[open-government] Introductions

Sat May 29 21:47:15 BST 2010

Dear Brian,

may I deepen your valuable comments:

my plea for a very careful, structured and step-by-step
implementation of open data is based on the following facts.

1. None of the past eGovernment action plans and architectures
in Europe took into account the open data policy.
Open data fundamentally addresses the architecture and
set-up of statutory registers, THE key backbone of eGov.
(even the ambitious NO-census-any-more project of Austria
took into account the benefit of the open data approach).

And the NPM model made it more difficult to implement open data.
Often it lead to financially self-sustaining (autark) public dataholders.

********************

2. All major 20-30 public data holders in a country are ruled by
a specific legislation including a specific financial and pricing model.
Each Acts requires 3-5 years minimum to amend it.
Horrendous costs of lobbying. Even if the public dataholders agrees,
most ministries of finance will stop the amendment.

*********************

3. I would not refer that much to the US as success story.
I interviewed there many re-users on State and local level.
On these 2 levels still huge barriers exist and copyright was
often NOT waived. (although the application procedure is more
swift and easier than in Europe).

Open data leads often to junk public data. nobody cares any
more on that. No budget - no responsibility - no updates.
Do we share that vision?

I would not rely on any American map. The US airforce
bombed in 2000 the wrong embassy in Belgrade.
They simply forgot to update their map.

*************************

Let me explain the current movement with following picture:

Image that the NASA would have asked Kennedy in 1962
to advise them HOW to fly to the moon. -
Do you know any Government which has expertise to define
the hundreds of steps how to transpose open data policy? NO.

My German colleagues commissioned several studies in the
past 5 years just to address ONE relationship:
Spatial information and data protection legislation.
And they failed since their approach was done de lege lata
and not de lege ferenda.  - 5 years and no substantial progress.

Yes, open data might be easy to transpose in African countries
where hardly any legal legacy exists (A) or nobody
cares about the conflicts of interests, values and legislation (B).

Open data policy should be seen as the flight to the moon.
Hundreds of steps have to defined and be ordered in the right
sequence. Remember the videos between 1963 and 1969
and how patchy their efforts were.

If we want to fly to the moon, WE have to define precisely the
order and the sequence. No Government will go into that tricky business.
Simply remember the legislative and judiciary mass of your
colleagues in France and Germany.

Governments fear to open the box of the Pandora.
We have to tell them how to structure that process and order the sequence.

