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Drive-by voting

Since the Swedish stance in favour of OOXML, I’ve had no particularly exciting moments in the related committee of the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS). Because the decision was withdrawn in the media chaos that followed, Sweden will not be able to vote on Microsoft’s ECMA’s proposal, or go to the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in February. It’ll be interesting to see how the story ends…

Meanwhile, I thought I’d remind you of how committed Microsoft’s partners are to actual standardisation work, as opposed to, hmm, something else. See my table below, listing organisations ordered by degree of participation. (You can also find out the date of joining for some members. Note that many of them have decided not to be part of the committee in 2008.)

Oh, and IAMCP has sued SIS in order to make sure that “IAMCP and its members can continue to work with standards in a reliable manner”.

What a sandbox.

Organisation 5 Jun 15 Jun 14 Aug 16 Aug1 VOTE 27 Aug 26 Sep 26 Nov2 17 Dec
Riksarkivet (chair) x x x NO x x x
IBM x x x x N/A3 x x
Microsoft x x x x YES x
Illuminet AB x x NO x x x
Verva x x NO x x
IAMCP Sweden Chapter4 x x YES x
Sun Microsystems AB x NO x x
EPiServer AB x x x YES
HumanData Inventus AB x x YES
iBizkit AB YES x x
Diamo AB x YES
WM-data x YES
Kungliga Biblioteket5 NO x
Exor AB YES x
Formpipe Software Linköping AB YES x
FS System AB YES x
International Development Europe YES x
SourceTech AB YES x
Rikspolisstyrelsen N/A6 x
Camako Data AB YES
Connecta AB YES
Cornerstone YES
Emric AB YES
Fishbone Systems AB YES
Google Sweden NO
HP YES
IT-Vision AB YES
KnowIT Stockholm YES
Modul 1 YES
Nordic Station AB YES
Sogeti YES
Solid Park AB YES
TietoEnator Digital Innovations YES
Cybernetics N/A3
ReadSoft AB N/A3
Strand Interconnect N/A3

Footnotes:

1 This meeting was only for editorial purposes.
2 This meeting was organized specifically to discuss coordination between various working groups in SiS.
3 Left before the OOXML vote.
4 The person in question is listed to be representing “VeBe IT-Management AB” during the first three meetings (including one absence).
5 Is a member of other committees as well.
6 Became a member after the OOXML vote.

I was kept rather busy this weekend, preparing and helping to execute the annual meeting of the FFII. Our President was re-elected, there are some new colleagues in the board, and so on. Software patents, watch out!

Where was I? Oh right, 30 geeks came to Brussels from all over Europe. Like at any good annual meeting, there was some flaming. And yes, they did try to ignore the schedule limitations I had set out in the agenda. Next time, there’ll be no mercy… 😉

While I just got tons of new work in my hands (we also had a long board meeting on Sunday), in the end I think it was a very stimulating (but exhausting) experience. We also had many speeches and other events. (I couldn’t participate in most of Friday’s events though, but at least I was in time for the beer… :-))

On Monday, I for once had some time to look around in the city (well, at least to see what to eat and drink near The Bourse, including some well-hid stuff along Beenhouwersstraat), and make a short stop to talk to some members. Then I went home again. Now just to catch up with all the paperwork…

Strange bookshops

(For the record, the following does not relate to anything in the real world – not IT, not operating systems, and it’s not even remotely related to installation procedures for software. The metaphors are completely fair and accurate, thus they do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion; I’m not making any subjective statements or suggestions.)

Shop 1

D: Hi Gene, can you get a book for me, please?
G: Hold on.

[Ten minutes later.]

G: Yes?
D: Oh, you know my style. You take a pick.
G: Moment…

[One minute later.]

G: OK. Maybe the one over there?
D: Great. I take it then.
G: Actually, the pages are blank. I need to fill them in first.
D: Uhhhhh, OK…

[One hour later.]

G: Here you are.
D: There’s only one chapter here!
G: Oh, I’m sorry, I got confused. Try the other one in the shelf, it’s a mass-produced copy.
D: Why didn’t you just tell me?!
G: You didn’t ask!

Shop 2

D: Uberto! Hi, I need the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
U: I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood.
D: I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I really need it.
U: OK, whatever.

[Pause]

U: Yeah, well, you know, I was getting some other books for you right now, and I would just mix everything up.
D: So do it after that!
U: I don’t know what you mean.
D: …

[Pause]

D: Are you getting the book or not?
U: Oh, I just finished with the other stuff. Sure thing, man.

