I’m currently at the media ecologies conference in manchester, UK. I was just talking about what tools and interfaces we need for collaboration tools (on the web). This also rehashes some of the ideas in my blog entry on cloud computing and the problems with (lack of) openness of cloud applications. The slides of my talk can be downloaded from my website.
Ronja, the optical data link device, is often cited as a failed open source hardware project — the last one mentioning it I just read is Lawrence Kincheloe’s excellent essay Musings Upon the Nature of Open Source Hardware as a Business at the end of his project visit summary at Factor e Farm.
Roja did fail (in the sense that it isn’t very widespread today not in the sense of being a cool open source project). One of the research studies I know of is the presentation “Ronja — Darknet of Lights” by Johan Söderberg at the 4th Oekonux conference for which Audio is available. The study is very interesting although I don’t agree with the conclusions. So why did Ronja “fail”?
Ronja’s main application was cheap internet access. At the time of its design in 2001 wireless LAN (Wifi) wasn’t yet available cheaply. And in the Czech Republic DSL wasn’t available at the time.
Now consider the technical characteristics of Ronja:
And compare these with WLAN:
So I think that Ronja “failed” because it was replaced by something better and cheaper that was readily available. It isn’t an example of a failed open source business model for hardware and shouldn’t be used as an example. This doesn’t mean that we already know how a business model for open source hardware should look like, though.
The idea behind Ronja — according to the Wikipedia article on Ronja “User Controlled Technology” is (mostly) achieved with WLAN technology today: We can use cheap devices and modify them (using open source firmware and homegrown antennas) to suit our needs. And there are large wireless communities now like Funkfeuer in Vienna who do their own Internet communication.
Update 2009-09-14: Marcin from open source ecology has the video online which we showed at the event — Marcin von open source ecology hat das Video, das wir auf der Veranstaltung gezeicht haben online (video in enlish only).
Heute abend bin ich mit am Podium im Creative Commons CCalps Salon im Rahmen des Paraflows Festival zum Thema Open Everything. Ich werde auf die jetzt stattfindende Anwendung der Open Source Prinzipien die wir von der Software kennen auf andere Bereiche (Open Hardware Design) eingehen. Die Veranstaltung wird vermutlich in Englisch geführt, da Michel Bauwens, der Gründer der P2P Foundation dort sein wird.
This evening I’ll participate at the Creative Commons CCalps Salon an event in the context of the Paraflows Festival with the topic Open Everything. I’ll talk about applying the principles of Open Source we know from software development to other areas (like Open Hardware design). The event will probably be in english since Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation will be there.
Zitat aus der Ankündigung (only in german, sorry):
Nur wenige Menschen sind in der Lage die Frage "Was ist open everything eigentlich?" auf befriedigende Weise zu beantworten, der Überblick, der durch die mind map präsentiert wird, bildet die Basis für die eigentliche Erklärung. Daher hat der (cc)alpsSalon MICHEL BAUWENS eingeladen, diese Frage zu beantworten und einen Überblick über vergangene und gegenwärtige Entwicklungen in Zusammenhang mit dieser Idee zu geben und die Potentiale aufzuzeigen die für jeden gegeben sind, der/die offene Materialien, Quellen, Designs – einfach alles – anbietet und nützt.
Eine der beeindruckendsten Ausführungen dieses Ethos ist open source ecology (OSE), ein Projekt, das darauf abzielt eine open source Gemeinschaft zu schaffen, die sich auf Nachhaltigkeit, ökologische Verantwortung und die Freiheit des Individuums gründet. FRANZ NAHRADA wird diese innovative Idee genauer darstellen und wird dabei zeigen, wie das Konzept des open everything in Gemeinschaften realisiert werden kann, die willens sind Offenheit tagtäglich zu leben.
Gesellschaft wird durch viele Faktoren beeinflusst, Kultur und Technologie sind zwei der entscheidendsten. Die technische Seite von open everything bildet die Basis für eine Kultur der "Macher", die einen Wechsel von Massenproduktion hin zu selbst gemachten oder selbst entworfenen Produkten kennzeichnet. Diese do it yourself (DIY) Kultur ist abhängig von den Verbesserungen, die durch das Teilen von Erfahrungen und Ideen entstehen. RALF SCHLATTERBECK zeigt uns, wie diese Gemeinschaft funktioniert und wie sie vom Ethos des open everything profitiert.
Wann/when: 2009-09-11 19:30 Wo/where: Quartier für digitale Kultur, Quartier 21, Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien
In the following I’ll describe how to setup asterisk to log via ODBC to a remote Microsoft SQL server — I needed this for a client. I’m using a Debian server, file location may differ for your brand of linux distribution.
