[od-discuss] "It is time for Open [Government?] Services"

Thu Sep 5 16:12:25 UTC 2013

http://blog.okfn.org/2013/09/04/it-is-time-for-open-services/ might be
of some interest. I left a comment, below.

Mike

> The Open Government Service definition we are proposing is slightly different from the one of Open Software Service from OKFN. While Open Software Services aim to be the “open source” version of online services, Open Government Services are more the service-version of Open Data: online services for exposing data and performing computation, without access restrictions and verifiable results.

Description above it looks like a superset of the OSSD, applied
specifically to government data services. OSSD basically says all
software providing the service needs to be open source (per the Open
Source Definition) and data/content provided by the service needs to
be open knowledge (per the Open Definition).

Compare that to what I take to be a draft Open Government Service
definition at the end of this post:

> Open Services should be based on open data. Open Services should never substitute Open Data. I repeat, never. They are intended to  make things easier, not for preventing access.

"based on" is vague, but I assume this just means data provided by the
service needs to be open; see point 1 of
http://opendefinition.org/okd/

> Open Services should be verifiable. Since Open Services include Open Data and algorithms, we need a way to check results are what we expect, and are not being modified during processing. The most obvious way to comply with this is to publish the algorithms and processes besides the data (in our bus timetable, the interpolation algorithm). But there could be other forms of verifiability: in the real-time bus data, we can simply check if the bus is where the service says, just by going to the real place.

Part of verifiability concerns the service, which is same as OSSD --
software running the service is open source.

Verifiability/reproducibility of data is something additional, which I
think ought to be thought of with respect to the data, rather than a
service. There's open data (compliant with the Open Definition), then
there's verifiable open data.

> Open Services should be open for everybody, with no limitations, except for security reasons. No registration, no justification. Exactly the same principle we applied to open data.

This is probably beyond open data, at least as specified by the Open
Definition, which doesn't specify anything about registration, but
does allow for some friction "at no more than a reasonable
reproduction cost" (though "preferably downloading via the Internet
without charge").

> Open Services should be accessible through Open Standards, which no entity has exclusive control (*).

If the data is open -- see point 4 of http://opendefinition.org/okd/
-- and the service providing the access is open source, this seems to
be covered.

Why Open Government Service rather than Open Data Service? I think we
should be wary of whitewashing open government as only having to do
with data and [e]services rather than accountability and the like to
which open data is a mere helper. Furthermore, we should also demand
openness from other organizations.

Excepting previous paragraph, I see little harm and some benefit in
additional open X definitions and principles so long as they don't
sanction practices that would actually be not compliant with the Open
Source Definition or Open Definition.