[od-discuss] Open Data Buttons

Fri Mar 9 17:17:03 UTC 2012

On 8 March 2012 17:27, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Laura Newman <laura.newman at okfn.org> wrote:
>>> I have recently been asked what the precise legal situation is with our Open
>>> Data / Open Content / Open Knowledge buttons. Do they imply CC-BY? CC-BY-SA?
>>> Or are they non-specific?
>>>
>>> For example, if someone were to publish a CC-BY article and include an image
>>> with one of our buttons inserted in the bottom corner, what precisely would
>>> that mean? In what way would that be different from displaying a Creative
>>> Commons logo?
>>
>> It would be meaningless, or nearly so (many people have said "this is
>> open" or similar without providing an actual license; I don't know
>> that reliance on such has ever been tested, perhaps because projects
>> that are important end up providing a license because enough people
>> tell them they need to...). This is one reason why CC has avoided or
>> suppressed offering various non-license logos (in particular one for
>> OER oft requested), and moved away from CC/"some rights reserved" to
>> specific license logos, because offering a specific license is what
>> matters.
>>
>> Wherever the Open stuff buttons are offered should note that they must
>> be accompanied by offer of an OKD-compliant license, and that they do
>> not constitute license notice when using another's work under an
>> OKD-compliant license.
>
> I guess that'd be http://opendefinition.org/buttons/ which sadly
> doesn't explain any of the above.

Good point Mike. Would you be up for a proposing a succinct sentence
plus paragraph we could add to that page to make this clearer?

> Also, it appears the OKD site is not itself OK. It really ought to
> additionally be an OSS, but I see no evidence of such.

Ah the curse of changing themes in wordpress -- all your footer
widgets go walkabout.

Now restored and hence now O(K)D-compliant. It is in fact an Open
Software Service since the site runs on wordpress ...

Rufus

> Mike
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/