The following packages exist for debian, the ones needed are marked with “NEEDED”
A good introduction to the Free TDS implementation of ODBC is the userguide of FreeTDS
Debian FreeTDS packages
FreeTDS Needs either unixodbc or iodbc, both are ODBC implementations for Linux/Unix. Asterisk is built against unixodbc.
iodbc packages:
unixodbc packages:
common packages for debian:
Asterisk depends on unixodbc which should be already installed, so we install the following packages (ignoring any warnings about already-installed packages):
apt-get install unixodbc sqsh tdsodbc
Other Software using ODBC
Python seems to have its own access module for MS-SQL:
python-pymssql – Python database access for MS SQL server and Sybase
Configuraton for Asterisk Logging
[global]
# TDS protocol version
; tds version = 4.2
# Whether to write a TDSDUMP file for diagnostic purposes
# (setting this to /tmp is insecure on a multi-user system)
; dump file = /tmp/freetds.log
; debug flags = 0xffff
# Command and connection timeouts
; timeout = 10
; connect timeout = 10
# If you get out-of-memory errors, it may mean that your client
# is trying to allocate a huge buffer for a TEXT field.
# Try setting 'text size' to a more reasonable limit
text size = 64512
[logserver]
host = 172.23.23.4
port = 1433
tds version = 8.0
[FreeTDS] Description = FreeTDS ODBC driver for MSSQL Driver = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so Setup = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsS.so
[ODBC Data Sources] logserver = MSSQL Log-Server for Asterisk [logserver] description = MSSQL Log-Server for Asterisk driver = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so servername = logserver language = us_english trace = no tracefile = /root/mssql.trace
[global] dsn=logserver username=asterisk password=VERYSECRET loguniqueid=yes dispositionstring=yes table=cdr ;"cdr" is default table name usegmtime=no ; set to "yes" to log in GMT
isql
# isql logserver asterisk "VERYSECRET" -v +---------------------------------------+ | Connected! | | | | sql-statement | | help [tablename] | | quit | | | +---------------------------------------+ SQL> select * from cdr; [output of current cdr table]
Cloud Computing is becoming increasingly popular — and it is a danger to your freedom. But we can do something about it.
First, when the term Cloud Computing was introduced, it meant a set of low-level services like virtual machines, databases and file storage. Examples of these are Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud and related services. Since these services are quite low-level, they can be replicated by others, an example is the Eucalyptus project.
This means if you aren’t satisfied with the service one cloud computing provider offers, you either can change the provider or — e.g., using Eucalyptus — roll your own.
But increasingly cloud-computing is a relaunch of the old Software as a Service paradigm under a new name. This means that applications like Textprocessing, Spreadsheets, Wiki, Blog, Voice and Video over IP, collaboration software in general is made available as so-called “Web 2.0″ applications — now called “Cloud Applications” on the web.
When using these services, there is a severe risk of Vendor Lock-In — since the applications may not be available elsewhere, you cannot easily switch the provider. Worse: From some of the Web 2.0 Services like social networks (e.g., Xing, LinkedIn, Facebook) you can’t retrieve your own data. Xing for example has a “mobile export” for data, but this works only for paying customers and only exports address data.
And people have started to realize — e.g., in this facebook group — that multiple incompatible applications — escpecially in the social network sector — puts a large burdon on customers to update multiple personal profiles on multiple sites.
But although it has been noted by the Free Software and Open Source community (e.g., in an interview with Richard Stallman and by Eric S. Raymond in his blog) it has not been widely recognized that cloud computing or software as a service — in particular in the form called “Web 2.0″ — creates a vendor lock-in worse than for proprietary software.
For your social networks this may mean that when you retrieve your data (remember, you helped them build that data!), the social network may throw you out as it happened in that case mentioned by Henry Story and later updated here.
The solution to this problem? Don’t get trapped in a data silo. This may still mean that there can be software as a service offerings. But the software needs to be free (as in free speech). So we can still switch to another provider or decide to host our own service.
But companies won’t do it for us. As Doc Searls notes in Silos End: “These problems cannot be solved by the companies themselves. Companies make silos. It’s as simple as that. Left to their own devices, that’s what they do. Over and over and over again.”
So this can only change if customers make and demand the change. A good rule-of-thumb for software as a service is on the page of the Open Cloud Initiative in the article The four degrees of cloud computing openness. While being a customer of a closed/proprietary cloud with “no access” is clearly a bad idea, open APIs and formats don’t work too well — you don’t have the software to work with your data. So the only valid options that remain are Open APIs, Open Formats and Open Source, and in some cases Open Data.
Still most web applications — like most social network software — are of the completely closed type. There are no open formats and no open APIs. So check your dependencies: What web-applications are you depending on and what is their degree of cloud computing openness?
