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

Fri Mar 25 06:49:28 UTC 2011

Agreed. Lets say that we (strongly?) encourage open source apps from
multinational teams, but not make it a hard and fast requirement. Same
with republishing data - we strongly encourage use of a license
compliant with opendefinition.org for derivative data, but it is not a
hard and fast requirement.

J.

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 6:58 AM, François Bancilhon
<francois.bancilhon at gmail.com> wrote:
> we want lots of apps in the competition, so the more restriction we put, the
> less apps we'll have
> we can mention that multinational teams are good
> we can mention that open source is a +
> but let's not make it a requirement
> it's hard enough to build apps and bring them to market, let's not make it
> difficult for them
> françois
>
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Paul Meller <paul at openforumeurope.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> 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>  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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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> françois Bancilhon
> twitter.com/fbancilhon
>
>
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg