly news letters</a>
+inspiring to read even today.</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
+<br>- I. F. Stone
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>His starting point was that reporters should not assume governments
+and corporations are telling the truth, but verify all their claims as
+much as possible. I wonder how many Norwegian reporters can be said
+to follow the principles of I. F. Stone. They are definitely in short
+supply. If you, like me half a year ago, have never heard of him,
+check him out.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_French_paperback_edition_of_the_book_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig_is_now_available.html">A French paperback edition of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is now available</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 12th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I'm happy to report that
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">the
+French paperback edition</a> of
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
+project to translate</a> the <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free
+Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig is now available for sale on
+Lulu.com. Once I have formally verified my proof reading copy, which
+should be in the mail, the paperback edition should be available in
+book stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble too.</p>
+
+<p>This French edition, Culture Libre, is the work of the
+<a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> developer Benoît
+Guillon, who created the PO file from the initial translation
+available from
+<a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">the Wikilivres
+wiki pages</a> and completed and corrected the translation to match
+the original docbook edition my project is using, as well as
+coordinated the proof reading of the final result. I believe the end
+result look great, but I am biased and do not read French. In
+addition to the paperback edition, the book is available in PDF, EPUB
+and Mobi format from the github project page linked to above.</p>
+
+<p>When enabling book store distribution on Lulu.com, I had to nearly
+triple the price to allow the book stores some profit. I also had to
+accept that I will get some revenue when a book is sold via Lulu.com.
+But because of the non-commercial clause in the book license
+(CC-BY-NC), this might be a problem. To bypass the problem I
+discussed how to handle the revenue with the author, and we agreed
+that the revenue for these editions go to the
+<a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons non-profit
+Corporation</a> who handle donations to the Creative Commons project.
+So far they have earned around USD 70 on sales of the
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>
+and
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
+Bokmål</a> editions, according to Lulu.com. They will get the revenue
+for the French edition too. Their revenue is higher if you buy the
+book directly from Lulu.com instead of via a book store, so I
+recommend you buy directly from Lulu.com.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps you would like to get the book published in your language?
+The translation is done using a web based translator service, so the
+technical bar to enter is fairly low. Get in touch if you would like
+to make this happen.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 10th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>During this weekends
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
+squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
+to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
+Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
+<a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
+project</a> to get started. If you want to help out, please start
+contributing using
+<a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
+hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
+<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
+translators mailing list</a>. Please also check out
+<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
+contributors</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
+Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
+Bokmål too. In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
+Mobi versions available. And there are incomplete translations
+available for many more languages.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 7th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
+packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found. I use
+ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
+But I might be wrong.</p>
+
+<p>According to
+<a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
+results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
+0.53% of the population, with the package installed. As far as I know
+the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
+on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
+installation on Linux in Debian. In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
+the ZFS feature is already available, and there
+<a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
+results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
+the population. So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
+
+<p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
+<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
+in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
+cleared, the package is still not in Debian. The package is again in
+the NEW queue. Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
+debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
+to give up. The current status can be seen on
+<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
+team status page</a>, and
+<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
+source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
+
+<p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
+my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
+packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
+accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
+to help out the team. This was the background for my blog post about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
+updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
+used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
+copyright file. It is not very easy to check every one of the around
+2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
+right. If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
+find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/syslog_trusted_timestamp___chain_of_trusted_timestamps_for_your_syslog.html">syslog-trusted-timestamp - chain of trusted timestamps for your syslog</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2nd April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Two years ago, I had
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">a
+look at trusted timestamping options available</a>, and among
+other things noted a still open
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/742553">bug in the tsget script</a>
+included in openssl that made it harder than necessary to use openssl
+as a trusted timestamping client. A few days ago I was told
+<a href="https:/www.difi.no/">the Norwegian government office DIFI</a> is
+close to releasing their own trusted timestamp service, and in the
+process I was happy to learn about a replacement for the tsget script
+using only curl:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+openssl ts -query -data "/etc/shells" -cert -sha256 -no_nonce \
+ | curl -s -H "Content-Type: application/timestamp-query" \
+ --data-binary "@-" http://zeitstempel.dfn.de > etc-shells.tsr
+openssl ts -reply -text -in etc-shells.tsr
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>This produces a binary timestamp file (etc-shells.tsr) which can be
+used to verify that the content of the file /etc/shell with the
+calculated sha256 hash existed at the point in time when the request
+was made. The last command extract the content of the etc-shells.tsr
+in human readable form. The idea behind such timestamp is to be able
+to prove using cryptography that the content of a file have not
+changed since the file was stamped.</p>
+
+<p>To verify that the file on disk match the public key signature in
+the timestamp file, run the following commands. It make sure you have
+the required certificate for the trusted timestamp service available
+and use it to compare the file content with the timestamp. In
+production, one should of course use a better method to verify the
+service certificate.</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+wget -O ca-cert.txt https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt
+openssl ts -verify -data /etc/shells -in etc-shells.tsr -CAfile ca-cert.txt -text
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>Wikipedia have a lot more information about
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
+Timestamping</a> and
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_timestamping">linked
+timestamping</a>, and there are several trusted timestamping services
+around, both as commercial services and as free and public services.
+Among the latter is
+<a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">the
+zeitstempel.dfn.de service</a> mentioned above and
+<a href="https://freetsa.org/">freetsa.org service</a> linked to from the
+wikipedia web site. I believe the DIFI service should show up on
+https://tsa.difi.no, but it is not available to the public at the
+moment. I hope this will change when it is into production. The
+<a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC 3161</a> trusted
+timestamping protocol standard is even implemented in LibreOffice,
+Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, making it possible to verify when
+a document was created.</p>
+
+<p>I would find it useful to be able to use such trusted timestamp
+service to make it possible to verify that my stored syslog files have
+not been tampered with. This is not a new idea. I found one example
+implemented on the Endian network appliances where
+<a href="http://help.endian.com/entries/21518508-Enabling-Timestamping-on-log-files-">the
+configuration of such feature was described in 2012</a>.</p>
+
+<p>But I could not find any free implementation of such feature when I
+searched, so I decided to try to
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/syslog-trusted-timestamp">build
+a prototype named syslog-trusted-timestamp</a>. My idea is to
+generate a timestamp of the old log files after they are rotated, and
+store the timestamp in the new log file just after rotation. This
+will form a chain that would make it possible to see if any old log
+files are tampered with. But syslog is bad at handling kilobytes of
+binary data, so I decided to base64 encode the timestamp and add an ID
+and line sequence numbers to the base64 data to make it possible to
+reassemble the timestamp file again. To use it, simply run it like
+this:
+
+<p><pre>
+syslog-trusted-timestamp /path/to/list-of-log-files
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>This will send a timestamp from one or more timestamp services (not
+yet decided nor implemented) for each listed file to the syslog using
+logger(1). To verify the timestamp, the same program is used with the
+--verify option:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+syslog-trusted-timestamp --verify /path/to/log-file /path/to/log-with-timestamp
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>The verification step is not yet well designed. The current
+implementation depend on the file path being unique and unchanging,
+and this is not a solid assumption. It also uses process number as
+timestamp ID, and this is bound to create ID collisions. I hope to
+have time to come up with a better way to handle timestamp IDs and
+verification later.</p>
+
+<p>Please check out
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/syslog-trusted-timestamp">the
+prototype for syslog-trusted-timestamp on github</a> and send
+suggestions and improvement, or let me know if there already exist a
+similar system for timestamping logs already to allow me to join
+forces with others with the same interest.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 23rd March 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
+extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
+later processing and graphing. The original collector store the
+battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
+collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
+full level, last full level and current battery level. This make it
+possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
+the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
+
+<p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
+in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable. Get the new battery level graph
+and lifetime prediction by running:
+
+<p><pre>
+/usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
+
+<p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
+entry yet):</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+/usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
+when there are few data points. The graphs look a bit better with a
+few years of data.</p>
+
+<p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
+collector broke in Debian. The scripts in
+<tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed. I
+suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
+know. The issue is reported as
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
+pm-utils. I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
+the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
+disconnected. With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
+new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
+
+<p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
+check out the
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
+in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
+Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
+As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html">UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th March 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Back in 2013 I proposed
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">a
+way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by
+adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice</a>. I
+suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format
+for name and address, but any format would work. I did not do
+anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make
+something like it. It would make it possible to efficiently send
+machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.</p>
+
+<p>This was the background when I came across a proposal and
+specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier
+<a href="http://www.visma.com/">Visma</a> in Sweden called
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/">UsingQR</a>. Their PDF invoices contain
+a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format.