A word on the license to guarantee openness in cloud-computing. As mentioned in the above-cited interview with Richard Stallman, the GNU General Public License is not enough to keep software in a cloud open. The cloud provider could take the software, make own modifications (which you will depend upon) and not release the modified software to you as a customer. Again you have a vendor lock-in. To prevent this, the GNU Affero General Public License has been designed that prevents closed-source modifications to hosted applications.
Finally, for all sorts of social software — not just social network software but everything that creates more value for more people, usually by linking information — should follow a distributed peer-to-peer approach. We don’t want this data to be a siloed application hosted by a single company. And if there are multiple companies hosting the data we already see the problem with multiple social network providers.
So we need standards and distributed protocols. And the implementation should follow a peer-to-peer approach — like seen in filesharing applications today — to make it resilient to failure and/or take-down orders of hostile bodies (like, e.g., some governments). Lets call this “Web 3.0″.
Examples of such social software are of course the social network sector. We already have a distributed protocol for social networking based on the Friend of a Friend Semantic Web Ontology. With this approach everyone can publish his social networking data and still be in control of who can see what. And the data is under user-control, so it’s possible to remove something.
Another example of social software is probably Money (in the sense of micro- or macro payments in the net). Thomas Greco in the book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization asks for separation of money and the state. A future implementation of money may well be based on a peer-to-peer social software implementation.
These social software needs security solutions. We want to model trust-relationships. Parts of the puzzle are probably OpenID and a newly-proposed scheme by Henry Story called FOAF+SSL mainly used for social networking 3.0 but probably very useful for other social software solutions.
So lets work on solutions for the future.
I recently needed to recover data from a “dead” notebook. The only hardware I had available that had a connector for an ATA notebook harddisk was my Soekris net4801. This device doesn’t have VGA on board, so we need to boot GRML with a serial console. First I was unable to get GRML to correctly start a getty process. Meanwhile I’ve found out that the recipe in issue485 of the GRML-Bugtracker does the trick (I’ve modified the console speed to the speed I’m using in the Soekris bootloader):
grml console=tty 1console=ttyS1,38400n8
I had tried console=ttyS1,38400n8 before which doesn’t work. So I added the ssh= boot-options found out via the grml cheatsheet. I could ping the machine but no SSH. Turns out it takes a loooong time until grml starts up the ssh-daemon for two reasons
Turns out that process took several minutes on the Soekris net4801. After waiting I was finally able to log into grml and rescue the data using ddrescue. Thanks GRML!
On April 9 I blogged here some firmware bugs of the Beronet bero*fos failover switch. They now have a new firmware 1.3.5 — a little over two weeks after reporting the bug with easter holidays in between. I’ve not had time yet to test this but wanted to blog this as an example of good support. I’ll blog the test results when I’ve had time to test the device with the new firmware.
Update 2009-04-27: There is a new firmware: good support from beronet
Update 2009-04-10: I’ve written a config-utility for the device, available in my rsclib on sourceforge (in python)
I’m now experimenting with the Beronet bero*fos failover switch. I need this for a project where two redundant asterisks should be switched by the bero*fos.
To get the following into proportion: I’m a customer of Beronet and usually like their products. But selling a device for around 700.- Euro we should expect working firmware and working configuration software. Especially since the device sits at a crucial point from a safety point of view: it’s used in scenarios where we want failover capabilities for telephone equipment.
The config-software is open source, so we can work around it’s shortcomings. But there is a firmware bug, setting some configuration variables via web interface has side-effects on other configuration variables. (we can work around that by writing our own config program). So I’d really like a more open design here: I’m voting for open firmware and a hardware documentation. But that might lead to others building the device for less money…
I would also prefer a documentation of the parameter interface in addition to (or instead of) a configuration program. Integrating the device into other infrastructures where we don’t want a binary configuration program requires reverse-engineering. I’ve done that in the following.
In the following I’m referring to berofos Firmware 1.3.3 which is the latest on Beronets webpage and in my device. The berofos tools for Linux on the webpage were apparently last updated in December 2007 and don’t have a version number.
The device has four groups of 4 ports each, A, B, C, D. These can be switched in two scenarios, a fallback scenario, which can connect A-B or A-D and a bypass scenario which can connect A-B and C-D or A-D. The first scenario is useful if there are redundant devices where one device can replace another (e.g. as in our scenario with two asterisk boxes), the second scenario is useful when you have an asterisk connected in between the telephone network and an old PBX. In case the asterisk fails, the PBX can be directly connected to the telephone network.
I won’t rehash the features and documentation of the device here, the berofos docs and tools page has a link to the manual (and to the command-line tool for both, Linux and Windows).
The device has a web-interface and a command-line interface written in C under the GPL version 2 license without a version-upgrade clause. The individual source files refer to a LICENSE file which isn’t included in the distribution.
The web interface has several bugs, some changes of config variables will change variables in other configuration pages. A notable example is the defaults page. In this page the default state of the relais can be set. When changing anything on that page, the device will also change the scenario to bypass.