Shop 3

D: Good morning, Winnie. How do I go about finding some books?
W: I have no idea.
D: What?!
W: Find them yourself!
D: Hmpf!

[Some time later…]

D: Here it is – YOU & NICK’S HATERS Handbook.
W: Oh, I like that one! It’ll be 50 Euros.
D: What?!
W: Per year.
D: …
W: Well?
D: I could get a very similar book for free elsewhere.
W: No, no, they’re no good. You must use this one.
D: Mrrff… Bah, I don’t care anymore, it’s not me who’d pay anyway…
W: Good. But any book can be dangerous, you know? Are you sure you want it?
D: I just paid for it!
W: Right. Here’s a few pages of rules about using this book.
D: OK, but I know nothing about this. Why are you showing this to me NOW? I already gave you some money, just let me read it!
W: I’m sorry, you need to study this thing closely before reading the book.
D: There, I put it in the tr… I mean, I got it.
W: Right. In which room do you want to read it? In the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom…?
D: Are you nuts?!
W: What do you mean?
D: Just. Give. Me. The. Book.
W: I guess you’re OK with having it in the living room then?
D: GIVE. ME. THE. BOOK.
W: Fine. Do you want some bookmarks with it?
D: NO!!
W: Here you go. See you soon!

NX session

I finally got around to testing NX (remote desktop, see “background” below) for Linux.

After doing a “stress-test” from an “impressive” distance of 5 kilometres, I’d say it’s quite responsive, and otherwise appears to work as advertised. I especially like the resume functionality (suspend one or more login sessions), and resize-on-demand (i.e. toggling full-screen mode, or changing the resolution with the desktop adjusting).

As for the rest (sound etc.), it appears to behave properly, but then again, I’ve only just started using this. Graphically intense (e.g. 3D) applications don’t work smoothly – no surprise there – on the other hand, neither does glxgears (20 FPS). Maybe by default, no frames are skipped.

Setup

Getting the (freeware) NX system up and running roughly means to:

  • Install nxclient, nxnode and nxserver on the host.
  • Generate DSA public key, and private key (without a passphrase) for the “nx” user.
  • Install nxclient on other machines; use the private key to authenticate as “nx”, then use your login for the host.

Apparently it’s a little more complicated than this, but for instance you can use an existing SSH server configuration which allows only public key authentication (hint, hint). That would only get you past the first security layer, though (the “nx” user), or I didn’t see how to specify the user’s private key in the client. A workaround I use is to use NX’s own password database for authenticating users. (I could live with that, but is there a way to avoid this duplication? I guess it could also be a problem with other authentication methods.)

NoMachine’s documentation covers many things, so I’m not sure what else to address for now. However, I could mention that – lacking suitable free software packages – I’ve tried instead to compile some stuff (see the repository) into an NX client on Debian stable/etch (on a G4 machine). After working around a configuration bug, I seem to be able to login and so on, but get stuck on a “Launching session” dialog. If I get this to work, I should be presenting some documentation soon after.

Background

NX is a technology for remote access (similar to that of rdesktop) to Linux or Solaris systems. It’s based on SSH and X, but offers significant improvements in terms of security (as compared to (e.g.) some VNC solutions) as well as latency and bandwidth requirements (ssh -X, anyone?).

Sadly, the official package from NoMachine is freeware, but there doesn’t seem to be a free software equivalent yet. While – strictly speaking – there is such code available for building a server or a client, only some server code (FreeNX) seems to be reasonably up to speed so far (but I hope this will change soon).

GNOME oddities?

I’ve hit on some bugs when running GNOME on the host, but it could be unrelated to NX. More specifically, I’ve experienced that gnome-terminal can get confused and open a terminal on the host; trying to logout in XFCE can close the remote GNOME session… 🙂 Given that, I try not to login with GNOME-ish stuff when it’s already running on the host. (Instead, I use something like fluxbox, but that now fails to logout at all in an NX session, weird…)

DN (newspaper in Swedish) writes that domestic AB Myntverket has lost to the competition – and their owner – Rahapaja OY in Finland; the Riksbank (Swedish national bank) are required by law to make public inquiries to see which organizations are suited for the coin production, and setup contracts for some years at a time. Apparently AB Myntverket wasn’t seen as conforming to requirements of an ISO-compliant environmental policy.

Naturally, the matter is disputed. Still, Agneta Rönström of The Riksbank doesn’t expect an appeal. After all, Sweden has only been in this business for 1012 years straight. Who said there couldn’t be more “drama” before switching to the Euro here? 🙂

(Sorry about the headline, couldn’t resist.1)

Glyn Moody Gets It. In Linux Journal, he writes about OOXML and Microsoft’s successes with OSI and EU antitrust: Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?