+This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR
+specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to
+get a more bogus entry). I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier
+to read. Normally this is all on one long line:</p>
+
+<p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-19-qr-invoice.png" align="right"><pre>
+{
+ "vh":500.00,
+ "vm":0,
+ "vl":0,
+ "uqr":1,
+ "tp":1,
+ "nme":"Din Leverandør",
+ "cc":"NO",
+ "cid":"997912345 MVA",
+ "iref":"12300001",
+ "idt":"20151022",
+ "ddt":"20151105",
+ "due":2500.0000,
+ "cur":"NOK",
+ "pt":"BBAN",
+ "acc":"17202612345",
+ "bc":"BIENNOK1",
+ "adr":"0313 OSLO"
+}
+</pre></p>
+
+</p>The interpretation of the fields can be found in the
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UsingQR_specification1.pdf">format
+specification</a> (revision 2 from june 2014). The format seem to
+have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment
+of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in
+Norway.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about
+the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the
+specification. Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in
+November to clarify. Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at)
+visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark
+protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based
+usage limitations for the format. I urged her to make sure this was
+explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but
+unfortunately this has not happened yet. So I guess if there is
+submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright
+infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at
+risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that
+the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so. At least
+with patents, there is always
+<a href="http://www.paperspecs.com/paper-news/beware-the-qr-code-patent-trap/">a
+chance of getting sued...</a></p>
+
+<p>I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an
+independent standard organization to give others more confidence that
+they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms
+with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this. Their plan was
+to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and
+evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular. I hope
+they conclude that using an open standard organisation like
+<a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> is the correct place to
+maintain such specification.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-03-20</strong>: Via Twitter I became aware of
+<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11319492">some comments
+about this blog post</a> that had several useful links and references to
+similar systems. In the Czech republic, the Czech Banking Association
+standard #26, with short name SPAYD, uses QR codes with payment
+information. More information is available from the Wikipedia page on
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Payment_Descriptor">Short
+Payment Descriptor</a>. And in Germany, there is a system named
+<a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/">BezahlCode</a>,
+(<a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/wp-content/uploads/BezahlCode_TechDok.pdf">specification
+v1.8 2013-12-05 available as PDF</a>), which uses QR codes with
+URL-like formatting using "bank:" as the URI schema/protocol to
+provide the payment information. There is also the
+<a href="http://www.ferd-net.de/front_content.php?idcat=231">ZUGFeRD</a>
+file format that perhaps could be transfered using QR codes, but I am
+not sure if it is done already. Last, in Bolivia there are reports
+that tax information since november 2014 need to be printed in QR
+format on invoices. I have not been able to track down a
+specification for this format, because of my limited language skill
+sets.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th March 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Back in September, I blogged about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
+system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
+how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
+created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
+but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
+package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
+a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
+fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
+hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.</p>
+
+<p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
+hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
+battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
+battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
+able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
+information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
+battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
+graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
+status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
+Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
+tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
+
+<p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
+battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
+about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
+battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
+yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
+bit more before I make a new release.</p>
+
+<p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
+suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
+impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
+and graphing.</p>
+
+<p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
+battery, check out the battery-stats package in
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
+on
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
+I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th February 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
+details. And one of the details is the content of the
+debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
+the code in the package in question, preferably in
+<a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
+readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
+
+<p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
+and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
+package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
+the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
+both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
+out what was wrong with
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
+zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
+figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
+semi-automatically.</p>
+
+<p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
+file based on the code in the source package,
+<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
+and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>. I'm
+not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
+create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
+be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
+polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
+option in
+<a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
+blog posts from 2014</a>.
+
+<p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
+
+<p><pre>
+debmake -cc > debian/copyright
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
+this might not be the best option.</p>
+
+<p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
+this approach in
+<a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
+blog post from 2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
+dpkg-copyright' option:
+
+<p><pre>
+cme update dpkg-copyright
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
+handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
+
+<p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
+check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
+<tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>. The former seem
+to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
+ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
+copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
+names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
+fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
+if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
+copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
+
+<p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning. It
+will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
+It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
+can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
+
+<p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
+debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
+planet.debian.org.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
+on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
+
+<p><pre>
+licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
+ /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
+version control system to make it easier to discover license and
+copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
+with my packages in the future.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
+against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
+command line.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 4th February 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
+is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
+convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
+firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
+be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
+about. :)</p>
+
+<p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
+file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
+picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
+unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
+by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
+providing the example file, do like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+% apt install appstream
+[...]
+% apt update
+[...]
+% appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
+ awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
+firmware-qlogic
+%
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
+appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
+a way appstream can use.</p>
+
+<p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
+given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
+know how to handle. First find the mime type using <tt>file
+--mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
+it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
+and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+% apt install appstream
+[...]
+% apt update
+[...]
+% appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
+ awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
+bkchem
+phototonic
+inkscape
+shutter
+tetzle
+geeqie
+xia
+pinta
+gthumb
+karbon
+comix
+mirage
+viewnior
+postr
+ristretto
+kolourpaint4
+eog
+eom
+gimagereader
+midori
+%
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
+packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 24th January 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
+with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
+position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
+time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
+computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
+mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
+also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
+during installation). And when these programs send out information to
+central collection points, the location is often included, unless
+extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
+information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
+good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
+the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
+perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
+when they share their whereabouts with private and public
+entities.</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
+
+<p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
+when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
+unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
+officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
+unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
+public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
+tool to do so is called
+<a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>. I
+discovered it when I read
+<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
+article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
+November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
+The python program was in Debian, but
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
+Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
+uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
+have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
+get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
+Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
+are now included
+<a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
+Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
+complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
+given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
+these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
+least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
+days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
+configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
+information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
+into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
+about yourself with the services.</p>
+
+<p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
+geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
+of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
+information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
+information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
+I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
+twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
+Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
+making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
+things. A similar technique have been
+<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
+to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
+tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
+understand the value of the private information they provide to the
+public.</p>
+
+<p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
+it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
+least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
+python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
+
+<p>(I have uploaded
+<a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
+screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
+Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th January 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
+<a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
+that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
+believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
+security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
+use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
+listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
+Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
+to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
+download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
+<a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
+to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>. He
+was not the first to propose this, as the
+<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
+package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
+to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
+aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
+sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
+Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
+it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
+making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
+installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
+urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
+of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
+<tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
+done in /etc/.</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+apt install apt-transport-tor
+sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
+sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
+the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
+using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
+edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
+
+<p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
+<tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
+system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
+<tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
+which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
+need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
+
+<p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
+using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
+update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
+masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
+become normal for the machine in question.</p>
+
+<p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
+is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
+enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
+system.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 23rd December 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
+call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
+numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
+to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
+exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
+time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
+
+<p>A few days I came across
+<a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
+project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
+report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
+"car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
+such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
+number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
+the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
+even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
+discovered the developer
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
+Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
+help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
+archive.</p>
+
+<p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
+it into Debian, where it currently
+<a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
+in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
+
+<p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
+for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
+surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
+and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
+when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
+was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
+to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
+car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
+capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
+open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
+guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
+cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
+out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
+before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
+package show up in unstable.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 20th December 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Around three years ago, I created
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
+system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
+hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
+present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
+relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
+lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
+tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
+it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
+install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
+system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
+words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
+with.</p>
+
+<p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
+adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
+time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
+I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
+the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
+was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
+<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
+appstream system</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
+add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
+appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
+Debian version of appstream.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
+and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
+appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
+package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
+pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
+how do add the required
+<a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
+in pymissile</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
+this content:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<component>
+ <id>pymissile</id>
+ <metadata_license>MIT</metadata_license>
+ <name>pymissile</name>
+ <summary>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher</summary>
+ <description>
+ <p>
+ Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
+ Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
+ motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
+ launcher.