Worse, when changing the mailserver page (the device is able to notify you via email if something bad happens) the dhcp setting is reset. This means on next powerup the device probably won’t try to get it’s ip via dhcp but use whatever happens to be the currently configured IP address. I didn’t try to reboot the device in this state because I noticed (and was looking for) this side-effect because I was already searching for a pattern in the failures.
Getting the config is easy, it’s under the url http://fos/config.txt where fos is the device. The following text file is retrieved:
bnfos_confmap_magic=0.1 1_sz=0 4_mode=0 1_rm=checked 5_p0=0 1_p0= 5_p1=0 1_p1= 3_dn= 3_ip=10.23.5.100 3_nm=255.255.255.0 3_gw=10.23.5.254 3_dns=10.23.5.254 3_dhcp=checked 3_port=80 3_pwd= 2_mhost=0.0.0.0 2_mfrom= 2_mto= 3_log= 3_loghost=0.0.0.0 6_wen=0 2_wen= 6_wstate=0 2_wintv=60 2_as=checked 2_men= 0_wretv=0
Apparently all configuration variables that influence other variables are in the same group: They have the same number in front.
The bugs of the web interface are not browser-specific. In fact the command-line tools also use the http-interface of the device to set and get options:
% bnfos/bnfos --get scenario -h 10.23.5.100 scenario = 0 zsh: exit 167 bnfos/bnfos --get scenario -h 10.23.5.100 % bnfos/bnfos --set modedef=0 -h 10.23.5.100 Setting modedef succeeded! % bnfos/bnfos --get scenario -h 10.23.5.100 scenario = 1 zsh: exit 167 bnfos/bnfos --get scenario -h 10.23.5.100
Exit-code of the bnfos tool when querying a variable is always 167. It also doesn’t follow the UNIX mantra for command-line tools: Be silent on success, noisy on error. But we also see here that the bug appears with the command-line tool too: changing the default relais mode also changed the scenario.
When looking with wireshark we see that for setting the variable with the command-line tool it just retrieved the URL /?cmd=1&rm=0 with a HTTP Get-request.
When using the --show switch, output is on stderr so piping the result needs special shell commands ( |& is a zsh shortcut for piping both, stdout and stderr):
% bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 |& grep dhcp dhcp = 1 zsh: exit 167 bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 2>&1 |
Setting the mail parameters smtpserv, smtpfrom and smtpto is impossible via the command-line interface. We always the the cryptic error message:
% bnfos/bnfos --set smtpto='10.23.5.5' -h 10.23.5.100 Setting smtpto failed: Could not parse! zsh: exit 1 bnfos/bnfos --set smtpto='10.23.5.5' -h 10.23.5.100
Studying the code of the config-tool reveals that there are two configuration tables, one in src/beronet/confmap_fos.h named bnfos_confmap which includes all info about the low-level device parameters:
static const struct {
char *key;
char type;
int cmd;
char *parm;
char *macro;
} bnfos_confmap[BNFOS_MAX_KEYS] = {
{ "sz" , 'b', 1, "sz=%s" , "szenario(0)"},
{ "mode" , 'b', 4, "mode=%s" , "mode(0)"},
{ "rm" , 'b', 1, "rm=%s" , "config(1,1)"},
{ "p0" , 'b', 5, "p=0&s=%s" , "pwrport(0,0)"},
{ "p0" , 'b', 1, "p0=%s" , "config(2,1)"},
{ "p1" , 'b', 5, "p=1&s=%s" , "pwrport(0,1)"},
{ "p1" , 'b', 1, "p1=%s" , "config(3,1)"},
{ "dn" , 'h', 3, "dn=%s" , "hostname(1)"},
{ "ip" , 'a', 3, "ip=%s" , "netconf(0)"},
{ "nm" , 'a', 3, "nm=%s" , "netconf(1)"},
{ "gw" , 'a', 3, "gw=%s" , "netconf(2)"},
{ "dns" , 'a', 3, "dns=%s" , "netconf(3)"},
{ "dhcp" , 'b', 3, "dhcp=%s" , "config(4,1)"},
{ "port" , 'p', 3, "port=%s" , "netconf(6)"},
{ "pwd" , 'b', 3, "pwd=%s" , "config(5,1)"},
{ "apwd" , 'd', 3, "apwd=%s" , NULL},
{ "mhost" , 's', 2, "mhost=%s" , "netconf(5)"},
{ "mfrom" , 's', 2, "mfrom=%s" , "netconf(7)"},
{ "mto" , 's', 2, "mto=%s" , "netconf(8)"},
{ "XXXXX" , 'n', 7, "" , NULL},
{ "log" , 'b', 3, "syslog=%s", "config(10,1)"},
{ "loghost", 'a', 3, "slgip=%s" , "netconf(9)"},
{ "logport", 'p', 3, "slgpt=%s" , "netconf(10)"},
{ "wen" , 'b', 6, "wen=%s" , "wdog(0)"},
{ "wen" , 'b', 2, "wen=%s" , "config(6,1)"},
{ "wstate" , 0, 6, "wstate=%s", "wdog(0)"},
{ "wintv" , 'p', 2, "wintv=%s" , "config(8,?)"},
{ "as" , 'b', 2, "as=%s" , "config(9,1)"},
{ "men" , 'b', 2, "men=%s" , "config(7,1)"},
{ "wretv" , 0, 0, NULL , "wdog(2)"},
};
and one in bnfos/main.c that maps the high-level command-line paramters to the low-level http requests:
/* keyword description for --set / --get */
static struct {
