[open-government] [psi-workers] [euopendata] Rules + website for Open Data Challenge

Thu Mar 24 15:33:10 UTC 2011

MD, coming from organizations that also champion openness (Openforum Europe
and Openforum Academy) I would ideally prefer that all entries used open
source software. But I agree with Federico and Lorenzo - that we should be
as non-exclusionary as possible. If someone enters a closed app for a
proprietary platform that cannot easily be reused away from that platform
then they will have a tougher time winning a prize. We simply need to put
openness and reuse high among the criteria for the judges. I think the
Ottowa competition rules strike a good balance; they could serve as a good
template for our competition.

As far as teams from more than one country, I think it'll be too complicated
and will put off some potential entrants. However, reuse of the app in
different countries should be a prerequisite (otherwise the Commission won't
see the point.)

Re. the panel of judges, how about getting one or two venture capitalists or
business angels involved? I think one of the criteria for judging the
entries should be entrepreneurship or commercial potential (as others have
pointed out this doesn't necessarily contradict openness and reuse
criteria). Who better to judge than investors specialized in spotting
innovative start-ups? Thoughts please.

Paul

On 24 March 2011 15:58, Federico Morando <federico.morando at polito.it> wrote:

>  Dear All,
>
> I perfectly understand the point of those who advocate open apps, and this
> would be perfectly fine if it was just OKF to organize the contest, but this
> is a wider initiative, including several stakeholders and trying to elicit
> various kinds of submissions, including submission from commercial software
> developers, if they like to participate. Of course, we may have ad hoc
> prizes and categories, but - in general - what needs to be open are the data
> and not the apps.
>
> As an example, see the rules of some other contests, eg.
> http://www.ottawa.ca/online_services/opendata/contest_rules_en.html#2:
>
> *4.4 Your Application must be hosted and publicly available on your
> website or a third-party website as of the start of the Selection Period up
> to and including the end of the Selection Period for public voting and
> judging purposes. The City encourages you to maintain your application for a
> period of 6 months following the Contest Period. Contest Winners, in
> consideration of being selected as a Contest winner, must agree to make
> their winning Application publicly available for three months after the date
> the release [...]*
>
> *4.5 You retain ownership of your Application and are permitted to sell
> the use of your Application commercially after the Contest Period if you
> choose to do so. *
>
> Since we need visibility, we can ask for open access to the apps, as above,
> for a certain period of time. I think this is what we should "require". We
> may suggest to do more, of course, but I would not put this "more" as a
> formal requirement..
>
> My two cents,
>
> Federico
>
>
>
> On 03/24/2011 03:06 PM, MD wrote:
>
> Am 24.03.2011 13:36, schrieb Thomas Roessler:
>
> On 24 Mar 2011, at 13:32, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>
>
>  Re: open source + open data in apps, what about 'we strongly encourage
> entrants to use open licenses for code, content and data'?
>
>
> I don't think we should require open source licenses for the apps (or make
> this part of the evaluation) -- in fact, if somebody came up with something
> that's productized and sold later on, we should welcome that.
>
>
> I beg to differ. We should think very hard whether we want to actively
> prevent reuse of the results (=useful software code) of an OKF competition.
>
> Maybe I am mistaken as I joined OKF only recently, but for myunderstanding
> OKF would shoot itself and its mission in the foot if we do not -require-
> reusability of the competition results through open source licensing. If OKF
> wants that a lot of data will become open and actively (re)used, why should
> we ever selfimpose a limit on the creation and availability of tools to do
> exactly that? From that POV, I even think it is of strategic importance to
> OKF's mission.
>
> Somebody may object and say that we hinder companies to participate because
> we kill the for-profit motivation. Well, no, we do not. :-) This is the
> general argument brought forward, but the very existence of heaps of open
> source software, wikipedia and many other collaboratively created digital
> resources prove the opposite: digital stuff gets created if enough people
> have an interest in it. And I am very confident that there are people out
> there with an interest to (re)use open data..
>
> Finally, from a legal perspective every participant is the copyright holder
> of the software submitted. They are completely free in licensing the same
> piece of software in another way and sell it (so called 'dual-licensing').
> Yet, plenty of companies do exist today that live from offering full
> services aruond FOSS web tools (e.g., typo3, joomla etc.)
>
> This, however, is a competition run by OKF to further the mission of OKF.
> Therefore we need to require open licensing for all submissions.
>
> IMO, at least. :-)
>
>
> At the same time I do think we need to say something about the data used:
> For example, I don't think we're looking for an app that required 1M EUR
> upfront investment to acquire the data.
>
> J.
>
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Federico Morando
> <federico.morando at polito.it> <federico.morando at polito.it>  wrote:
>
> On 03/24/2011 01:08 PM, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>
>
> Some key ideas for rules:
>
> * Pan-European angle is strongly encouraged
>
>
> I surely agree. We may even say that you should use data from at least 2
> member states and/or that your app shoul make sense in at least two member
> states (e.g. in London and Paris).
>
>
> * Entries for apps must come from team which contains groups/individuals
> from at least 2 EU member states
>
>
> I don't think that this is necessary: let's put constraints on the
> apps/data
> (as you did above and below) and not on the institution/organization/group
> that proposes them... It's a call for apps, not a EU project ;-)
>
>
> * Repurposed apps are allowed (i.e. an app that exists for London can be
> expanded to work for Paris + Torino and entered)
>
>
> OK, sure!
>
>
> * Apps must be open source
> * Core data must be freely reusable and derived data must be openly
> licensed
>
>
> I'm not entirely sure: we may say that this is a plus in the evaluation,
> but
> is it a requirement? What needs to the open are the public data (in input),
>
> not necessarily the code/data of the re-users ("derived data")...
> [Personally, I'm sympathetic with this rule - in particular the part about
> open source code: it's just that I think it deserves an explicit and open
> discussion.]
>
> Thanks and best regards,
>
> Federico
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
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