+ </p>
+ </description>
+ <provides>
+ <modalias>usb:v1130p0202d*</modalias>
+ </provides>
+</component>
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
+which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
+(modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
+will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
+0202.</p>
+
+<p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
+are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
+appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
+these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
+it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
+(in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
+it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
+upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
+
+<p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
+mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
+appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
+package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
+line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
+all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
+pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
+installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
+
+<p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
+try running this command on the command line:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
+blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 30th November 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
+"<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
+GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
+the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
+I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
+
+The first step is to choose a
+<a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
+code.<br/>
+
+The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
+<b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
+
+and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
+work<br/>
+
+is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
+<a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
+0x57</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As the Debian Website
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
+<a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&r2=1.25">to</a>
+imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
+the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
+software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
+software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
+to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
+such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
+Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
+expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
+ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
+and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
+Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
+copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
+to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
+representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
+some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
+Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
+of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
+In March the SFC supported a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
+by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
+with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
+kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
+conferences
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
+or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
+less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
+individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
+a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
+a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
+supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
+Software.</p>
+
+<p>If you support Free Software,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
+what the SFC do, agree with their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
+principles</a>, are happy about their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
+work on a project that is an SFC
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
+just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
+<a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
+Allan Webber</a>,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
+Smith</a>,
+<a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
+Bacon</a>, myself and
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
+becoming a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>. For the
+next week your donation will be
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
+by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
+match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
+spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
+social media accounts.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
+of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
+supporter too?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 17th November 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
+set it up properly. I wanted to generate it offline and have it
+available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
+smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
+time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever. But
+finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
+from my old GPG key to a new GPG key. See
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
+full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
+the details. This is my new key:</p>
+
+<pre>
+pub 3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
+ Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1 D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
+uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>
+uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@debian.org>
+sub 4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
+sub 4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
+sub 4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
+</pre>
+
+<p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
+my old key.</p>
+
+<p>If you signed my old key
+(<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
+I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
+instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
+you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html">Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 3rd November 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
+list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices.
+Internal notes should also be documented. The document list (called a mail
+journal - "postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
+to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
+journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail
+journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages. The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called
+<a href="https://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
+OEP</a>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. Not
+all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to
+use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting
+journal entries .</p>
+
+<p>In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
+Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that
+piqued my interest. The title of the document was
+"<a href="https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=4192362">Internet
+Governance and how it affects national security</a>" (Norwegian:
+"Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet"). The
+document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the
+"Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations". I asked for a
+copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it
+(<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20,
+letter c</a>) and an explanation that the document was exempt because
+of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the
+Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar. I
+was told the information in the document related to the ongoing
+negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The
+explanation made sense to me in early January 2013, as a ITU
+conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
+(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29">World
+Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12</a>) had just
+ended,
+<a href="http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/2012/12/18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote">reportedly
+in chaos</a> when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries
+including Norway refused to sign the new treaty. It seemed
+reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
+Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
+<a href="http://www.nkom.no/">Norwegian Communications Authority</a>
+and the <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/sd/">Ministry of
+Transport and Communications</a>. This might be the reason the letter
+was sent to the ministry. As I was unable to find the document in the
+mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had
+sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy
+Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in
+Geneva.</p>
+
+<p>Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that
+document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was
+over now. This time
+<a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914">I
+asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
+receiver</a> and
+<a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p">asked
+the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender</a> for a
+copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
+public. The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
+reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
+different clause
+(<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20
+letter b</a>), claiming that they were required to keep the
+content of the document from the public because it contained
+information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
+that the information should not be made public. I asked the permanent
+mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
+an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
+nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
+of the meeting to be publicly known. They explained that giving me a
+copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
+the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway. They
+also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
+the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
+this had not listed it in their mail journal.</p>
+
+<p>Armed with this
+knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
+author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
+"sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications. The
+ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
+the document. According to
+<a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/">a
+government report</a> the author was with the Permanent Mission of
+Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I
+guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
+the report initially and
+<a href="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu">asked
+them for a copy</a> but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the
+document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
+when the document was written. Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of
+Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
+tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
+the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva. The Foreign Ministry also
+upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
+to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
+the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. I do not know if this is the
+same person as the author of the document.</p>
+
+<p>If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of
+inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a
+meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in
+Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted
+by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways
+negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the
+ITU negotiations on Internet Governance. It is truly amazing what can
+be derived from mere meta-data.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
+And what exactly was said and done at the meeting? Anyone know?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_book___Fri_kultur__by__lessig__a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of__Free_Culture__from_2004.html">New book, "Fri kultur" by @lessig, a Norwegian Bokmål translation of "Free Culture" from 2004</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 31st October 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>People keep asking me where to get the various forms of the book I
+published last week, the Norwegian Bokmål edition of Lawrence Lessigs
+book <a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>. It was
+published on paper via lulu.com, and is also available in PDF, ePub
+and MOBI format. I currently sell the paper edition for self cost
+from lulu.com, but might extend the distribution to book stores like
+Amazon and Barnes & Noble later. This will double the price and force
+me to make a profit from selling the book. Anyway, here are links to
+get the book in different formats:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">Buy
+ paper edition from lulu.com</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">Download
+ PDF, size 7.9 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">Download
+ ePub, size 11 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">Download
+ MOBI, size 3.8 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Note that the MOBI version have problems with the table of content,
+at least with the viewers I have been able to test. And the ePub file
+have several problems according to
+<a href="https://github.com/IDPF/epubcheck">epubcheck</a>, but seem
+to display fine in the viewers I have tested. All the files needed to
+create the book in various forms are available from
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">the
+github project page</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The project got press coverage from the Norwegian IT news site
+digi.no. Check out the article
+"<a href="http://www.digi.no/juss_og_samfunn/2015/10/29/vil-apne-politikernes-oyne-for-creative-commons">Vil
+åpne politikernes øyne for Creative Commons</a>".</li>
+
+<p>I've <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">blogged
+about the project</a> as it moved along. The blogs document the translation
+progress and insights I had along the way.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Free_Culture__by__lessig___The_background_story_for_Creative_Commons___new_edition_available.html">"Free Culture" by @lessig - The background story for Creative Commons - new edition available</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 23rd October 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">Click
+here to buy the book</a>.</p>
+
+<p>In 2004, as the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons
+movement</a> gained momentum, its creator Lawrence Lessig wrote the
+book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)">Free
+Culture</a> to explain the problems with increasing copyright
+regulation and suggest some solutions. I read the book back then and
+was very moved by it. Reading the book inspired me and changed the
+way I looked on copyright law, and I would love it if more people
+would read it too.</p>
+
+<p>Because of this, I decided in the summer of 2012 to translate it to
+Norwegian Bokmål and publish it for those of my friends and family
+that prefer to read books in Norwegian. I translated the book using
+docbook and a gettext PO file, and a byproduct of this process is a
+new edition of the English original. I've been in touch with the
+author during by work, and he said it was fine with him if I also
+published an English version. So I decided to do so. Today, I made
+this edition
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">available
+for sale on Lulu.com</a>, for those interested in a paper book. This
+is the cover:
+
+<p align="center"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-10-23-free-culture-english-published-cover.png"/></a></p>
+
+<p>The Norwegian Bokmål version will be available for purchase in a
+few days. I also plan to publish a French version in a few weeks or
+months, depending on the amount of people with knowledge of French to
+join the translation project. So far there is only one active
+person, but the French book is almost completely translated but
+need some proof reading.</p>
+
+<p>The book is also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI formats from
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
+github project page</a>. Note the ePub and MOBI versions have some
+formatting problems I believe is due to bugs in the docbook tool
+dbtoepub (Debian BTS issues
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=795842">#795842</a>
+and
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=796871">#796871</a>),