char *keyword;
char *descr;
} keys[BNFOS_MAX_KEYS] = {
{"scenario", "scenario (0=fallback; 1=bypass)"},
{"mode", "relais mode (0=A--D; 1=A--B or A--B,C--D)"},
{"modedef", "default relais mode (0=A--D; 1=A--B or A--B,C--D)"},
{"power1", "state of powerport 1 (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"power1def", "default state of powerport 1 (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"power2", "state of powerport 2 (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"power2def", "default state of powerport 2 (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"hostname", "device hostname"},
{"address", "ip address"},
{"netmask", "netmask address"},
{"gateway", "gateway address"},
{"dns", "dns server address"},
{"dhcp", "query dhcp server (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"port", "http listen port"},
{"pwd", "http password protection (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"apwd", "admin password"},
{"smtpserv", "smtp server"},
{"smtpfrom", "smtp sender address"},
{"smtpto", "smtp destination address"},
{"smtptest", "trigger testmail"},
{"syslog", "syslog logging (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"slgip", "syslog server ip"},
{"slgpt", "syslog server port"},
{"wdog", "watchdog enable (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"wdogdef", "default watchdog enable (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"wdogstate", "watchdog state (0=off; 1=on; 2=failure)"},
{"wdogitime", "watchdog intervall time"},
{"wdogaudio", "watchdog audio alarm (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"wdogmail", "watchdog alarm mails (0=off; 1=on)"},
{"wdogrtime", "watchdog remaining time to failure"},
};
I haven’t found a mechanism that keeps these two tables in different source files in sync (they currently seem to be), looks like both tables need to have the matching options in the same place in both tables. The code for matching options to low-level commands just uses the same index to navigate in both tables.
The bnfos_confmap table has a s for the type of the smtp parameters. This type isn’t handled in the config-tool and leads to the cryptic error message above. Patching the table to specify the type h (there is a comment XXX check hostname for validy for that type this checking apparently isn’t done yet, so we can use the code there to parse normal strings) would work. After applying a patch to src/beronet/confmap_fos.h, the sources aren’t recompiled, seems that the Makefile is broken, too. So after a make clean ; make I’m finally able to set the smtp parameters via the command-line interface:
% bnfos/bnfos --set smtpserv='10.23.5.5' -h 10.23.5.100 Setting smtpserv succeeded!
Looking over this again, I prefer to do the following patch that adds support for the ’s’ type:
--- bntools/src/bnfos.c 2007-08-28 09:27:46.000000000 +0200
+++ bntools.hacked/src/bnfos.c 2009-04-09 12:10:46.000000000 +0200
@@ -379,6 +379,14 @@
set->val = strdup(val);
return BNFOS_RET_OK;
+ case 's':
+ /* Allow empty strings */
+ if (!val) {
+ val = "";
+ }
+ set->val = strdup(val);
+ return BNFOS_RET_OK;
+
case 'p':
{
int v;
This is a cleaner way to make configuring the smtp parameters work. Turns out that setting the mail gw does not influence the dhcp setting. But in the web-interface, the mail gateway and the syslog server are combined in one page. so trying that:
% bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 |& grep dhcp dhcp = 1 zsh: exit 167 bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 2>&1 | zsh: done grep dhcp % bnfos/bnfos --set slgip='10.23.5.5' -h 10.23.5.100 Setting slgip succeeded! % bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 |& grep dhcp dhcp = 0 zsh: exit 167 bnfos/bnfos --show -h 10.23.5.100 2>&1 | zsh: done grep dhcp
we see that changing the syslog server also changes the dhcp setting like in the web-interface. When looking more closely, we see that the dhcp and the syslog IP are in the same cmd group. Thats the number in column 3 of the bnfos_confmap and the number in from of each line in config.txt retrieved via the web interface.
So the workaround for the bug in the firmware is to write a config program that retrieves all variables in the same cmd group and, when setting one of the variables in that group, also send all the other current settings in the same get-request.