1 (Also familiar from snail-mailing the “sorry that I forgot to use a stamp” excuse.)

Deceiving checksums

Ever tried to copy a file or burn a CD, only to find out that the copy seems just fine, but not according to the checksum? Sometimes it’s worth digging a bit deeper: (or so it seems to me as a geek)

ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/hda2/ISO$ cat md5sum.txt
d2334dbba7313e9abc8c7c072d2af09c ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/hda2/ISO$ dd if=/dev/hdd | md5sum
1425008+0 records in
1425008+0 records out
729604096 bytes (730 MB) copied, 165.264 seconds, 4.4 MB/s
04af936c32bf2a26062a70360dd447cb -

Game, set, and … no match. (For the record, “md5sum /dev/hdd” wouldn’t illustrate my point here.) Let’s see what we have:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/hda2/ISO$ ls -l *.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 729608192 2007-10-28 13:05 ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

Ah, 4096 bytes missing; now, with some dd / md5sum use it turns out that the preceding part was a perfect copy, as expected. Well, I’m using that live CD to blog about it while installing; it finished already, so I’m assuming it worked out… 🙂

(Next time I intend to stick to K3b, as I’m guessing it copes with these problems (integrated verification process) or never creates them in the first place. It wasn’t available on the live-CD, though.)

An older story is when I tried a poor man’s backup of a 40 GB drive:

$ nc -l -p 5678 > hda # host 1.2.3.4 waits for data
# nc 1.2.3.4 5678 < /dev/hda # start backup on a Linux live-CD

This worked fine, or so it seemed. I checksummed different parts of the original and the copy (binary-search style), and narrowed down an inconsistent piece. Finally I must have noticed that this chunk got different checksums at two different times. While transmission errors are theoretically possible, I wouldn’t normally expect them with both computers in the same room and on the same switch.

Running the live-CD, I was naively assuming all partitions to be copied were mounted read-only, so there could be no change on the disk either. Maybe the hardware was crashing on me…?

Nope. Evidently:

# swapoff -a

would have helped before copying the whole disk. Sigh! 😉

Microsoft apparently does not think all the versions of Windows Vista provide enough choice for the market. So, to ensure a better selection, they now seem to be looking at Linux systems as well: SuSE from Novell; Xandros; Linspire; and finally Turbolinux. Given these announcements of patent agreements (“protections”), I’m sure said distributors won’t “notice” any complaints… for now.

What will happen with resisting companies like Red Hat, though? And what will Microsoft do when fully recognising the success of non-commercial projects such as Ubuntu? (Nah, never mind, certainly there are no evil strategies here. I’ll sleep well tonight.)

Anyhow – if you thought that the EU ruling would stop these agreements, you may want to share the doubts of Groklaw on the Commission’s settlement with Microsoft (which brings into mind what my association predicted one month ago).

Oh, and OSI has approved two licenses (MS-PL, MS-RL) from Microsoft. After all, what is software worth if it doesn’t have a brand new license? (Bonus points for certain features, such as incompatibility with the GPL.)

The Register reports that a California judge has allowed a class action response against target.com for discrimination against blind users. The website was claimed to be unusable with screen readers, which could be in violation of federal and state laws.

While changes have been made to the site recently, the matter can now be pursued from a national perspective – on behalf of all legally blind US individuals who tried to access the site – and similarly for California with local regulations.

Hopefully this will bring us closer to WAI compliance, which would help along the full potential of the World Wide Web. Either way, I for one will celebrate if this turns out to kill unusable web services, such as Flash sites…

Dear Microsoft,

I’d like to present my own invitation to you, on an informal note: my association, the FFII, has just announced the winner of a 2,488 Euro award for lobbying against OOXML.

Given that several nominees did not wish for money, and considering the energy you (as the original author) have spent to discredit the proposal internationally, we thought it only fair to offer the price for your collection!

(Maybe this would pay for at least 5% of your partners’ bills in Sweden. No – my mistake – you “retracted” the promise; now, we did consider more suitable means of gratification – chairs for instance – to various parties, but unfortunately we could only do so much at a time.)

Details on the award ceremony will be available shortly; meanwhile, should you choose to accept the offer, you’re welcome to contact me or the board for some preliminary info.

Granted, it may seem like a small effort of ours in the light of your fines of 500 million Euro, or – say – your investments in the sue-happy SCO (a company which, incidentally, is about to collapse).

But: it’s the thought that counts, right?

Sincerely,
A good friend