+but I have not taken the time to investigate. I recommend the PDF and
+ePub version for now, as they seem to show up fine in the viewers I
+have available.</p>
+
+<p>After the translation to Norwegian Bokmål was complete, I was able
+to secure some sponsoring from
+<a href="http://www.nuugfoundation.no/">the NUUG Foundation</a> to
+print the book. This is the reason their logo is located on the back
+cover. I am very grateful for their contribution, and will use it to
+give a copy of the Norwegian edition to members of the Norwegian
+Parliament and other decision makers here in Norway.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lawrence_Lessig_interviewed_Edward_Snowden_a_year_ago.html">Lawrence Lessig interviewed Edward Snowden a year ago</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th October 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Last year, <a href="https://lessig2016.us/">US president candidate
+in the Democratic Party</a> Lawrence interviewed Edward Snowden. The
+one hour interview was
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE">published by
+Harvard Law School 2014-10-23 on Youtube</a>, and the meeting took
+place 2014-10-20.</p>
+
+<p>The questions are very good, and there is lots of useful
+information to be learned and very interesting issues to think about
+being raised. Please check it out.</p>
+
+<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o_Sr96TFQQE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
+
+<p>I find it especially interesting to hear again that Snowden did try
+to bring up his reservations through the official channels without any
+luck. It is in sharp contrast to the answers made 2013-11-06 by the
+Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg to the Norwegian Parliament,
+<a href="https://tale.holderdeord.no/speeches/s131106/68">claiming
+Snowden is no Whistle-Blower</a> because he should have taken up his
+concerns internally and using official channels. It make me sad
+that this is the political leadership we have here in Norway.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html">The Story of Aaron Swartz - Let us all weep!</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 8th October 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The movie "<a href="http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy">The
+Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz</a>" is both inspiring
+and depressing at the same time. The work of Aaron Swartz has
+inspired me in my work, and I am grateful of all the improvements he
+was able to initiate or complete. I wish I am able to do as much good
+in my life as he did in his. Every minute of this 1:45 long movie is
+inspiring in documenting how much impact a single person can have on
+improving the society and this world. And it is depressing in
+documenting how the law enforcement of USA (and other countries) is
+corrupted to a point where they can push a bright kid to his death for
+downloading too many scientific articles. Aaron is dead. Let us all
+weep.</p>
+
+<p>The movie is also available on
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58">Youtube</a>. I
+wish there were Norwegian subtitles available, so I could show it to
+my parents.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html">French Docbook/PDF/EPUB/MOBI edition of the Free Culture book</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 1st October 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>As I wrap up the Norwegian version of
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
+Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig (still waiting for my final proof
+reading copy to arrive in the mail), my great
+<a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> helper and
+developer of the dblatex docbook processor, Benoît Guillon, decided a
+to try to create a French version of the book. He started with the
+French translation available from the
+<a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">Wikilivres wiki
+pages</a>, and wrote a program to convert it into a PO file, allowing
+the translation to be integrated into the po4a based framework I use
+to create the Norwegian translation from the English edition. We meet
+on the <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23dblatex">#dblatex IRC
+channel</a> to discuss the work. If you want to help create a French
+edition, check out
+<a href="https://github.com/marsgui/free-culture-lessig">his git
+repository</a> and join us on IRC. If the French edition look good,
+we might publish it as a paper book on lulu.com. A French version of
+the drawings and the cover need to be provided for this to happen.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 24th September 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
+But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
+within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
+and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
+all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
+about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
+more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
+
+<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
+
+<p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
+battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
+by someone else. I found
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
+which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
+broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
+write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
+from him. Via
+<a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
+blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
+discovered
+<a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
+available in Debian.</p>
+
+<p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
+battery stats ever since. Now my
+/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
+measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
+when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
+collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
+
+<pre>
+#!/bin/sh
+# Inspired by
+# http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
+# See also
+# http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
+logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
+
+files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
+ energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
+
+if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
+ (
+ printf "timestamp,"
+ for f in $files; do
+ printf "%s," $f
+ done
+ echo
+ ) > "$logfile"
+fi
+
+log_battery() {
+ # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
+ # when several log processes run in parallel.
+ msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
+ for f in $files; do \
+ printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
+ done)
+ echo "$msg"
+}
+
+cd /sys/class/power_supply
+
+for bat in BAT*; do
+ (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
+done
+</pre>
+
+<p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
+change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
+and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
+every 10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
+is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
+The code for the Debian package
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
+available on github</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
+
+<pre>
+timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
+1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
+[...]
+1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
+1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
+</pre>
+
+<p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
+over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
+battery.</p>
+
+<p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
+dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
+satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
+<a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
+University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
+chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
+all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
+I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
+<a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
+the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
+100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
+like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
+story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
+Linux too.</p>
+
+<p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
+stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
+preparation for a longer trip? I found
+<a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
+recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
+80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
+load).</p>
+
+<p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
+at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
+times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
+back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
+speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
+to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
+level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
+those.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
+acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
+packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
+initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
+and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
+and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
+specific.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html">Book cover for the Free Culture book finally done</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 3rd September 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Creating a good looking book cover proved harder than I expected.
+I wanted to create a cover looking similar to the original cover of
+the
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
+Culture</a> book we are translating to Norwegian, and I wanted it in
+vector format for high resolution printing. But my inkscape knowledge
+were not nearly good enough to pull that off.
+
+<p>But thanks to the great inkscape community, I was able to wrap up
+the cover yesterday evening. I asked on the
+<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23inkscape">#inkscape IRC channel</a>
+on Freenode for help and clues, and Marc Jeanmougin (Mc-) volunteered
+to try to recreate it based on the PDF of the cover from the HTML
+version. Not only did he create a
+<a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/copy1.svg ">SVG document with
+the original and his vector version side by side</a>, he even provided
+an <a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/out-1.ogv">instruction
+video</a> explaining how he did it</a>. But the instruction video is
+not easy to follow for an untrained inkscape user. The video is a
+recording on how he did it, and he is obviously very experienced as
+the menu selections are very quick and he mentioned on IRC that he did
+use some keyboard shortcuts that can't be seen on the video, but it
+give a good idea about the inkscape operations to use to create the
+stripes with the embossed copyright sign in the center.</p>
+
+<p>I took his SVG file, copied the vector image and re-sized it to fit
+on the cover I was drawing. I am happy with the end result, and the
+current english version look like this:</p>
+
+<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-03-free-culture-cover.png" width="70%" align="center"/>
+
+<p>I am not quite sure about the text on the back, but guess it will
+do. I picked three quotes from the official site for the book, and
+hope it will work to trigger the interest of potential readers. The
+Norwegian cover will look the same, but with the texts and bar code
+replaced with the Norwegian version.</p>
+
+<p>The book is very close to being ready for publication, and I expect
+to upload the final draft to Lulu in the next few days and order a
+final proof reading copy to verify that everything look like it should
+before allowing everyone to order their own copy of Free Culture, in
+English or Norwegian Bokmål. I'm waiting to give the the productive
+proof readers a chance to complete their work.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html">In my hand, a pocket book edition of the Norwegian Free Culture book!</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th August 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Today, finally, my first printed draft edition of the Norwegian
+translation of Free Culture I have been working on for the last few
+years arrived in the mail. I had to fake a cover to get the interior
+printed, and the exterior of the book look awful, but that is
+irrelevant at this point. I asked for a printed pocket book version
+to get an idea about the font sizes and paper format as well as how
+good the figures and images look in print, but also to test what the
+pocket book version would look like. After receiving the 500 page
+pocket book, it became obvious to me that that pocket book size is too
+small for this book. I believe the book is too thick, and several
+tables and figures do not look good in the size they get with that
+small page sizes. I believe I will go with the 5.5x8.5 inch size
+instead. A surprise discovery from the paper version was how bad the
+URLs look in print. They are very hard to read in the colophon page.
+The URLs are red in the PDF, but light gray on paper. I need to
+change the color of links somehow to look better. But there is a
+printed book in my hand, and it feels great. :)</p>
+
+<p>Now I only need to fix the cover, wrap up the postscript with the
+store behind the book, and collect the last corrections from the proof
+readers before the book is ready for proper printing. Cover artists
+willing to work for free and create a Creative Commons licensed vector
+file looking similar to the original is most welcome, as my skills as
+a graphics designer are mostly missing.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html">First paper version of the Norwegian Free Culture book heading my way</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 9th August 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped. As the translation is
+mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
+on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
+<a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> based version of the
+<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> book by Lawrence
+Lessig. I've been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
+give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
+its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
+helpful in solving my formatting challenges.</p>
+
+<p>Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
+<a href="http://www.lulu.com/">Lulu.com</a> complain after uploading,
+and I ordered a text version of the book on paper. It is lacking a
+proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
+should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
+<a href="http://www.createspace.com/">CreateSpace</a>, but ended up
+using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
+to lack pocket book with extended distribution). I looked for a
+similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far. Please
+let me know if I am missing out on something here.</p>
+
+<p>But I still struggle to decide the book size. Should I go for
+pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
+(5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
+15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages? Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
+smaller book is easier to carry around. The test book I ordered was
+pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
+but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
+bring the prize down further.</p>
+
+<p>My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art. My
+inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
+cover in SVG format. I also need to figure out what to write about
+the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
+description on web based book stores). I would love help with this,
+if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
+the same CC license as the book. My artistic skills are not really up
+to the task.</p>
+
+<p>I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
+paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format. The current
+status can as usual be found on
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
+in the archive/ directory. So far I have spent all time on making the
+PDF version look good. Someone should probably do the same with the
+dbtoepub generated e-book. Help is definitely needed here, as I
+expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
+formatting.</p>
+
+<p>Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
+discover translations that should be improved. The final proof
+reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
+result in a few months.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html">Typesetting DocBook footnotes as endnotes with dblatex</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 16th July 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I'm still working on the Norwegian version of the
+<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture book by Lawrence
+Lessig</a>, and is now working on the final typesetting and layout.
