[od-discuss] definition 1.2 outstanding issues

Tue Jun 18 03:35:43 UTC 2013

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 5:36 PM, Luis Villa <luis at tieguy.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
>> Other than bits of formatting and words added for explanation, the key
>> change is these addition:
>>
>>     The license may prohibit technological restrictions.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>     The license must not place any additional restrictions or
>> conditions on the access, use, reuse or redistribution of the data
>> other than those explicitly described under this definition.
>>
>> This emerged from discussions about 18 months ago of licenses with
>> clearly problematic terms that could be read as implicitly not allowed
>> in 1.1; the addition makes this explicit. See
>> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2012-January/000096.html
>> for previous notes on changes and
>> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2011-December/000087.html
>> an entry to one of the previous discussions (where I claim additional
>> restrictions are implied to be non-conformant).
>
> I don't recall my position at the time, but I actually think these
> licenses are meaningfully non-free. They prevent use on a wide variety
> of common platforms and devices, and after a decade of efforts by
> Creative Commons, there is no indication that clauses of this sort
> have had the slightest positive effect in stemming the tide of DRM.

I agree, have been arguing this largely to no avail for many years.

But are you suggesting that licenses that do not permit technical
restrictions should be deemed non-compliant with the Open Definition
as of 1.2? Seems infeasible to me. Little chance that CC will relent
on this item for 4.0, and the ODbL and FDL also do not permit
technical restrictions. Maybe these are just additional reasons for
deeming them all non-compliant. :) But I'm doubtful we (OD AC) can
play an effective vanguardist role here. Happy to be wrong!

>> * Copyedit (e.g., I just re-read and am baffled by use of the word
>> "also" in the definition of "package")
>> * Going beyond copyediting, I'm wondering about "Government and other
>> administrative information"; how is that not content or data?
>>
>> * Consider whether the by the current draft CC-BY and CC-BY-SA 4.0
>> will meet the revised definition; if not we need to give CC urgent
>> feedback or amend the definition; the most prominent "open" licenses
>> in these domains had better be really Open as we say.
>
> See previous comment re DRM. I don't have time/inclination to review
> further at this time.
>
>> * Request comments on final draft from various lists; perhaps
>> ** http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
>> ** http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
>> ** http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
>> ** http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>> ** some OA list that I'm not on
>> ** some OER list that I'm not on
>
> There is also the comprehensive feedback I circulated earlier.

Could you point out the location? My web/mail searches are lacking precision.

>> We can discuss/take volunteers on the call Friday.
>
> What did I miss? :)

There are notes at http://bit.ly/od-meeting-doc

I'm following up on appropriate threads and noting in that doc where
appropriate.

Mike