Sikkerhed!

Martin spørger:

Men hvis du skulle pege på én grund, og det må ikke være pris, til at folk skulle vælge Ubuntu (eller anden linux distro), hvad ville det så være?

Mit svar er sikkerhed! Der er to store aspekter af it sikkerhed. Det ene er brugerens forståelse af systemet, det andet er software. En bruger der forstår mulige sikkerhedshuller vil være bedre i stand til at mindske sin egen risiko. Dette er fuldstændig uafhængigt af hvilket system der anvendes.
Det andet aspekt – software – er selvfølgelig vanskeligt at vurdere pga. de meget komplekse problemstillinger, men min vurdering er at Linux (og hermed også Ubuntu) er mere sikkert end Microsoft windows (og andre lukkede systemer). Listen over kendte sikkerhedshuller i Microsoft software, der har fået lov til at eksistere uden sikkerhedsopdateringer i ugevis, er lang…

Men i sidste ende handler software sikkerhed om tillid. Ingen almindelige brugere kan forstå og overskue alle programmer og koden der ligger bag. Jeg har det bedst med at opgaven med løbende at udarbejde sikkerhedsopdateringer varetages i en åben proces (som det sker med open source) og ikke under lukkede forhold, hvor udarbejdelse af og kontrol med sikkerhedsopdateringer er begrænset til nogle få udvalgte medarbejdere indenfor et enkelt firma.

Ubuntu Live! and TV appearance

Yesterday was Ubuntu Live! (Ubuntu 8.10 release party) here in Copenhagen and it was great! The talks went according to schedule and we had an entire auditorium at the CBS dedicated to install help all through the day. I didn’t personally take any pictures, but I’m sure others will post snaps of the event at some point.

Of course a big thanks goes to the volunteers, the speakers and everyone else for showing up and participating with such a great spirit, making the day as great as it was.

Among others, Leif Lodahl, was at the event giving a talk about the new OpenOffice.org 3. Leif also had a key role in the tv program ‘Magasinet Penge‘ (a consumer / economy program by DR) for their program about Open Source Software. The program aired last week.
The concept of the program was a typical Danish family of 4 (mother, father and two kids) gets 3 new pc’s with Open Source Software installed. Will they be able to use their new computers, or will they cave in and go back to their Microsoft based computers? Of course they made it, and the family is now switching to Ubuntu for good. Hopefully they will inspire other families around the country to do the same. People from the Danish Loco Team were also involved in the program. Ubuntu had been installed to the computers by members of the team, and Martin and myself made a short (and silent) appearance in the program, handing over the pc’s to the family.
The effect of having Ubuntu mentioned on national television have been quite clear, as the number of users of our forum has increased dramatically.

15 minutes of fame!

Onsdag d. 29 oktober kl. 21.25 (det er i morgen) sender Magasinet Penge en udsendelse om en familie der har fået skiftet alle deres Windows computere ud med computere med Ubuntu.

Vi køber private computere for mere end tre milliarder kroner om året, og mange af de penge betaler vi faktisk for programmer. Men måske er der penge at spare ved i stedet at bruge gratis software.
Magasinet Penge tjekker, om de gratis glæder også giver glade brugere.
Vært: Dorte Fals

Efter 17 dage gøres status i programmet. Min medvirken har været begrænset til installation af maskinerne før programmet og lidt praktisk ude hos familie. Hvis jeg er med i nogle klip står jeg sikkert tavs i baggrunden sammen med Martin eller roder med nogle ledninger i det ene børneværelse.

Manden der taler vores sag er Morten Kjærsgaard fra OSL. Jeg var som sagt kun med til at bringe computerne ind i familiens hus, så jeg ved meget lidt om det endelige udfald, men glæder mig meget til at se programmet.

Jeg håber selvfølgelig også at denne tv eksponering vil give ekstra opmærksomhed til Ubuntu Live! nu på lørdag og Open Source bevægelsen i Danmark generelt.

Martin har skrevet lidt mere om detaljerne og vores bidrag her

Drivers for a…

This week I was by a local print shop called Unic Print to get some flyers, posters and banners printed for the upcoming Ubuntu Live! at the CBS here in Copenhagen.

