[open-government] government data licenses - best practice?

Mon Sep 13 22:46:14 BST 2010

Josh

Regrettably, what is a no-brainer to Americans (and sought by many of us who
are reading this) is far from obvious to many Europeans.

Thirty years ago, I represented the UK in international discussions at OECD
on trans-border data flows - the legal treatment of information by a
receiving country when that information had come from another country. I
learnt a lot about the attitudes and assumptions of negotiators from other
governments. At the time, Europe had three legal traditions: the countries
never conquered by Napoleon had common law; of those he conquered, the
French system had survived in the north and west; the Mediterranean member
states maintained their 2,500 year old practice of paying lip service to
conqueror's law while obeying that of their once sovereign cities.

The US shared the UK common law system with much of the old British
Commonwealth but national variants had proliferated. Because of a Washington
turf war, their delegates at meetings came alternately from State and from
Commerce. The former understood the necessity for give and take in
negotiations but not the technical issues; the latter were well briefed by
industry on the issues and told to win concessions and concede nothing. In
particular, the US tried to apply its domestic law extra-territorially.
Often the administration was thwarted by Congress when signed agreements
came to the legislature to be ratified.

Having followed Alan Turing to the same school and university in England and
read the same subjects without his talent or distinction, I decided to study
for an MBA in the USA. I admired many of the faculty and students and later
worked for US multi-national businesses on four continents for many years.

I often had to explain the curious ways of funny foreign folk with long
histories to American colleagues who regard a mere 250 years as a long time
ago.

We can learn a lot from each other if we accept and respect the differences
between us and are open to sharing wisdom as well as knowledge.

In summary, I have learnt that:

in the UK, you can do it unless it's forbidden;
in Germany, you can only do it if it is allowed;
in France, you can do it even f it is forbidden;
in Russia, you cannot do it even if it is allowed;
in Spain, you can do it but not until manana;
in Italy, you should do it if your godfather recommends it;
in Nigeria, you can do it if you bribe the right official;
in Japan, you can do it if you have a consensus;
in the USA, you can do it if you hire the best lawyer.

Whether this is any help to Olav, I don't know. But licenses are a fact of
life for most people in the world, not least the USA. What else is the
patent system but a form of licence and whose coverage is more extensive in
USA than elsewhere in the developed world?  

All the best,

Adrian Norman

-----Original Message-----
From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Josh Tauberer
Sent: 13 September 2010 01:10
To: Olav Anders Øvrebø
Cc: open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-government] government data licenses - best practice?

Did anyone actually reply on this post?

On 09/03/2010 06:47 AM, Olav Anders Øvrebø wrote:
 > The Norwegian government is currently working on formulating licenses
 > that will be used when agencies publish their data.

The obvious answer in the U.S. would be: agencies should apply NO 
license to any work. I tend to qualify these things with "in the US" 
because I recognize that cultures seem to vary on this, but over here 
it's just a no-brainer that when the government publishes information 
(which is never copyrighted) that it should not tell its people in what 
ways it can or can't use that information. (Except for info that relates 
to privacy, security, etc.) And by and large this is actually how things 
are, which is good.

There is some consensus in the open gov community that this is the way 
things should be, see e.g. www.opengovdata.org.

The EU Public Sector Information Directive specifically allows for 
certain types of licenses that cover "liability, the proper use of 
documents, guaranteeing non-alteration and the acknowledgment of 
source". These don't seem terribly onerous (in fact, I wouldn't object 
to a no-liability clause --- that's common in open source software, for 
instance), but I think the first question is exactly why agencies need 
these protections in the first place? What does acknowledgment do but 
boost their ego? Is that worth the limitations on the free expression by 
the public?

I haven't seen a best-practices discussion about writing an open 
government data license, if one has to me made, so it would make for 
interesting further discussion.

But again, I'd hope there just would not be one in the first place!

- Josh Tauberer
- CivicImpulse / GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info | www.govtrack.us | civicimpulse.com

"Members of both sides are reminded not to use guests of the
House as props."

On 09/03/2010 06:47 AM, Olav Anders Øvrebø wrote:
> The Norwegian government is currently working on formulating licenses
> that will be used when agencies publish their data. Here is a blog post
> (in Norwegian) about the considerations so far:
> http://data.norge.no/blogg/2010/08/en-klausulbuffet-av-vilkar/
>
> A question to list members: Do you know of a "best practice" for such
> licenses? Licenses that are in line with the principles of open data
> (the Open Knowledge Definition?).
>
> National legislation of course complicates things. For instance one has
> to take into consideration the law on copyright, see §43:
>
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/KKD/Medier/Acts%20and%20regulations/Aandsve
rkloven_engelsk_versjon_nov2008.pdf
>
> All the best,
> olav
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-government mailing list
> open-government at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government

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