kind regards,

Gerhard

At 18:28 29.05.2010, Brian Gryth wrote:
>Good discussion thus far.
>
>Here is my two cents:
>
>1) Legal issues will vary largely based on jurisdiction.  For 
>instance, licensing issues are not (or should not) be an issue in 
>the United State because most government data is considered a public 
>record and therefore must be made accessible for inspection (note 
>that does not necessarily equate to being accessible).  Licensing is 
>an issue in the UK and Canada (so I have heard) because the Crown 
>asserts an ownership interested on the data.  Privacy is also a huge 
>issue in the United States (ask any administrator or clerk that has 
>had to deal with Social Security Numbers appearing in records).  I 
>agree with Jonathan's assessment that general guidelines will be 
>helpful.  Any best practices materials, however, must address these 
>legal and policy issues even if a particular issue was not a barrier 
>to implementation.  Such information will be important for 
>comparative policy and legal analysis and will help a jurisdiction 
>amend or create an appropriate legal and policy framework.
>
>2) Financial issues are extremely complicated especially with ever 
>decreasing budgets.  Making government data open does involve a 
>financial commitment.  An important commitment, but a commitment 
>nonetheless.  When governments are having to make critical decisions 
>on providing basic services, committing additional resources to open 
>government data may not be a priority.  The costs can be related to 
>many things.  After all, it costs money to stand up a server to 
>house the data, it costs to host and maintain the server, and IT 
>resources may need to be devoted to converting the data into a 
>usable formats.   In short, open data is not free.
>
>That being said we, the government and communities like this one, 
>need to find ways to fund these open data projects.  In some cases, 
>those funds will come from traditional resources like taxes and in 
>other cases new funding models will need to be 
>explored.  Furthermore, the long term benefits of open government 
>data may lead to spending reductions that will off set the short 
>term investment.  Secondary effects to the economy may also be 
>realized.  However, the data supporting these possibilities is 
>lacking.  The open government communities need to create 
>quantitative data to support the qualitative benefit to 
>society.  Studies like the recent Government Online report by the 
>PEW center in the United States.  See 
><http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Government-Online.aspx>http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Government-Online.aspx. 
>
>
>3) Organizational change will be needed to effectuate progress in 
>opening government data.  It seems counterintuitive that government 
>entities would resist releasing data that is essentially owned by 
>the public/citizens.  But that is often the reality for many varied 
>and complex reasons.  I personally believe that the government 2.0 
>movement's long term success will be determine by a change in 
>organizational culture rather than by technology adoption or release 
>of datasets.  Value can only be realized with sustained effort.  As 
>Tim points out in his blog, open government data has little value 
>unless in results in change or societal improvement.  David Eaves 
>talks about the long tail of public policy (see 
><http://eaves.ca/2009/01/22/changecamp-putting-people-and-creativity-back-into-public-policy/>http://eaves.ca/2009/01/22/changecamp-putting-people-and-creativity-back-into-public-policy/) 
>and that open government data helps more people (i.e. the long tail) 
>get involved in policy making.  However, that involvement can only 
>be realized if those people's voices are heard and acted upon.  We 
>must get government to move beyond the perceived or real culture 
>that feedback and comments will be disregard in the order they were received.
>
>I am excited to work with this group to see what we can achieve.  We 
>may have a daunting task.  But as the saying goes, nothing worth 
>doing is easy.
>
>Thanks,
>Brian Peltola Gryth
><http://twitter.com/briangryth>twitter.com/briangryth
>
>
>On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Jonathan Gray 
><<mailto:jonathan.gray at okfn.org>jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
>Thanks for your email, Gerhard!
>
>2010/5/27 Content Research 
><<mailto:contentissimo at chello.at>contentissimo at chello.at>:
> > 1. I fully agree with your comments that this Soros
> > Foundation Study is rather useless or even misguiding.
> > I do not even cite this study.
>
>I would love to hear in more detail about what you consider its main
>deficiencies to be! E.g. specific things that you think it should have
>covered better, identification of misleading claims or factual
>inaccuracies...
>
> > 2. I have the strong impression that none of the recent
> > authors has participated in any Epsiplus meeting in the
> > past years and have read any of their/my studies.
>
>For what its worth, many at the Open Knowledge Foundation have always
>been in close contact with ePSIplus network. Also Chris Corbin is on
>our advisory board:
>
> 
><http://okfn.org/about/people#ChristopherCorbin>http://okfn.org/about/people#ChristopherCorbin
>
>Also at the OKF (at least as long as I have been here) we *always*
>strongly suggest that European open government data advocates contact
>their ePSIplus/ePSIplatform representative, and learn more about what
>is happening regarding national transposition of the PSI Directive.
>E.g. I was speaking to some advocates here in Berlin about this last
>week, and some of the things that came up included:
>
> 
><http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-de/2010-May/000085.html>http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-de/2010-May/000085.html
>
>Regarding your papers, what would you recommend as being most relevant
>for this list? In general I would note that there is a pretty
>important difference between ignorance and disagreement (Especially if
>your presentations are scattered with ad hominems like: "Open data is
>driven by freaky guys", "Open data freaks", etc --
><<http://www.cciia.com/library/Open-data-policy-evaluated-by-Wagner.pdf>http://www.cciia.com/library/Open-data-policy-evaluated-by-Wagner.pdf>)
>
> > Even the literature in the 60ies was far behind that what
> > I currently am pleased to read.
> > Open data entails so many complex legal, organisational
> > and financial questions where none of the open data
> > evangelists have even thought of.
>
>Which evangelists are you thinking of? What issues are you thinking
>of? Examples would be very helpful to help us substantiate your
>claims, and to help 'evangelists' to become better informed.
>
>Also, while I agree that knowledge of the various complexities is very
>important (e.g. whether there are special provisions regarding
>government information in national copyright legislation, knowing
>about existing licensing and pricing regimes and how these work, etc.)
>-- the extent to which these complexities are directly relevant to
>open government data advocacy depends on the argument that you are
>making. For example, in order to make the case that there are
>compelling benefits to opening up official data (perhaps with
>reference to interesting or useful web applications such as Gapminder,
>TheyWorkForYou or Farm Subsidy) -- do we really need to allude to the
>details of US Government Circular No. A-130 in 1996, the UK's 2000
>Cross Cutting Review of the Knowledge Economy, and so on, *every
>time*?
>
>While the OKF is not a campaigning organisation, the Guardian's 'Free
>our data' campaign could not really have been called the campaign to
>'allow non-personal information that is gathered, processed and stored
>by government bodies in pursuance of their public duty, and not
>withheld from the public on grounds of national security, to be reused
>by the public for any purpose at marginal cost (i.e. zero) where the
>overall cost to society does not exceed the benefit of doing so'.
>
>Also 'there are benefits to doing X' does not mean 'there are always
>benefits to doing X', or 'we should always do X'. To paraphrase Bob
>Dylan, not all open data advocates say that all government data should
>be open all of the time. It is only fairly recently that digital
>technologies have made it so easy for people to represent, analyse and
>deliver official information in new ways - and many open government
>data advocates simply seek to articulate and communicate these new
>opportunities to public bodies and the public, and to explain how data
>should be published in order to encourage innovative reuse.
>
> > I haven't came across any handbook which assists Governments
> > to transpose this complex issue step by step in line
> > with complex national legislation.
>
>Not sure what you are proposing? Do you think there should be a single
>handbook to help with PSI Directive transposition in European member
>states with information on complexities (legal, economic,
>organizational, ...) in each country? Would this not become a little
>unwieldy? ;-)
>
>I do think there is room for a *very basic* open government data
>handbook which explains various legal and technical aspects of making
>data open from perspective of reuser. E.g. what do we mean by 'raw
>data', what do we mean by 'legally open' (and how is this different
>from 'available online'), what are the possible benefits (e.g. citizen
>driven web applications and services a la Sunlight and mySociety),
>what experiences have other countries had with open government data
>initiatives (e.g. in Australia, Norway, NZ, Spain, UK, US, ...) and so
>on.
>
>All the best,
>
>--
>Jonathan Gray
>
>Community Coordinator
>The Open Knowledge Foundation
><http://blog.okfn.org/>http://blog.okfn.org
>
>http://twitter.com/jwyg
><http://identi.ca/jwyg>http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
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