[ckan-discuss] field for data owner?

Fri Feb 11 14:48:12 GMT 2011

2011/2/11 Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>:
> 2011/2/10 Olav Anders Øvrebø <olav.ovrebo at gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>> 2011/2/10 William Waites <ww at styx.org>
>>>
>>> * [2011-02-10 13:30:34 +0100] Olav Anders Øvrebø <olav.ovrebo at gmail.com>
>>> écrit:
>>>
>>> ] By the way, the "Author" field is confusing. If I am adding a package
>>> that
>>> ] is published by a public sector agency, I don't want to list myself as
>>> "The
>>> ] permanent contact name for enquiries about this particular dataset." It
>>> is
>>> ] also too much work to research who that contact name may be.
>>>
>>> There is also an equivocation on the author of the
>>> metadata (ckan package) and the author of the dataset.
>>> Similarly for maintainer.
>
> No there isn't. The maintainer of the ckan package should never be in
> the author or maintainer field :)
>
>> That's true. This should be sorted out.
>>>
>>> I am not sure I understand what it means to "own"
>>> data. Maybe it means person-with-right-to-license-
>>> the-data-any-way-they-please.
>>
>> I guess that is what I meant by owner. Or "institution" instead of person
>> (legal person?). When it comes to government data, in most cases (?) the
>> institution will have this right to license the way they please.
>
> Why wouldn't they be in the author field and the maintainer field be
> for the person who is maintaining this for the community catalogue?
>
> BTW: this all sounds like something that should become an FAQ or page
> on http://wiki.ckan.net/ with a list of examples and use cases :)

It's the fourth link on the page you refer to:
http://wiki.ckan.net/Creating_and_editing_Packages#Author_and_Maintainer

Please expand it if it is not sufficient, as usual :-)

I believe Richard Cyganiak also has a wiki page for guidance on the
author field for LOD packages which predates the other advice and
might well conflict. But I can't find it right now, I'm afraid.

Dave

>>> In some cases this means
>>> the original author, in some cases this right may have
>>> been sold or delegated or assigned in some way exclusively
>>> or not, in some cases there may be no such person (e.g.
>>> wikipedia or ckan metadata).
>>
>> In those cases the Wikimedia Foundation and the OKF will at least be the
>> original publishers of the data, or owners who have chosen to "donate" the
>> data?
>
> Yes, that's right. I think Wikimedia / Wikipedia would be listed as
> the author the Wikipedia dataset with the Maintainer being whoever is
> curating that dataset (not necessarily, but possibly, same as person
> updating CKAN metadata). This is in fact the case with the CKAN
> Wikipedia dataset, see:
>
> <http://ckan.net/package/wikipedia>
>
> Rufus
>
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