Fortunately the bnfos_confmap table has the command pattern for generating the get-request for each of the variables in column 4 (parm). So it shouldn’t be too hard to write a new config utility (and of course I won’t do that i C either) that works around the firmware bugs.
I already said that I would have preferred an open firmware to fix the bugs at the source, did I?
I’m currently preparing a technical college lecture. The slides for the lecture should become open source. To reduce my overhead I want to use existing source (mainly pictures) from wikipedia.
Open source licensing should really make it easier to re-use material in other open source projects. As far as I can tell the current mess with different documentation licenses does not achieve that goal.
Sad fact: To understand what is possible with the current licensing is nearly as time-consuming as re-creating the material from scratch. So I’ve chosen to document what I’ve learned here, so others may have a faster learning curve and can contribute their experience.
In addition I hope for comments from people involved in the licensing jungle to comment on my views here.
Typically wikipedia pictures come in three license variants, see the Wikipedia Copyrights page, the german version Wikipedia Lizenzbestimmungen has specific sections on picture use:
Some pictures are dual-licensed under GFDL and CC-BY-SA.
Since the GFDL typically is used with a version-upgrade clause, e.g., "Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation", upgrade to a later version of the license by the user is possible. This is typically not the case with CC-BY-SA.
I’ve decided that CC-BY-SA version 3.0 best fits my license requirements. The GFDL with its front-cover, back-cover and invariant sections is too complicated and CC-BY-SA is much clearer concerning reuse and remix of the material.
One problem I’m having is that when "performing" my slides (thats the term CC-BY-SA is using for e.g. using the slides in a presentation) I want to use either my company logo or I’m forced to use the logo of the teaching institution I’m working for. So I’ve come up with the following addition to the pointer of the licensing terms:
When performing this work (e.g. teaching using these slides) you may use your company and/or teaching institution logo in the header of each slide without putting the logo under the license above. When distributing derived works, make sure you distribute the document without the company or teaching institution logo.
So I’m specifically allowing to use a logo in the header of each slide when performing. I hope this is compatible with the CC licensing terms.
The next problem I’m facing is reuse of pictures. Pictures licensed under a CC-BY-SA license (also earlier than 2.5) shouldn’t pose a problem, because CC-BY-SA explicitly distinguishes derivative work and collective work. Collective work is defined as (cited from version 2.5 of CC-BY-SA as that is the relevant version for most pictures on Wikipedia):
"Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work (as defined below) for the purposes of this License.
So I guess my use of the unmodified pictures in slides is collective work not derivative work. That means I can use CC-BY-SA pictures from wikipedia in a CC-BY-SA document that uses these pictures similar to the usage of pictures in Wikipedia articles, even if the version of the CC-BY-SA license is not the same.
The question if I can use pictures licensed unter GFDL in my slides licensed under CC-BY-SA is still not fully clear for me. Since the pictures typically contain the license-version upgrade clause mentioned above, I could use version 1.3 of the GFDL that includes permission to relicense the work under the CC-BY-SA license under specific circumstances — but my interpretation of that clause allows this only for Wikipedia, not for me as a user of the content on Wikipedia.
Putting my work under a dual-license (CC-BY-SA + GFDL) is also not a solution because this effectively constitutes relicensing of the used content.
So the question remains if I can use GFDL pictures in CC-BY-SA slides and if this is permitted by the GFDL. The GFDL has one paragraph (7) on "aggregation with independent works":
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works
of the Document.
So, hmm, are my slides a "compilation with other separate and independent documents or works" — probably yes. Are they in a "in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium"? Hard to say. My "copyright resulting from the compilation [provided it is a compilation in the sense of GFDL] is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit". So I guess I can use these pictures without the GFDL applying to my document (I want to use the CC-BY-SA).
Thats my due diligence investigation before using this material.
But I’m not a lawyer.
Update 2009-03-31: provide signed archive with archive key, add udev rules, add /etc/modules entries, add amd64.
Update 2009-04-05: typos fixed
This is a short howto how I built the debian patches and how you can — as a user — install everything needed for mISDN version 2 and Linux Call Router (LCR) with asterisk chan_lcr running on debian lenny.
I’m providing debian packages for Kernel (v 2.6.28.5), an updated zaptel (debian lenny zaptel doesn’t compile with newer kernels and zaptel wctdm uses some settings for analogue phones that don’t work with german and austrian phone like the “R”-key or optional pulse dialling), finally I’m providing a slightly patched asterisk for larger buffer sizes when playing long tones, LCR and misdnv2user packages originally built by Joerg Dorchain. My misdnv2user is the same as Joergs. The lcr package contains my bug-fix for DTMF digits A-F (also in Joergs packages now) which don’t work in upstream LCR version 1.3 and an updated /etc/init.d/lcr for querying the status of lcr.