The guy I talked to there was a great Ubuntu / FOSS fan, and they even had a few pc’s with Ibex installed for public use just at the entrance of the shop. In the future, he told me, they also hoped to have a stand with free Linux cds.

However he had one problem before he could switch the entire shop to Ubuntu. Getting the big printers and the machine he used to embroider onto clothes working without Windows was hard. So my question is, does anyone know anything about the status of getting these kinds of machines working outside a Windows environment? I think the big printer was a Roland, but I could be wrong.

Blog på planet?

Hvis du er medlem af Foreningen af danske Ubuntubrugere kan du få din blog (eller en delmængde af dine blog indlæg) på vores planet. Dog med det forbehold at dine indlæg skal handle om it, open source, fri kultur og som minimum en gang imellem være Ubuntu specifikke.

Der er endnu ikke nogen procedure for hvordan man som medlem faktisk får sin blog på planeten, så indtil videre vil jeg opfordre alle medlemmer der mener at deres blog hører til på planeten til at kontakte mig (enten pr. mail soeren.b.c@gmail.com eller fang mig på irc kanalen).

Noget helt andet – hvis du er Ubuntu bruger og på Facebook så er denne gruppe måske for dig… og hvis du regner med at dukke op til Ubuntu Live! så meld dig til på arrangementets event side.

Beer ticket (and more)

Inspirered by Peter Makholm‘s lightning talk on the Open Moko i will start with the ‘conclusion’ and work my way backwards.

I got the last beer ticket!

Fullrate (who happen to be my ISP) sponsored quite a few free beers at the Open Source Days 2008. However there was not enough for everyone and I happened to get the last ticket (after the two persons in front of me had declined it). The tickets were handed out after the keynote by Daniel Klein. (Does anyone know if the keynote or the slides are available on line somewhere?)

Before the keynote I spend most of Saturday either attending lightning talks or sitting at the Ubuntu booth. Work at the booth was quite relaxed. Mostly people just stopped by for some free CDs and to tell how happy they were with Ubuntu. There weren’t really any technical questions. If that can be taken as an expression that Ubuntu just works or if we were just lucky I don’t know. I will leave it up to you to draw conclusions.

Some people from The Software Exchange (a project under the Ministry of Science, technology and Innovation) had a very cosy and inviting booth sporting a roaring fireplace (on a LCD tv), a moose head (with the nickname Elge Sander), comfortable leather chairs and a portrait of the sabdfl him self. Really was a fun setup!




Janus has pictures from Thursday and Friday + Saturday.
Niels took more pictures that will hopefully come on line soon.

Open Source Days – I got my ticket!

As part of the Danish Team I’m going to the Open Source Days. I will be spending some time Saturday manning the Ubuntu booth but I do hope to get the time to sneak into a few talks. I might also make time to stop by Friday.

Although I have been circling some talks on my program print out, I haven’t decided yet on any must-see talks. The real problem seems to be that if you decide on one talk, you rule out the others happening at the same time – also I should expect to spend some time at the Ubuntu booth.

If you plan to show up at the Open Source Days make sure you stop by the Ubuntu booth at the second floor!

On the cover of the Rolling Stone

Ok, det er ikke Rolling Stone men Christian er blevet interviewet af Ekstra Bladet til deres Kup tillæg. I samme tillæg findes også en artikel om gratis programmer som alternativ til de dyre betalings programmer.

Interviewet er rigtig god, bl.a. er det rart at se at Ubuntu har skaffet liv til en gammel pc, så Christians børn nu har adgang til tre computere.

Foreningen af danske Ubuntubrugere

I søndags blev den stiftende generalforsamling i Foreningen af danske Ubuntubrugere afholdt.

Jeg blev valgt som foreningens kasserer, så hvis du har lyst til at være medlem er det altså mig du skal overfører penge til. Medlemskab for resten af 2008 kan erhverves for bare 50 kr. Overfør pengene til følgende konto.

Reg. nr. 0400
Konto nr. 4014554950

Husk at sende dit Launchpad id sammen med overførslen og underskrive CoC.

Se wiki for detaljer.