[od-discuss] Fwd: Help reviewing terms of use for Kenya Open data policy

Tue Nov 8 19:58:30 UTC 2011

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> On 13 July 2011 21:02, Ory Okolloh <ookolloh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>
> Hi Ory and welcome. Sorry for delay in responding. In my case at
> least, this dropped off my inbox and I've only just come back to it.
>
>> I'm new to the group.
>> Was looking for help reviewing the terms of use of the Kenya govt open data
>> portal:  http://opendata.go.ke/page/terms-of-service
>> Any red flags? Things that need to be changed?
>
> There is one immediate "red flag" in terms of compliance with the open
> definition. For example, in section entitled Copyright it states:
>
> <quote>
> As such, and subject to any minor restrictions that may be imposed by
> the law of copyright regarding the use of public information, the
> Kenya ICT Board and the government agencies whose information is
> provided on this website impose no restrictions to the non-commercial
> reproduction, re-publication and re-distribution of any information
> published on its website.
> </quote>
>
> This implies only permission for non-commercial use whereas open
> definition requires that the data be freely usable for any purpose
> including commercial ones.
>
> There is some standard citation and integrity stuff in citing data section viz:
>
> <quote>
>
> The agency's preferred citation for each dataset is to be included in
> its metadata. Users should also cite the date that data were accessed
> or retrieved from www.opendata.go.ke. Finally, users must clearly
> state that www.opendata.go.ke and the Kenya ICT Board cannot vouch for
> the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been
> retrieved from www.opendata.go.ke.
> </quote>
>
> But that does not seem to be obviously problematic in any way.

But there's also

<quote>
However, third parties who use the information should represent it accurately
</quote>

which is rather vague (should? accurately?) and subject to discussion
similar to http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2011-October/000067.html
(about which, I'm curious as to what others think).

Mike