[od-discuss] UK OGL Compliant?

Tue Dec 13 00:46:01 UTC 2011

I am wondering if there is any will to apply opendefinition.org conformance
test to new licenses (including those mentioned in this thread), thereby
listing those licenses on the respective conformant or non-conformant pages?

As it stands there are a number of new licenses emerging and no clear way
to tell if the licenses are conformant.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I think it's important for licenses to be
tested by the community.

Is anyone able to advise on this?

Thank you,
Herb

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org>wrote:

> Hi Rufus and all,
>
> I think the 3 clauses you've called out are quite problematic. IANAL
> but "ensure" sounds burdensome, "official" is unclear, and "mislead"
> is ripe for abuse. As the OKD draws much from the OSD, which itself is
> based on the DFSG, I take license to call out the
> http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html#tentacles_of_evil test. I
> think analogously, if an oppressive government comes to power, the OGL
> provides built-in excuses for suppression of uses of "open"
> information it finds disagreeable. Maybe this concern is over the top,
> just putting it out there.
>
> The clauses, even if OKD compliant, are also problematic for
> compatibility with other licenses, though I don't understand why
> sharealike licenses in particular -- eg can one practically adapt an
> OGL work and release under CC-BY or ODC-BY? I know there's an
> expressed intention to permit that, but downstream users would need to
> be more careful than they'd need to be with a CC-BY or ODC-BY work
> that doesn't incorporate OGL material. In any case it would be good to
> document the OKD conformance approval process and in said
> documentation encourage thinking about issues beyond narrow
> conformance such as proliferation and compatibility.
> http://opensource.org/approval may be a good place to start from.
>
> Mike
>
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 4:47 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> wrote:
> > To follow up, I've re-read the license and the Definition [1] one more
> > time and perhaps I'm over-reading here.
> >
> > [1]: <http://opendefinition.org/okd/>
> >
> > While the additional "integrity" style clauses may be an issue for
> > reasons I've outlined I don't think, strictly, they violate any of the
> > Open Definition principles (the issue would be around (3) and (6) --
> > reuse and integrity). As such the OGL would be compliant.
> >
> > If we assume the OGL is compliant it is worth thinking a bit further
> > about what would happen if we had a proliferation of these form of
> > minor, but substantive, additional requirements on users and reusers
> > and whether a modification to the Definition is needed to handle these
> > and ensure compatibility is maintained (this would be a separate
> > thread, though).
> >
> > Rufus
> >
> > On 19 October 2011 10:54, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> >> Hi Andrew,
> >>
> >> In fact, unfortunately, in my opinion is that it is *not* compliant
> >> [1]. Specifically these additional restriction clauses are
> >> problematic:
> >>
> >> <quote>
> >> * ensure that you do not use the Information in a way that suggests
> >> any official status or that the Information Provider endorses you or
> >> your use of the Information;
> >>
> >> * ensure that you do not mislead others or misrepresent the
> >> Information or its source;
> >>
> >> * ensure that your use of the Information does not breach the Data
> >> Protection Act 1998 or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC
> >> Directive) Regulations 2003.
> >> </quote>
> >>
> >> The first of these, may be ok (it's a pseudo-integrity clause) though
> >> I worry about interaction with share-alike (and worry about how easy
> >> to interpret it is).
> >>
> >> The second of these is definitely problematic as it is additional
> >> requirement that would probably be problematic with share-alike or
> >> similar. I also think is a clause that creates a lot of uncertainty
> >> (I'm a newspaper and use government data to write a news story. Can
> >> the government accues me or misleading or misrepresenting the source
> >> and hence void my license). It also seems one could achieve the intent
> >> of this clause through other means -- simple notification, clear
> >> statement about the mistake etc.
> >>
> >> The last item adds a completely new requirement which again leads to
> >> problematic interaction with other licenses. Also, I wonder why this
> >> needs to be in the license. Surely breaching that act is an offence in
> >> itself -- in which case why add to the license?
> >>
> >> Rufus
> >>
> >> [1]: http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2011-March/000032.html
> >>
> >> On 18 October 2011 16:27, Andrew Stott <andrew.stott at dirdigeng.com>
> wrote:
> >>> Herb
> >>>
> >>> As I recall the general view was that the UK OGL was compliant, but
> no-one
> >>> had actually taken through the process to get it listed.
> >>>
> >>> Andrew Stott
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: od-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> >>> [mailto:od-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Herb
> Lainchbury
> >>> Sent: 18 October 2011 16:15
> >>> To: od-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >>> Subject: [od-discuss] UK OGL Compliant?
> >>>
> >>> Hi All,
> >>> I have looked through the archives for an answer to this question but
> >>> haven't seen anything.
> >>> I am interested in the UK Open Government
> >>> License
> http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/, and
> >>> I think it conforms but it doesn't appear to be listed anywhere on
> >>> the opendefinition.org site.
> >>> Does anyone know if this has been discussed before?  Am I missing
> something?
> >>> Thanks.
> >>> --
> >>> Herb Lainchbury
> >>> Founder, OpenDataBC (Canada)
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> od-discuss mailing list
> >>> od-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/od-discuss
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Co-Founder, Open Knowledge Foundation
> >> Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
> >> http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Co-Founder, Open Knowledge Foundation
> > Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
> > http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > od-discuss mailing list
> > od-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/od-discuss
> >
>
>
>
> --
> https://creativecommons.net/ml
>
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-- 
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury
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