I’m also providing source packages, except for the kernel — the kernel is stock kernel.org 2.6.28.5 configured for use of mISDN. The kernel was built using debians make-kpkg from the kernel-package debian package. And the config used for building the kernel is in the binary package.
I hope I can contribute something in order to get mISDN V2 and LCR into debian… in the meantime others may want to uses these on debian stable.
Installation
apt-get install vim less ssh ntp apt-get install python-dev openbsd-inetd postfix madplay
Add following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://project.runtux.com/asterisk/debian/ lenny main deb-src http://project.runtux.com/asterisk/debian/ lenny main
If you want to avoid warnings about an untrusted archive key from apt, you should import the following archive key. Save the key to a file and then issue the command
apt-key add file
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) mQENBEnREAIBCADM8+KpoC/HJUCEsx8KZhGgsX/G3ouR4/xkgIuIPgz+t6JoTisj 9QmymDZKUXSy04WmbLjU/088xD5A9ukOEYxoFCGqwWf1tPOKqN1oKpVCkjJb8Dht vvebqOCzJSV0nfqmIfkpbX+6dUssx+9u0BiFK3aj/GilkEloZl2g+vIT6fveJtKE qmxz19vL516TDhsbsv3/AKfNKc7QRpsgvPmnNE2IL0CTgQYs26WtnJASlu1MQpwo Qfb1PrO7ufq9eO58HjEBdfbSNjalQjVj7vLvE4GQglHULO500H9UlfOm2zpO0Vzs 5lGGbwLJdTpAS3HIRhQAW0pueRsQ8zagMn5lABEBAAG0OFJhbGYgU2NobGF0dGVy YmVjayAoRGViaWFuLVBhY2thZ2UtS2V5KSA8cnNjQHJ1bnR1eC5jb20+iQE2BBMB AgAgBQJJ0RACAhsDBgsJCAcDAgQVAggDBBYCAwECHgECF4AACgkQ5CizCR9G97ah pAf/eLRYtPVs1apI3+AVi//8y1/r6uL+IxI/Tlt53jCtX/dy3Q3FeAEJt/7fbvcW TBDnP5K8vWaYUlHHaz+6lbcQyV/KAH4LKJEKkyoINc9ytG1qEG6z8NPfDmKiEluy HksgLpAqUBrdZy46iWQhcg7f3fpcUIsHHcXrOd2Ip5G9DL2q4/UoRrhBhHC3GNX7 ERaeAKZTF1JRaVN6KSWPC2+yaNmuGn1yoSChG0Q/bBTgzv2fm9Jzvok546f9LE0q k2q5PvjlUSMGHHojTzzR6tGhnbw5mOfyMUDDs5LuAN1aWbDatepJgiC+dYasprQ5 pZygpoCASqIhWjjCZd3XI5mAEIhGBBARAgAGBQJJ0nZlAAoJEIO0FkDz/lcw0xYA njBSGef/4KhZpuspIh6WnLM7ORKNAKCw28et9bUoaGu4ESRpIwtwj4asQoicBBAB AgAGBQJJ0ncuAAoJEJWCQpSoBzk1hpcD/2KXiuvE2Nm0oOi0jBVEjT/Tu/GGkG5m lf97/I6TMcJxlMpeBlv9SiJD+/BBQo0MGMxmkCwU4t+eBCBsCVcr/bJnrlrKa4Ab 9SR9WQ8PGrSQ+AwMePCDKngqFd5EERz8bxz4sZKGCxn9JVRQOGp03eKSGDG/Yh0v FY3v7nV0BUaE =mPtt -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Then install:
apt-get update
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.28.5-i686 linux-image-2.6.28.5-i686 \
asterisk zaptel lcr zaptel-modules-2.6.28.5-i686
If you’re on the amd64 architecture, you should replace i686 in the packages above with amd64.
and optionally (for misdn_info):
apt-get install misdnv2user
Edit /etc/default/asterisk and set RUNASTERISK=yes. Then make several directories (should be done by a future version of the lcr package):
mkdir /var/run/lcr chown asterisk.asterisk /var/run/lcr mkdir /var/log/lcr chown asterisk.asterisk /var/log/lcr
I’ve also made a start-script for lcr (for use as /etc/init.d/lcr) ,
downloadable at http://project.runtux.com/asterisk/init.d:lcr
this probably should also be part of the lcr package.
Config file examples used for lcr — these pass
everything to asterisk. File /etc/lcr/interface.conf:
[Ext1] portnum 0 ptp nodtmf [Ext2] portnum 1 ptp nodtmf [Int1] portnum 2 nt ptp nodtmf [Int2] portnum 3 nt ptp nodtmf
I’m using a Beronet 4 port ISDN card, your config will probably differ: This system only expects incoming calls and needs to check on which line a call comes in. So I distinguish all external interfaces as separate interfaces of LCR. I also need to check an interface by calling out via that interface, you probably would want to make all external ports a trunk by grouping them into one LCR interface.
