[od-discuss] UK OGL Compliant?

Wed Oct 19 16:54:13 UTC 2011

There is a very real chance that this license could proliferate through
Canada so I want to provide as much feedback as I can before that happens.
 The exemption clauses, for example the clause

   - third party rights the Information Provider is not authorised to
   license;

essentially says, "we're not sure if we are allowed to license this
information and if we mess up, you can't use it".
The problem is that this shifts "rights clearing" to the people who are
least able to do the clearing.  As a developer wanting to use some data, I
have no idea if the government has properly rights cleared the information
they are publishing under this license.  I am less likely to want to build
an app or a business using this information as it's risky.  Compare that to
the PDDL or the US public domain, where there is no such clause.  Those
licences are more attractive.

This alone may not be a strong enough objection to disqualify it from the
current compliance test, but I would like to see licenses that do not have
such clauses (the PDDL and CC for example) fare better somehow.  There are
several such clauses in the OGL and they could add more in the future, and
currently the opendefinition.org seems to be silent on these types of
clauses that shift risk from the publisher onto the consumer (and all of its
downstream consumers).  I wouldn't want to see these types of clauses
proliferate and my real preference would be for them to be removed entirely
because as Rufus correctly states, many of them are already covered by law.
 As consumers we have no way of mitigating the risk (through diligence for
example), and these clauses leave a lot of room for discretion.  Someone
opposing openness and wanting to inhibit what folks do with a license would
find these types of clauses convenient.

To be clear, I am not advocating that consumer should be able to do whatever
they want with the data, just that where there is risk of publishing
something incorrectly, that risk stays with the publisher, not the consumer.
 These clauses make us partners in that risk even though we have no way to
assure ourselves of the rights.

This issue should probably be a separate thread from the question of whether
or not these licenses meet the definition today.

Thank you,
Herb

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/
>

-- 
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury
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