[od-discuss] OGL-Alberta v2.0 and OGL-BC v2.0 conformance decision time

Sun Jul 14 08:29:54 UTC 2013

The OGL-BC excludes all information not accessible under FIPPA?! This 
excludes materials such as:
  - "a record that is available for purchase by the public" (s. 3(1j))
  - "a record of a question that is to be used on an examination or 
test" (s. 3(1d))
  - "a record containing teaching materials or research information of 
[post secondary institutions]" (s. 3(1e) )

I hope this a correctable drafting oversight that should at the very 
least read "not accessible under Sections 12 to 22.1 of the Freedom of 
Information and Protection of Privacy Act".  These are the sections 
excepting personal information and information that could be considered 
harmful to the government.  However, even this would still 
problematically exempt (depending on the discretion of a government 
department to choose to exempt such information):

  - "information that would reveal advice or recommendations developed 
by or for a public body or a minister" (s. 13(1))
  - "[information which could be reasonable expected to] harm the 
conduct by the government of British Columbia of relations between that 
government and [other Canadian government bodies]" (s. 16(1)(a))
  - "information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to 
harm the financial or economic interests of a public body or the 
government of British Columbia" (s. 17(1))
  - "that must be published or released to the public under an 
enactment" (s. 20(1)(2))
  - and much more!

IMO, such provisions which make exemptions based on whether the work 
"can reasonable be expected to harm" the licensor boil down to another 
form of use restriction  -- these clauses only make this restriction at 
the source source instead, and any particular type of downstream use is 
going to post-facto affect whether it could have been "expected to harm" 
in the first place.  Thus, I suggest the OGL-BC is no non-compliant 
because it discriminates based on field of endevour.

The extra provision in the Alberta OGL could be worded better to make it 
clear it's not trying to the same thing as the BC licence -- but I don't 
see anything particularly problematic and would suggest it's compliant.

Kent

On 13-07-13 02:36 AM, Mike Linksvayer wrote:

> We decided to consider these two together, right after OGL-Canada
> v2.0, which we just approved.
>
> http://data.alberta.ca/licence
> http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/local/dbc/docs/license/OGL-vbc2.0.pdf
>
> They're both very similar to OGL-Canada v2.0, and even more similar to
> each other -- the notable difference is that they add another
> exemption
>
> Alberta 6(b): Information or Records that are not accessible under
> applicable laws;
>
> BC 6(b): Information or Records not accessible under the Freedom of
> Information and Protection of Privacy Act (B.C.);
>
> There are links to the relevant provincial acts (which I've not read
> yet) in each license.
>
> Herb wdiff'd OGL-Canada v2.0
> with Alberta http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2013-June/000467.html
> with BC http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2013-June/000468.html
>
> I'm +0 until further discussion.
>
> Anyone?
> * +1 or -1s?
> * See problems with the additional exemption?
> * Object to even considering sub-national licenses, or endorse our doing so?
>
> Mike
>
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