[od-discuss] City of Calgary Open Data License Approval Request

Wed Mar 20 15:35:41 UTC 2013

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond to our request review the City of Calgary's Licence.
I've summarized the conversation and issues as follows:

-          Our attribution is fully optional - no issue

-          We do not require share alike - no issue

-          The provision that the user would be bound by later changes to the licence is problematic as this is contrary to CC and will be reviewed internally. I do not see this as more restrictive, just different.

-          The Acceptance of Other Conditions clause may be problematical. As stated in another post we do not have data sets to which other conditions apply so there is an easy solution on our side, i.e. remove the clause and set an internal policy that does not allow data sets with Other Conditions to be included in the catalogue. This is an option that will be reviewed internally.

-          The City has combined  Terms of Use with data set licensing which can and does lead to confusion and we will review this internally.

-          I agree that the clause "You will be fully responsible for any consequences resulting from any use of the Data" is unusual and we will review this internally.

-          Our licence in its current form is not reusable and this will be reviewed internally.

-          The City of Calgary states that the data may not be used for unlawful  purposes and reserves the right to ask for attribution to be removed if use is not the public interest. On the other hand, CC has statement 4.c. "You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation." CC does not have the option to request attribution be removed only to terminate the License (clause 7.a.). City of Calgary is also open to that users of open data may use it to take derogatory action, e.g. criticize the City, and we believe that this is necessary to openness and transparency. It appears to me that the City of Calgary is less restrictive than CC.

Question - if we address these issues to everybody's satisfaction would the City of Calgary licence then be approved as open do we think there are other issues that have not yet been identified? At what point can I say that all issues with the existing licence have been identified? I realize that it would be simpler from the OKFN's standpoint for the City of Calgary to adopt CC but I think this is going to be an evolutionary process rather than a revolutionary one.

Thanks!

Walter

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