+One of the features I want to get the structure similar to the
+original book is to typeset the footnotes as endnotes in the notes
+chapter. Based on the
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/685063">feedback from the Debian
+maintainer and the dblatex developer</a>, I came up with this recipe I
+would like to share with you. The proposal was to create a new LaTeX
+class file and add the LaTeX code there, but this is not always
+practical, when I want to be able to replace the class using a make
+file variable. So my proposal misuses the latex.begindocument XSL
+parameter value, to get a small fragment into the correct location in
+the generated LaTeX File.</p>
+
+<p>First, decide where in the DocBook document to place the endnotes,
+and add this text there:</p>
+
+<pre>
+<?latex \theendnotes ?>
+</pre>
+
+<p>Next, create a xsl stylesheet file dblatex-endnotes.xsl to add the
+code needed to add the endnote instructions in the preamble of the
+generated LaTeX document, with content like this:</p>
+
+<pre>
+<?xml version='1.0'?>
+<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'>
+ <xsl:param name="latex.begindocument">
+ <xsl:text>
+\usepackage{endnotes}
+\let\footnote=\endnote
+\def\enoteheading{\mbox{}\par\vskip-\baselineskip }
+\begin{document}
+ </xsl:text>
+ </xsl:param>
+</xsl:stylesheet>
+</pre>
+
+<p>Finally, load this xsl file when running dblatex, for example like
+this:</p>
+
+<pre>
+dblatex --xsl-user=dblatex-endnotes.xsl freeculture.nb.xml
+</pre>
+
+<p>The end result can be seen on github, where
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
+book project</a> is located.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html">MPEG LA on "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" licensing and non-private use</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 7th July 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html">why
+they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
+the MPEG LA</a>, I was wiser, but still confused. So I asked MPEG LA
+if their understanding matched that of NRK. As far as I can tell, it
+does not.</p>
+
+<p>I started by asking for more information about the various
+licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
+did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+<p>According to
+<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf">a
+MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02</a>, there is no charge when
+using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of "Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video". I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" is, and wondered if you could help me. What
+exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?</p>
+
+<p>The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
+PDF named
+<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">AVC
+Patent Portfolio License Briefing</a>, which states this about the
+fees:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li>Where End User pays for AVC Video
+ <ul>
+ <li>Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
+ subscribers/yr = no royalty; > 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
+ $25,000; >250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; >500,000 to
+ 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; >1M subscribers/yr = $100,000</li>
+
+ <li>Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; >12 minutes in
+ length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title</li>
+ </ul></li>
+
+ <li>Where remuneration is from other sources
+ <ul>
+ <li>Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
+ (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for > 100,000 HH rising to
+ maximum $10,000 for >1,000,000 HH</li>
+
+ <li>Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
+ – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License</li>
+ </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
+categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video" is the category for things that do not fall into
+one of the other three categories? Can you point me to a good source
+explaining what is ment by "title-by-title" and "Free Television" in
+the license terms for AVC/H.264?</p>
+
+<p>Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
+"video on demand" fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
+subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
+get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the "Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video", ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
+Portfolio license? Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
+access to personalized services?</p>
+
+<p>Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
+Internet.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
+with the MPEG LA:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+<p>Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA. We
+appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.</p>
+
+<p>As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
+which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
+the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10). Specifically, coverage is
+provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
+technology. Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
+video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
+paying the applicable royalties.</p>
+
+<p>Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
+defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
+the Internet free-of-charge. Therefore, if a party offers a service
+which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
+AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
+receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
+Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
+License. This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
+free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
+AVC Video content. In other words, as long as the End User is given
+access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
+no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
+specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
+video would constitute Subscription AVC Video. In cases where AVC
+Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
+content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video. If a party offers
+Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
+be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
+through an "over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission", then
+such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
+subject to the applicable royalties.</p>
+
+<p>For your reference, I have attached
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf">a
+.pdf copy of the AVC License</a>. You will find the relevant
+sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
+2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
+You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
+Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License. Please note that the
+electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
+be used for execution.</p>
+
+<p>I hope the above information is helpful. If you have additional
+questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
+free to contact me directly.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
+that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
+me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
+But I still had a few questions:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+<p>I have a small followup question. Would it be possible for me to get
+a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid? The
+reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
+clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA. The clauses
+typically look similar to this:
+
+<p><blockquote>
+ This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
+ the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
+ video in compliance with the AVC standard ("AVC video") and/or (b)
+ decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
+ personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
+ obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
+ license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
+ information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
+an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
+there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA. I suspect it will
+differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway. What is
+MPEG LAs view on this?</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
+non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+<p>With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
+clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
+reads:</p>
+
+<p>THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
+THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
+RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
+STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
+BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
+A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
+OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
+OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM</p>
+
+<p>The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
+personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
+with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
+product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
+licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
+deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
+Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party's AVC
+Product as their own branded AVC Product).</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
+Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
+Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
+conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
+payable under the License. On the other hand, if that party (either a
+Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
+own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
+above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
+Products by the licensed supplier.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
+countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
+Norway.</p>
+
+<p>I hope this clarification is helpful. If I may be of any further
+assistance, just let me know.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
+asked for more information:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+<p>But one minor question at the end. If I understand you correctly,
+you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
+Portfolio that are valid in Norway. This make me believe I read the
+list available from <URL:
+<a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx">http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx</a>
+> incorrectly, as I believed the "NO" prefix in front of patents
+were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
+Electric Corporation expired in 2012. Which patents are you referring
+to that are relevant for Norway?</p>
+
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
+in that list:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+
+<p>Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
+Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012. Therefore, where AVC
+Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
+royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
+With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
+Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
+the last Norwegian AVC patent expired. I would also like to clarify
+that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
+country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
+a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
+Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
+coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
+initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
+Patents (for example, Norway). Similarly, a party would need to
+conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
+country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
+such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
+Portfolio Patents.</p>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
+Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
+license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
+anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
+Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
+content. I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
+none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid. Will the
+copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
+the patents are not valid in Norway?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 5th July 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
+need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
+thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
+fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
+do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
+machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
+with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
+for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
+not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
+using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
+might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
+
+<p>One tip I got was to use the
+<a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
+compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
+prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
+keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
+very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
+keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
+
+<p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
+newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
+(which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
+Debian Sid/Unstable according to
+<a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>. The reports I
+got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
+is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
+Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
+keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
+keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
+replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
+activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
+also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
+noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
+Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
+
+<p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
+<a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
+<a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
+The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
+
+<p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
+as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
+<a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
+different
+<a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
+thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 3rd July 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
+replacement soon. The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
+started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
+cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
+flickering.</p>
+
+<p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
+still as
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
+described them in 2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
+good help from
+<a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
+where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
+wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
+and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
+laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
+G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
+keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
+the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
+deteriorated since X41.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
+seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
+set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
+have suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
+<a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
+of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html">MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2nd July 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> with recording the talks at
+<a href="http://www.makercon.no/">MakerCon Nordic</a>, a conference for
+the Maker movement. Since then it has been the plan to publish the
+recordings on <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, which
+finally happened the last few days. A few talks are missing because
+the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
+talks are available. The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
+channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
+from the Frikanalen web site. The unedited recordings are
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">available on
+Youtube too</a>.</p>
+
+<p>This is the list of talks available at the moment. Visit the
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon">Frikanalen video
+pages</a> to view them.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
+ to robotics (Kyrre Glette)</li>
+
+ <li>Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)</li>
+
+ <li>Making a one year school course for young makers
+ (Olav Helland)</li>
+
+ <li>Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
+ Inspiration (Hege Langlo)</li>
+
+ <li>Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)</li>
+
+ <li>How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)</li>
+
+ <li>Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
+ Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)</li>
+
+ <li>Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)</li>
+
+ <li>Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)</li>
+
+ <li>Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)</li>
+
+ <li>Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)</li>
+
+ <li>Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
+ Sevens)</li>
+
+ <li>How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
+ (Jennifer Turliuk)</li>
+
+ <li>Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
+ Connected Exploration (David Lang)</li>
+
+ <li>Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
+ Dyvik)</li>
+
+ <li>The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
+to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
+longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
+argument changes). In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
+which sent me on a detour to
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">package
+bs1770gain for Debian</a>. Now this is in place and it became a lot
+easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html">Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th June 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies
+in Norway. The information is publicly available, but one need to
+recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete
+ownership graph of a given set of companies. To save me the work in
+the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the
+ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format. The data source
+is web scraping from <a href="http://www.proff.no/">Proff</a>, because
+I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of
+the ownership data, <a href="http://www.brreg.no/">Brønnøysundsregistrene</a>.</p>
+
+<p>To get an ownership graph for a set of companies, fetch
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/brreg-norway-ownership-graph">the code from git</a> and run it using the organisation number. I'm
+using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its
+ownership structure is very simple:</p>
+
+<pre>
+% time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot
+
+real 0m2.841s
+user 0m0.184s
+sys 0m0.036s
+%
+</pre>
+
+<p>The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line,
+allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image. The
+resulting dot file for the example above look like this. The edges
+are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the
+organisation number as their name and the name as the label:</p>
+
+<pre>
+digraph ownership {
+rankdir = LR;
+"Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"]
+"910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"]
+"998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"]
+"974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"]
+"958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"]
+"998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"]
+"974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"]
+"910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"]
+}
+</pre>
+
+<p>To view the ownership graph, run "<tt>dotty dagbladet.dot</tt>" or
+convert it to a PNG using "<tt>dot -T png dagbladet.dot >
+dagbladet.png</tt>". The result can be seen below:</p>
+
+<img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-15-ownership-graphs-norway-dagbladet.png" width="80%">
+
+<p>Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect
+data in the official ownership register, as that name is not
+registered in the official company register for Norway. The ownership
+register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking
+of the ownership links.</p>
+
+<p>Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources.
