[od-discuss] OGL-Canada proposal feedback from the Open Definition Advisory Council

[Levene, Mark]

Hello,

Thank you all for your comments. We have received quite a bit of substantial and useful feedback from a variety of sources. We're currently in the process of re-working the Licence, which we hope will be used widely across many jurisdictions in Canada (as our Minister recently promised on Twitter). So we want to get this right. The next version addresses a number of the concerns that have been raised on this list and from other venues.

We will eliminate any reference to database rights. This is in the UK licence but since such rights don't exist in Canada, we eliminated the reference. It caused too much confusion and was probably the most common element in all the feedback. 

We're also adjusting the definitions. "Personal data" has been removed. We now reference Canada's Privacy Act and its definition of personal information. We feel this is clearer and permits the release of certain types of public personal information, including the examples listed in your comments. Other jurisdictions will be able to cite their own privacy legislation.

We're not quite able to circulate the next version as we are still trying to finalize some wording with multiple players. That can be a sensitive issue, as I'm sure you recognize. 

We are, however, very interested in having our Licence verified as OD-conformant. From our perspective, there remains one outstanding issue: we're still not convinced of the rationale for moving "This Licence does not grant you any right to use: . Information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents and trademarks" to the exemptions section. As was pointed out in the discussion, the Exemptions are all about types of information not about how to use the information. 

None of the types of information in the Exemptions clause should ever see the light of day because there are (and will continue to be) procedural checks and balances for government departments to meet prior to release of data or information. Other than attribution, all we're saying is that you're not allowed to say that you officially represent the Government of Canada. That's not something you can control internally. Otherwise, you can do as you see fit with the data. We think this meets the open definition and we'd value your opinions.

--Mark

Mark Levene
Open Government Secretariat  | Secrétariat du gouvernement ouvert
Information Management | Gestion de l'information
Chief Information Officer Branch | Direction du dirigeant principal de l'information
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat | Secrétariat du Conseil du Trésor du Canada
Ottawa, Canada K1A 0R5
Mark.Levene at tbs-sct.gc.ca
Telephone | Téléphone 613-952-5948 / Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-946-9893 / Teletypewriter | Téléimprimeur 613-957-9090
Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: od-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:od-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Mike Linksvayer
Sent: January 31, 2013 4:44 PM
To: Open Government WG List; od-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [od-discuss] OGL-Canada proposal feedback from the Open Definition Advisory Council

http://opendefinition.org/2013/01/31/ogl-canada-proposal-feedback/

Mike

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