[od-discuss] Up and Coming: Open Government Licence in Canada (OGL-C)

Fri Dec 7 23:45:12 UTC 2012

My first impression is that this license is a good step in the right
direction. The only thing niggling me is this clause:

"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;"

Of course, this seems entirely reasonable, but is both redundant and
probably makes it non-conformant with the open definition.  I wonder if
perhaps they might entertain a suggestion to move that clause from the
restrictions section and put it in the Exemptions section.  That way, while
still redundant, at least its not showing up as an additional restriction.

I don't know if that's practical but to me it seems so.

Then again, with the sub-License clause, it appears that the extra clause
could be eliminated by republishing the data, but my preference would be
for this license to just conform out of the gate eliminating the need.

Would love to read more thoughts on this thread.

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 1:11 AM, Kent Mewhort <kent at openissues.ca> wrote:

> I find the addition of an explicit right to "sub-Licence the Information"
> intriguing.  Myself and a few others have been pushing for the GoC to make
> the licence compatible with international licences such as ODC-By and
> CC-BY. I wonder if this is intended as a response to this request,
> especially given that we have suggested a right to sublicence under CC-BY
> as a solution (see http://www.cippic.ca/sites/**default/files/Creative%**
> 20Commons%20Licenses%20-%**20Options%20for%20Canadian%**
> 20Open%20Data%20Providers.pdf<http://www.cippic.ca/sites/default/files/Creative%20Commons%20Licenses%20-%20Options%20for%20Canadian%20Open%20Data%20Providers.pdf>
> )**.
>
> Of course, the OGL-C draft does not limit the right to sublicense to a
> particular licence or set of licences. Does this perhaps make it wide-open,
> subject only to the fact that you can only sublicence what you're licensed
> in the first place (thus, not personal data, third party rights, etc)?  If
> so, it doesn't even seem like you'd even necessarily have to propagate the
> attribution obligation into a sublicence.  I'd hesitantly say that this
> term is intended to be this broad, but the particular wording muddies the
> waters.  Aside from the fact that "license" should be spelled with an 's'
> when used as verb, the capital on 'L' on Licence seems to reference the
> defined-term "Licence" -- as in, the OGL-C licence.  Then again, in the
> context of an open licence, a right to sublicense under the exact same
> Licence would be rather moot and meaningless...
>
>  First, something about the UK OGL that I hadn't noticed before,
>>>
>>>      "This Licence does not grant you any right to use: ... Information
>>> subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents and
>>> trademarks."
>>>
>>> Is this effectively granting narrower permissions than an instrument
>>> which merely does not grant any patent or trademark rights? Compare
>>> with, for example, http://opendatacommons.org/**licenses/by/1.0/<http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/>which
>>> "does not cover ... patents ... trademarks"; but it doesn't say does
>>> not grant you any rights if these exist.
>>>
>> This is an interesting point.  It seems to me that this distinction could
> be especially pertinent for trade-marks (in which copyright often subsists
> as well).  For licences that merely "do not cover" the trade-marks, you can
> still use and reproduce them so along as you're not doing so in association
> with wares/services (and as long as they're not official marks).  However,
> as Mike notes, the terms of the OGL and OGL-C would appear to revoke your
> copyright licence wherever trade-marks apply.
>
> Kent
>
>
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-- 
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury
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