+The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2015-06-15: Since the initial post I've been told that
+"<a href="http://www.proff.dk/firma/carl-allers-etablissement-aktieselskab/københavn-v/hovedkontorer/13624518-3/">Aller
+Holding A/S</a>" is a Danish company, which explain why it did not
+have a Norwegian organisation number. I've also been told that there
+is a <a href="http://www.brreg.no/automatiske/webservices/">web
+services API available</a> from Brønnøysundsregistrene, for those
+willing to accept the terms or pay the price.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 11th June 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
+everywhere. Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
+ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
+the viewers do not like this. This fact is well known to the TV
+channels. See for example the BBC white paper
+"<a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf">Terminology
+for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that</a>" from 2011 for a
+summary of the problem domain. To better address the need for even
+loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
+new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
+standardizing loudness. From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
+"<a href="http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en">Algorithms to
+measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level</a>".</p>
+
+<p>The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
+loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
+having a way to measure is not enough. To get the same loudness
+across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
+on. For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
+R128, "<a href="https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf">Loudness
+normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals</a>", which
+specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS. In Norway, I have been
+told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
+follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.</p>
+
+<p>There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
+level using the LUFS. In Debian, I am aware of a library named
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128">libebur128</a>
+able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
+named <a href="http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net">bs1770gain</a>
+capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
+for NEW processing. I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
+<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org">Debian
+multimedia</a> umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, plan to follow the
+R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
+do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
+the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
+Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
+I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
+NUUG member organisation</a>. The program seem to be able to measure
+the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only
+successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files. I suspect it
+should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html">Norwegian citizens now required by law to give their fingerprint to the police</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 10th May 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>5 days ago, the Norwegian Parliament decided, unanimously, that all
+citizens of Norway, no matter if they are suspected of something
+criminal or not, are
+<a href="https://www.holderdeord.no/votes/1430838871e">required to
+give fingerprints to the police</a> (vote details from Holder de
+ord). The law make it sound like it will be optional, but in a few
+years there will be no option any more. The ID will be required to
+vote, to get a bank account, a bank card, to change address on the
+post office, to receive an electronic ID or to get a drivers license
+and many other tasks required to function in Norway. The banks plan
+to stop providing their own ID on the bank cards when this new
+national ID is introduced, and the national road authorities plan to
+change the drivers license to no longer be usable as identity cards.
+In effect, to function as a citizen in Norway a national ID card will
+be required, and to get it one need to provide the fingerprints to
+the police.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to handing the fingerprint to the police (which
+promised to not make a copy of the fingerprint image at that point in
+time, but say nothing about doing it later), a picture of the
+fingerprint will be stored on the RFID chip, along with a picture of
+the face and other information about the person. Some of the
+information will be encrypted, but the encryption will be the same
+system as currently used in the passports. The codes to decrypt will
+be available to a lot of government offices and their suppliers around
+the globe, but for those that do not know anyone in those circles it
+is good to know that
+<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/nov/17/news.homeaffairs">the
+encryption is already broken</a>. And they
+<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2215057/wireless/bad-guys-could-read-rfid-passports-at-217-feet--maybe-a-lot-more.html">can
+be read from 70 meters away</a>. This can be mitigated a bit by
+keeping it in a Faraday cage (metal box or metal wire container), but
+one will be required to take it out of there often enough to expose
+ones private and personal information to a lot of people that have no
+business getting access to that information.</p>
+
+<p>The new Norwegian national IDs are a vehicle for identity theft,
+and I feel sorry for us all having politicians accepting such invasion
+of privacy without any objections. So are the Norwegian passports,
+but it has been possible to function in Norway without those so far.
+That option is going away with the passing of the new law. In this, I
+envy the Germans, because for them it is optional how much biometric
+information is stored in their national ID.</p>
+
+<p>And if forced collection of fingerprints was not bad enough, the
+information collected in the national ID card register can be handed
+over to foreign intelligence services and police authorities, "when
+extradition is not considered disproportionate".</p>
+
+<p>Update 2015-05-12: For those unable to believe that the Parliament
+really could make such decision, I wrote
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html">a
+summary of the sources I have</a> for concluding the way I do
+(Norwegian Only, as the sources are all in Norwegian).</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html">What would it cost to store all phone calls in Norway?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 1st May 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Many years ago, a friend of mine calculated how much it would cost
+to store the sound of all phone calls in Norway, and came up with the
+cost of around 20 million NOK (2.4 mill EUR) for all the calls in a
+year. I got curious and wondered what the same calculation would look
+like today. To do so one need an idea of how much data storage is
+needed for each minute of sound, how many minutes all the calls in
+Norway sums up to, and the cost of data storage.</p>
+
+<p>The 2005 numbers are from
+<a href="http://www.digi.no/analyser/2005/10/04/vi-prater-stadig-mindre-i-roret">digi.no</a>,
+the 2012 numbers are from
+<a href="http://www.nkom.no/aktuelt/nyheter/fortsatt-vekst-i-det-norske-ekommarkedet">a
+NKOM report</a>, and I got the 2013 numbers after asking NKOM via
+email. I was told the numbers for 2014 will be presented May 20th,
+and decided not to wait for those, as I doubt they will be very
+different from the numbers from 2013.</p>
+
+<p>The amount of data storage per minute sound depend on the wanted
+quality, and for phone calls it is generally believed that 8 Kbit/s is
+enough. See for example a
+<a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice/voice-quality/7934-bwidth-consume.html#topic1">summary
+on voice quality from Cisco</a> for some alternatives. 8 Kbit/s is 60
+Kbytes/min, and this can be multiplied with the number of call minutes
+to get the storage requirements.</p>
+
+<p>Storage prices varies a lot, depending on speed, backup strategies,
+availability requirements etc. But a simple way to calculate can be
+to use the price of a TiB-disk (around 1000 NOK / 120 EUR) and double
+it to take space, power and redundancy into account. It could be much
+higher with high speed and good redundancy requirements.</p>
+
+<p>But back to the question, What would it cost to store all phone
+calls in Norway? Not much. Here is a small table showing the
+estimated cost, which is within the budget constraint of most medium
+and large organisations:</p>
+
+<table border="1">
+<tr><th>Year</th><th>Call minutes</th><th>Size</th><th>Price in NOK / EUR</th></tr>
+<tr><td>2005</td><td align="right">24 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.3 PiB</td><td align="right">3 mill / 358 000</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2012</td><td align="right">18 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.0 PiB</td><td align="right">2.2 mill / 262 000</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2013</td><td align="right">17 000 000 000</td><td align="right">950 TiB</td><td align="right">2.1 mill / 250 000</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This is the cost of buying the storage. Maintenance need to be
+taken into account too, but calculating that is left as an exercise
+for the reader. But it is obvious to me from those numbers that
+recording the sound of all phone calls in Norway is not going to be
+stopped because it is too expensive. I wonder if someone already is
+collecting the data?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 26th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I am happy to report that the Debian Edu team sent out
+<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2015/04/msg00000.html">this
+announcement today</a>:</p>
+
+<pre>
+the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is pleased to announce the first
+*beta* release of Debian Edu "Jessie" 8.0+edu0~b1, which for the first
+time is composed entirely of packages from the current Debian stable
+release, Debian 8 "Jessie".
