[od-discuss] Please review: 'Datenlizenz Deutschland' for OD compliance.

Mon Mar 18 15:58:42 UTC 2013

Dear all,

thanks to all for your comments.

I would like to consolidate this into a short replay to the people in charge at the Ministry of the Interior as they requested the Advisory council to check the license for compliance with the OD.

I have booted this pad to draft this answer: 

http://opendefinition.okfnpad.org/DE-OGD-license

Please help me to get this done, so we can send it out asap. Thanks!

Kind regards
Daniel

On 3 Mar 2013, at 00:21, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Andrew Stott
> <andrew.stott at dirdigeng.com> wrote:
>> It’s unclear to me what the precise meaning of the requirement is.
>> 
>> (1) is it saying (a) that all the actual changes must be documented (Herb’s
>> interpretation); or is it saying (b) that the attribution statement must be
>> different if the data is changed (for instance from “reproduces data from
>> Ministry” to “modified from data from Ministry”)?  The original German
>> refers to a “Veränderungshinweis” which Google translates as a “Change
>> Notice”, which could mean either a description of the changes or simply a
>> notice that changes had been made.
>> 
>> I recall seeing an Australian example [1] of CC-BY which required a
>> different attribution statement if that data had been changed.
>> 
>> (2) is it saying (a) that the licensor can later at its discretion instruct
>> the licensee to remove the attribution (Herb’s interpretation); or is it
>> saying (b) that the licensor can specify *in advance* that an attribution
>> should *never* be given if the data is changed?
>> 
>> I agree with Herb that if the meaning is 1(a) and 2(a) then it is
>> non-conformant – and 1(a) would be burdensome and 2(a) would leave
>> indefinite uncertainty.
>> 
>> However requiring simply a different fixed attribution text (as in
>> interpretation 1(b)), or no attribution at all (2(b)), if the data has been
>> changed would seem to me to be a conformant way of the licensor distancing
>> himself from modified data where there was reputational or moral liability
>> involved.
> 
> I'm not sure what the clause means either, but my best guess is a weak
> version of 1(a) together with 2(b) (referring to Andrew's descriptions
> above, not license sections). By weak, I mean that it doesn't require
> a machine-readable version of changes. It would be great if the
> language were more explicit, or if it already is, a German speaker
> could explain.
> 
> But I'm not sure any of above readings would make the proposed
> attribution license non-Open. 2(a) is problematic, but then all
> previously-deemed-Open CC BY and BY-SA licenses have that. As they do
> require a weak version of 1(a). And previously-deemed-Open licenses
> includes a strong version of 1(a), in particular ODbL does, as an
> alternative to full source distribution (which may or may not be less
> onerous depending on circumstances; OTOH maybe as an alternative it is
> OK, but without full source option it is not).
> 
> Though I'm not certain above readings would make proposed license
> non-Open, I'd recommend both making conditions more clear and ensuring
> they are minimal -- this presumably aims to be a permissive
> attribution-only license; its effectiveness as such will be greatly
> limited by difficult to understand and possibly understood as onerous
> conditions.
> 
> Mike