[od-discuss] feedback on Open Definition

Tue Jun 18 04:39:24 UTC 2013

Thanks to Luis for forwarding this, again. A few comments inline.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Luis Villa <luis at lu.is>
> Date: Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 8:08 AM
> Subject: feedback on Open Definition
> To: "od-discuss at lists.okfn.org" <od-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> After brief, non-substantive discussion of the Open Definition on
> another mailing list I'm on, I received this deeper commentary and
> criticism from Stefano Zacchiroli, a former Debian Project Leader.
>
> Mike, do we have the OD in markdown or some other easily
> editable/diffable format somewhere?

Yes https://github.com/okfn/opendefinition/tree/master/source

> I really, really can't do it any
> time soon :/ but I'm beginning to think a pretty significant revamp is
> more in order than a point revision - keeping the same core
> principles, but doing significant language revision to make those
> principles more clear, as well as adding some procedural points based
> on our experience of the past few months.

I agree a significant revamp could be useful. It is still basically a
copy of the OSD with a few words changed, which is basically a copy of
the DFSG...

The only point of a point release is to clarify one policy concern
(additional restrictions) and a bit of general clarity (including more
clearly acknowledging its source, the OSD).

Although I think several people here could independently each come up
with a rewrite that might be more appropriate (granting there are
benefits to sticking with a very well known form), I think
buy-in/participation from larger OKF and Open* community would be
pretty important to doing this effectively. If there's interest we
could dedicate an upcoming telecon to OD 2.0 thinking.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Stefano Zacchiroli <zack at upsilon.cc>
> Date: Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 6:28 AM
> To: Luis Villa <luis at lu.is>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 07, 2013 at 08:34:04PM -0700, Luis Villa wrote:
>>  - We're in the process of tweaking the definition, so if you have
>> suggestions/complaints/comments, now is a good time for feedback :)
>
> Dear Luis, I'm glad you asked! I was looking for open data definitions
> my self and didn't think (silly me!) of checking the OKFN stuff. Here
> are some comments, in the hope they could be useful to you:
>
>> This can be achieved by the provision of the work in an open data
>> format, i.e. one whose specification is publicly and freely available
>> and which places no restrictions monetary or otherwise upon its use
>
> We seem to have more and more definitions depending on a good definition
> of "open data format" and, TTBOMK, not good enough definitions of that.
> Some of the approximations I'm aware of are
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard and
> http://www.linfo.org/free_file_format.html , which are way too many, and
> way too complex IMHO.
>
> I do realize that you use the notion in a sentence that is subject to
> both "can be achieved" and "i.e.", but you might want to think about
> this issue nonetheless. For one thing, I'm unconvinced that the free
> availability of a specification is enough, case in point: Microsoft
> OOXML and, more generally, all non-self-contained specifications.
>
> I've no idea what would be best for the open data definition, though,
> you might want to attempt a better definition of open data format, or
> else delegate to some external definition you trust.

http://opensource.org/osr format being a particular subset of standard?

>> the resulting work carry a different name or version number from the
>> original work
>
> We've had issues about that in Debian. Whereas the underlying principle
> of this provision had been to preserve author integrity in the spirit of
> trademarks, the letter of it only mentions "name" and "version numbers"
> which are not enough wrt what trademark covers. For software for
> instance, we do need to accept the imposition of carrying a different
> logo, or "design", as they're both covered by trademarks. I suspect you
> might have similar issues for open data.

I'm not sure either way.

FWIW, among OD approved licenses, CC-BY[-SA] contain the following wrt
"integrity":

    If You create a Collection, upon notice from any Licensor You
must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collection any credit
as required by Section 4(b), as requested. If You create an
Adaptation, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
practicable, remove from the Adaptation any credit as required by
Section 4(b), as requested.

    in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the
Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by
Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original
Author").

Some have complained about the first bit, but it presumably has been
charitably interpreted to skate under the OD integrity item.

>> License Must Not Be Specific to a Package
>
> This sounds very weird as part of the open definition. It was fairly
> clear in the beginning, as part of DFSG ("License must not be specific
> to Debian"). It is still OK-ish as part of OSD ("License Must Not Be
> Specific to a Product") although not that there product is intended as a
> "particular software distribution". But in the context of a broader open
> definition it seems quite a stretch.
>
> Considering that already in the DFSG this point was essentially a
> reiteration of the point "Distribution of License", how about simply
> dropping it?
>
> More generally, the whole notion of "Package" in the open definition
> sounds kind of blurry/unneeded.
>
>> For example, the license must not insist that all other works
>> distributed on the same medium are open.
>
> Ditto. In Debian, this clause came from the removable media era, which
> is long gone. The worry was media contamination, fearing that it could
> forbid to distribute on the same CD Debian packages coming from the main
> / contrib / non-free archive areas. Is it really worth to have something
> like this in the open definition?
>
>
> On a different kind of remark: copy/pasting content from
> opendefinition.org adds text like "See more at:
> http://opendefinition.org/okd/#sthash.eL2VFZo3.dpuf", which is quite
> annoying when providing comments to the website text :-) Maybe you
> should prod some webmaster about this ;-)

I agree this is super annoying, just noticed it myself. I gather this
is from a "ShareThis" plugin but I can't seem to deactivate at the
level of the opendefinition.org WordPress admin. Daniel or Rufus?

> Good luck with revamping the definition: I suspect it could be boring
> work, but I think it is actually a quite important one to do! Thanks for
> doing it.
>
> Cheers.

:)

Mike