+
+(As most reading this will know, Debian "Jessie" hasn't actually been
+released by now. The release is still in progress but should finish
+later today ;)
+
+We expect to make a final release of Debian Edu "Jessie" in the coming
+weeks, timed with the first point release of Debian Jessie. Upgrades
+from this beta release of Debian Edu Jessie to the final release will
+be possible and encouraged!
+
+Please report feedback to debian-edu@lists.debian.org and/or submit
+bugs: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
+
+Debian Edu - sometimes also known as "Skolelinux" - is a complete
+operating system for schools, universities and other
+organisations. Through its pre- prepared installation profiles
+administrators can install servers, workstations and laptops which
+will work in harmony on the school network. With Debian Edu, the
+teachers themselves or their technical support staff can roll out a
+complete multi-user, multi-machine study environment within hours or
+days.
+
+Debian Edu is already in use at several hundred schools all over the
+world, particularly in Germany, Spain and Norway. Installations come
+with hundreds of applications pre-installed, plus the whole Debian
+archive of thousands of compatible packages within easy reach.
+
+For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
+installation instructions are available, including detailed
+instructions in the manual explaining the first steps, such as setting
+up a network or adding users. Please note that the password for the
+user your prompted for during installation must have a length of at
+least 5 characters!
+
+== Where to download ==
+
+A multi-architecture CD / usbstick image (649 MiB) for network booting
+can be downloaded at the following locations:
+
+ http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso
+ rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso .
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: 54a524d16246cddd8d2cfd6ea52f2dd78c47ee0a
+
+Alternatively an extended DVD / usbstick image (4.9 GiB) is also
+available, with more software included (saving additional download
+time):
+
+ http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
+ rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: fb1f1504a490c077a48653898f9d6a461cb3c636
+
+Sources are available from the Debian archive, see
+http://ftp.debian.org/debian-cd/8.0.0/source/ for some download
+options.
+
+== Debian Edu Jessie manual in seven languages ==
+
+Please see https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/ for
+the English version of the Debian Edu jessie manual.
+
+This manual has been fully translated to German, French, Italian,
+Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Bokmål. A partly translated version exists
+for Spanish. See http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/ for
+online version of the translated manual.
+
+More information about Debian 8 "Jessie" itself is provided in the
+release notes and the installation manual:
+- http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
+- http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
+
+
+== Errata / known problems ==
+
+ It takes up to 15 minutes for a changed hostname to be updated via
+ DHCP (#780461).
+
+ The hostname script fails to update LTSP server hostname (#783087).
+
+Workaround: run update-hostname-from-ip on the client to update the
+hostname immediately.
+
+Check https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie for a possibly
+more current and complete list.
+
+== Some more details about Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~b1 Codename Jessie released 2015-04-25 ==
+
+=== Software updates ===
+
+Everything which is new in Debian 8 Jessie, e.g.:
+
+ * Linux kernel 3.16.7-ctk9; for the i386 architecture, support for
+ i486 processors has been dropped; oldest supported ones: i586 (like
+ Intel Pentium and AMD K5).
+
+ * Desktop environments KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11.13, GNOME 3.14,
+ Xfce 4.12, LXDE 0.5.6
+ * new optional desktop environment: MATE 1.8
+ * KDE Plasma Workspaces is installed by default; to choose one of
+ the others see the manual.
+ * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 41
+ * LibreOffice 4.3.3
+ * GOsa 2.7.4
+ * LTSP 5.5.4
+ * CUPS print system 1.7.5
+ * new boot framework: systemd
+ * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.12
+ * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
+ * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
+ * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.1
+ * golearn 0.9
+ * tuxpaint 0.9.22
+ * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
+ * Debian Jessie includes about 43000 packages available for installation.
+ * More information about Debian 8 Jessie is provided in its release
+ notes and the installation manual, see the link above.
+
+=== Installation changes ===
+
+ Installations done via PXE now also install firmware automatically
+ for the hardware present.
+
+=== Fixed bugs ===
+
+A number of bugs have been fixed in this release; the most noticeable
+from a user perspective:
+
+ * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
+ DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
+ information is corrected (710362)
+
+ * shutdown-at-night now shuts the system down if gdm3 is used (775608).
+
+=== Sugar desktop removed ===
+
+As the Sugar desktop was removed from Debian Jessie, it is also not
+available in Debian Edu jessie.
+
+
+== About Debian Edu / Skolelinux ==
+
+Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based on
+Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
+configured school network. Directly after installation a school server
+running all services needed for a school network is set up just
+waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
+Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
+initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
+machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
+provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
+centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
+services. The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
+packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
+can choose between KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
+environment.
+
+== About Debian ==
+
+The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
+free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
+the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
+volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
+maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
+huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
+operating system.
+
+== Thanks ==
+
+Thanks to everyone making Debian and Debian Edu / Skolelinux happen!
+You rock.
+</pre>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html">Debian Edu interview: Shirish Agarwal</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>It was a surprise to me to learn that project to create a complete
+computer system for schools I've involved in,
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, was
+being used in India. But apparently it is, and I managed to get an
+interview with one of the friends of the project there, Shirish
+Agarwal.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>My name is Shirish Agarwal. Based out of the educational and
+historical city of Pune, from the western state of Maharashtra, India.
+My bread comes from giving training, giving policy tips,
+installations on free software to mom and pop shops in different
+fields from Desktop publishing to retail shops as well as work with
+few software start-ups as well.</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>It started innocently enough. I have been using Debian for a few
+years and in one local minidebconf / debutsav I was asked if there was
+anything for schools or education. I had worked / played with free
+educational softwares such as Gcompris and Stellarium for my many
+nieces and nephews so researched and found Debian Edu or Skolelinux as
+it was known then. Since then I have started using the various
+education meta-packages provided by the project.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>It's closest I have seen where a package full of educational
+software are packed, which are free and open (both literally and
+figuratively). Even if I take the simplest software which is
+gcompris, the number of activities therein are amazing. Another one of
+the softwares that I have liked for a long time is stellarium. Even
+pysycache is cool except for couple of issues I encountered
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781841">#781841</a> and
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781842">#781842</a>.</p>
+
+<p>I prefer software installed on the system over web based solutions,
+as a web site can disappear any time but the software on disk has the
+possibility of a larger life span. Of course with both it's more a
+question if it has enough users who make it fun or sustainable or both
+for the developer per-se.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I do see that the Debian Edu team seems to be short-handed and I
+think more efforts should be made to make it popular and ask and take
+help from people and the larger community wherever possible.</p>
+
+<p>I don't see any disadvantage to use Skolelinux apart from the fact
+that most apps. are generic which is good or bad how you see it.
+However, saying that I do acknowledge the fact that the canvas is
+pretty big and there are lot of interesting ideas that could be done
+but for reasons not known not done or if done I don't know about them.
+Let me share some of the ideas (these are more upstream based but
+still) I have had for a long time :</p>
+
+<p>1. Classical maths question of two trains in opposing directions
+each running @x kmph/mph at y distance, when they will meet and how
+far would each travel and similar questions like these.
+
+<p>The computer is a fantastic system where questions like these can
+be drawn, animated and the methodology and answers teased out in
+interactive manner. While sites such as the
+<a href="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.two.trains.html">Ask
+Dr. Math FAQ on The Two Trains problem</a> (as an example or point of
+inspiration) can be used there is lot more that can be done. I dunno
+if there is a free software which does something like this. The idea
+being a blend of objects + animation + interaction which does
+this. The whole interaction could be gamified with points or sounds or
+colourful celebration whenever the user gets even part of the question
+or/and methodology right. That would help reinforce good behaviour.
