[od-discuss] OD conformant proposal: Open Government Licence v2.0 []

Mon Jun 24 20:30:47 UTC 2013

On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Luis Villa <luis at lu.is> wrote:
> +1 for OSD-compliance.

You mean OD. :)

We also have +1s on-list from Andrew Stott, Herb Lainchbury, and me,
and off-list from Baden Appleyard, Rachel Bruce, and Jo Walsh. That's
7. Can we have one more to get over 50%?

> However, several notes:
>
> - in light of the proposed changes to the definition that have been
> discussed here) it would be nice to either remove the things that are
> UK-specific, or make them all examples. e.g.:
>
> "identity documents such as the British Passport." is fine;
> but "(including the Freedom of Information Acts for the UK and
> Scotland)" should really also be "such as";
> and "the Royal Arms" should be generalized into something less
> specific to the UK, with the Royal Arms listed merely as an example.

This strikes me as having to do with proliferation rather than
definition changes. Will say more about that in another thread, but at
this juncture it isn't a problem for compliance, and this is clearly a
UK government specific license.

> - Not really sure what to do with the definition of Licensor. I'm not
> an expert in UK law, but isn't "the Controller of Her Majesty’s
> Stationery Office" an "Information Provider which has the authority to
> offer Information under the terms of this licence", making the second
> part of the clause redundant?

Not sure I understand how "licensor" and "information provider" are
different now that you mention it. Doesn't matter for OD compliance
though.

> - re "These terms are compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution
> License 4.0" - I would not say that until 4.0 is actually final.

I don't see a problem with it, given below...

> (Really, most of this section probably shouldn't be in the license,
> but rather in a separate document - but maybe it is and the .docx I
> received is not clear when opened in LibreOffice?)

My understanding is it is all part of the license. Presumably
presentation will be as with 1.0,
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

> - re "This means that when the Information is adapted and licensed
> under either of those licences, you automatically satisfy the
> conditions of the OGL when you comply with the other licence." - Does
> this license allow adaptation under another license? I see no
> indication of that elsewhere in the license, and it would not be the
> default situation under Berne, which is potentially quite confusing.

...that's what it sounds like to me. It could be stated even more
clearly, but an improvement over 1.0.

Mike