And the routing config needs to match your interface definition. This config will pass all calls — if asterisk is running — to asterisk. If asterisk isn’t running, I’m calling a test application (untested). The context in asterisk will be the interface name. Again, if you’re using a trunk here, be sure to match the routing config with your interface config. /etc/lcr/routing.conf:
[main] remote=asterisk interface=Ext1 : remote application=asterisk remote=asterisk interface=Ext2 : remote application=asterisk remote=asterisk interface=Int1 : remote application=asterisk remote=asterisk interface=Int2 : remote application=asterisk default : efi
Update /etc/modules to include the following lines (the command appends the lines between cat and EOF):
cat >> /etc/modules << EOF mISDN_core debug=0x0 mISDN_dsp debug=0x0 options=0x0 hfcmulti debug=0x0 EOF
Linux udev must be configured to correctly set the user for the isdn device(s):
cat > /etc/udev/rules.d/91-isdn.rules << EOF ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="permissions_end" KERNEL=="mISDN*", GROUP="dialout" LABEL="permissions_end" EOF
After a reboot asterisk and lcr should be running.
Building
Getting kernel:
wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.28.tar.bz2 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.28.tar.bz2.sign wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/patch-2.6.28.5.gz wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/patch-2.6.28.5.gz.sign
For compilation (zlib isn’t checked by make-kpkg!):
apt-get install kernel-package bzip2 libncurses5-dev zaptel-source \
zlib1g-dev fakeroot
Compile Kernel:
tar xvf linux-2.6.28.tar.bz2 cd linux-2.6.28 zcat ../patch-2.6.28.5.gz | patch -N -p1 | less 2>&1 cp /boot/config-2.6.28.5-i686 .config make oldconfig make menuconfig # just to be sure
For amd64:
make-kpkg --append-to-version -amd64 --revision 2.6.28.5.1.rsc --us \
--uc --initrd --rootcmd fakeroot binary > m.out 2> m.err
For i686:
make-kpkg --append-to-version -i686 --revision 2.6.28.5.1.rsc --us \
--uc --initrd --rootcmd fakeroot binary > m.out 2> m.err
The following doesn’t seem to work although zaptel is installed:
probably need to unpack /usr/src/zaptel.tar.bz2 into
/usr/src/modules/zaptel (tar file contains modules directory!)
this would save us from the m-a a-i step below. amd64:
make-kpkg --append-to-version -amd64 --revision 2.6.28.5.1.rsc --us \
--uc --initrd --rootcmd fakeroot modules > mo.out 2> mo.err
cd ..
For i686:
make-kpkg --append-to-version -i686 --revision 2.6.28.5.1.rsc --us \
--uc --initrd --rootcmd fakeroot modules > mo.out 2> mo.err
cd ..
Make a debianized zaptel for new kernel:
apt-get install devscripts libnewt-dev quilt libusb-dev asciidoc svn checkout http://svn.digium.com/svn/zaptel/branches/1.4 zaptel apt-get source zaptel-source cp zaptel/kernel/ztdummy.* zaptel-1.4.11~dfsg/kernel cd zaptel-1.4.11~dfsg # Add "Fix compilation for newer kernels" dch -i dpkg-buildpackage cd .. dpkg -i zaptel-source_1.4.11~dfsg-3.1_all.deb m-a a-i zaptel
The following installs my patched asterisk, I’m modifying some buffer sizes because I want to play long tones (I’m generating a faked modem guard-tone that is needed in a project). You probably won’t need the patches asterisk, but it won’t hurt to install it. The create-patches script is available from
http://project.runtux.com/asterisk/create-patches
apt-get install libreadline5-dev libgsm1-dev libssl-dev libtonezone-dev \
libvpb-dev autotools-dev libsqlite-dev libspeex-dev libspeexdsp-dev \
graphviz libcurl4-openssl-dev doxygen libpopt-dev libopenh323-dev \
libiksemel-dev libradiusclient-ng-dev freetds-dev libvorbis-dev \
libsnmp-dev libc-client2007b-dev libcap2-dev libpq-dev unixodbc-dev \
libpri-dev
apt-get source asterisk
scp ralf@bee:checkout/own/config/asterisk/create-patches .
cd asterisk-1.4.21.2~dfsg/
sh ../create-patches
# Hunk #1 succeeded at 25 (offset 3 lines).
# Add "runtux.com local buffer-size patches"
# and new version-number 1:1.4.21.2.1~dfsg-3
dch -i # add comment
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
cd ..
For mISDNuser and chan_lcr I’m using Joerg Dorchains packages with my added patches for DTMF codes A-F.