+This understanding could be used to share/showcase everything from how
+the first wheel came to be, to evolution to how astronomy started,
+psychics and everything in-between.</p>
+
+<p>One specific idea in the train part was having the Linux mascot on
+one train and the BSD or GNU mascot on the other train and they
+meeting somewhere in-between. Characters from blender movies could
+also be used.</p>
+
+<p>2. Loads of crossword-puzzles with reference to subjects: We have
+enormous data sets in Wikipedia and Wikitionary. I don't think it
+should be a big job to design crossword puzzles. Using categories and
+sub-categories it should be doable to have Q&A single word answers
+from the existing data-sets. What would make it easy or hard could be
+the length of the word + existence of many or few vowels depending on
+the user's input.</p>
+
+<p>3. Jigsaw puzzles - We already have a great software called
+palapeli with number of slicers making it pretty interesting. What
+needs to be done is to download large number of public domain and
+copyleft images, tease and use IPTC tags to categorise them into
+nature, history etc. and let it loose. This could turn to be really
+huge collection of images. One source could be taken from
+commons.wikimedia.org, others could be huge collection of royalty-free
+stock photos. Potential is immense.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from this, free software suffers in two directions, we lag
+both in development (of using new features per-se) and maintenance a
+lot. This is more so in educational software as these applications
+need to be timely and the opportunity cost of missing deadlines is
+immense. If we are able to solve issues of funding for development and
+maintenance of such software I don't see any big difficulties. I know
+of few start-ups in and around India who would love to develop and
+maintain such software if funding issues could be solved.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>That would be huge list. Some of the softwares are obviously apt,
+aptitude, debdelta, leafpad, the shell of course (zsh nowadays),
+quassel for IRC. In games I use shisen-sho while card-games are evenly
+between kpat and Aiselriot. In desktops it's a tie between
+gnome-flashback and mate.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I think it should first start with using specific FOSS apps. in
+whatever environment they are. If it's MS-Windows or Mac so be it.
+Once they are habitual with the apps. and there is buy-in from the
+school management then it could be installed anywhere. Most of the
+people now understand the concept of a repository because of the
+various online stores so it isn't hard to convince on that front.</p>
+
+<p>What is harder is having enough people with technical skills and
+passion to service them. If you get buy-in from one or two teachers
+then ideas like above could also be asked to be done as a project as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>I think where we fall short more than anything is in marketing. For
+instance, Debian has this whole range of fonts in its archive but
+there isn't even a page where all those different fonts in the La
+Ipsum format could be tried out for newcomers.</p>
+
+<p>One of the issues faced constantly in installations is with updates
+and upgrades. People have this myth that each update and upgrade
+means the user interface will / has to change. I have seen this
+innumerable times. That perhaps is one of the reasons which browsers
+like Iceweasel / Firefox change user interfaces so much, not because
+it might be needed or be functional but because people believe that
+changed user interfaces are better. This, can easily be pointed with
+the user interfaces changed with almost every MS-Windows and Mac OS
+releases.</p>
+
+<p>The problems with Debian Edu for deployment are many. The biggest
+is the huge gap between what is taught in schools and what Debian Edu
+is aimed at.
+
+<p>Me and my friends did teach on week-ends in a government school for
+around 2 years, and
+<a href="https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/sharings/">gathered
+some experience</a> there. Some of the things we learnt/discovered
+there was :</p>
+
+<ol>
+
+ <li>Most of the teachers are very territorial about their subjects
+ and they do not want you to teach anything out of the
+ portion/syllabus given.</li>
+
+ <li>They want any activity on the system in accordance to whatever
+ is in the syllabus.</li>
+
+ <li>There are huge barriers both with the English language and at
+ times with objects or whatever. An example, let's say in gcompris
+ you have objects falling down and you have to name them and let's
+ say the falling object is a hat or a fedora hat, this would not be
+ as recognizable as say a
+ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puneri_Pagadi">Puneri
+ Pagdi</a> so there is need to inject local objects, words wherever
+ possible. Especially for word-games there are so many hindi words
+ which have become part of english vocabulary (for instance in
+ parley), those could be made into a hinglish collection or
+ something but that is something for upstream to do.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html">I'm going to the Open Source Developers' Conference Nordic 2015!</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 7th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the <a
+href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/">Open Source Developers'
+Conference Nordic 2015</a>!</p>
+
+<p>It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
+where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
+<a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talk/6192">a talk proposal for
+it</a> (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted). As
+part of my involvement with the
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group member
+association</a> I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
+conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
+Hackathon with our friends
+over at <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> and
+<a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>. This part is
+named the 'My Society' track in the program. There is still space for
+more talks and participants. I hope to see you there.</p>
+
+<p>Check out <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talks">the talks
+submitted and accepted so far</a>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html">Proof reading the Norwegian translation of Free Culture by Lessig</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 4th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
+<a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
+<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
+At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
+inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
+I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
+check the text up to chapter 13. The current status is available on the
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
+project pages. You can also check out the
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
+and HTML version available in the
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
+directory</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
+you find any.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html">Frikanalen, Norwegian TV channel for technical topics</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 9th March 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a>,
+where I am a member, and where people interested in free software,
+open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs
+come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video.
+The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider
+audience. For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is a useful venue.
+Since a few days ago, when I figured out the
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/api/">REST API</a> to program the
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/guide/">channel time schedule</a>,
+the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and
+some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org). I fill
+all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at
+the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.</p>
+
+<p>The list of NUUG videos
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/organization/82">uploaded so far</a>
+include things like a
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/625090">one hour talk by John
+Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo</a>, a presentation of
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624275">Haiku, the BeOS
+re-implementation</a>, the
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624493">history of FiksGataMi,
+the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet</a>, the good old
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/623566">Warriors of the net
+video</A> and many others.</p>
+
+<p>We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to
+Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to
+spread the word there. I also hope to find useful recordings from the
+Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the
+channel as well. But this require locating the videos and their meta
+information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the
+recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to
+focus on this. Perhaps you want to help. Please join us on IRC,
+<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
+if you want to help make this happen.</p>
+
+<p>But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively
+filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new
+today, check out the <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">Ogg Theora
+web stream</a> or use one of the other ways to get access to the
+channel. Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still
+do not properly sync the video and sound. It is generated by recoding
+a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to
+Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that
+produces acceptable quality. Help needed, please get in touch if you
+know how to fix it using free software.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html">The Citizenfour documentary on the Snowden confirmations to Norway</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 28th February 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Today I was happy to learn that the documentary
+<a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">Citizenfour</a> by
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras">Laura Poitras</a>
+finally will show up in Norway. According to the magazine
+<a href="http://montages.no/">Montages</a>, a deal has finally been
+made for
+<a href="http://montages.no/nyheter/snowden-dokumentaren-citizenfour-far-norsk-kinodistribusjon/">Cinema
+distribution in Norway</a> and the movie will have its premiere soon.
+This is great news. As part of my involvement with
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, me and
+a friend have
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_til_Norge_.shtml">tried
+to get the movie to Norway</a> ourselves, but obviously
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_endelig_til_Norge_.shtml">we
+were too late</a> and Tor Fosse beat us to it. I am happy he did, as
+the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make
+it happen ourselves.
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM">The trailer</a>
+can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this
+is.</p>
+
+<p>The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum
+here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Norwegian_open_channel_Frikanalen___24x7_on_the_Internet.html">The Norwegian open channel Frikanalen - 24x7 on the Internet</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 25th February 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The Norwegian nationwide open channel
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is still going
+strong. It allow everyone to send the video they want on national
+television. It is a TV station administrated completely using a web
+browser, running only <ahref="https://github.com/Frikanalen">Free
+Software</a>, providing <ahref="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api">a REST
+api</a> for administrators and members, and with distribution on the
+national DVB-T distribution network RiksTV. But only between 12:00
+and 17:30 Norwegian time. This has finally changed, after many years
+with limited distribution. A few weeks ago, we set up a Ogg Theora
+stream via icecast to allow everyone with Internet access to check out
+the channel the rest of the day. This is presented on
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">the Frikanalen web site now</a>. And
+since a few days ago, the channel is also available
+via <a href="https://www.uninett.no/iptv-tilgang">multicast on
+UNINETT</a>, available for those using IPTV TVs and set-top boxes in
+the Norwegian National Research and Education network.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to see what is on the channel, point your media player
+to one of these sources. The first should work with most players and
+browsers, while as far as I know, the multicast UDP stream only work
+with VLC.</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li><a href="http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv">http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv</a></li>
+ <li>udp://@224.17.43.129:1234</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The Ogg Theora / icecast stream is not working well, as the video
+and audio is slightly out of sync. We have not been able to figure
+out how to fix it. It is generated by recoding a internal MPEG
+transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to Ogg Theora /
+Vorbis, and the result is less then stellar. If you have ideas how to
+fix it, please let us know on frikanalen (at) nuug.no. We currently
+use this with ffmpeg2theora 0.29:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+./ffmpeg2theora.linux <OBE_gemini_URL.ts> -F 25 -x 720 -y 405 \
+ --deinterlace --inputfps 25 -c 1 -H 48000 --keyint 8 --buf-delay 100 \
+ --nosync -V 700 -o - | oggfwd video.nuug.no 8000 <pw> /frikanalen.ogv
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>If you get the multicast UDP stream working, please let me know, as
+I am curious how far the multicast stream reach. It do not make it to
+my home network, nor any other commercially available network in
+Norway that I am aware of.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
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