[od-discuss] Move to non-conformant?!: UK PSI (Public Sector Information) Click-Use Licence (was no endorsement clauses and OKD conformance (was Re: Up and Coming: Open Government Licence in Canada (OGL-C)))

Mon Dec 10 20:59:37 UTC 2012

On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
> Also the UK PSI click-use license
> http://opendefinition.org/licenses/ukpsi/ has a no-endorsement clause
> and is on the conformant list, but ought be removed for lots of other
> problems, whatever we decide about may-not-imply-endorsement:
>     "not use the Material for the principal purpose of advertising or
> promoting a particular product or service, or in a way which could
> imply that it is endorsed by a Department or a Public Sector
> Organisation;"

I don't know how the UK PSI Click-Use Licence got on the conformant
list -- it has been there since at least
http://web.archive.org/web/20071227230454/http://opendefinition.org/licenses/
-- prior to any OD list archives.

It is very clearly NOT conformant. A probably incomplete list of
clauses that make it so:

    6. How the Material may be reproduced

Does not grant permission to make any adaptation -- only translations
"by a competent translator" and conversion to formats for the vision
impaired. Not conformant with OKD #3.

Nearly every point in the Obligations section is problematic. Some are
odd for a public license (which this tries not to be), so I'll just
note the problematic ones that have been discussed recently regarding
UK OGL -- may-not-imply-endorsement and do-not-mislead:

    9.6 not use the Material for the principal purpose of advertising
or promoting a particular product or service, or in a way which could
imply that it is endorsed by a Department or a Public Sector
Organisation;

    9.7 not use the Material in any way that is likely to mislead others;

Of course the first part of 9.6 is also non-conformant with OKD#8.

Can I get a couple +1's on moving this to non-conformant with the
above rationale?

Mike