[od-discuss] Registration for accessing open datasets

Wed Oct 22 09:51:55 UTC 2014

On 19 October 2014 20:42, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
[...]

> (2) OD 2.0 states that the "work shall be available as a whole"; IIRC
> other statements about open data have emphasized bulk download. Where does
> this place API access to individual records? The realtime case is
> interesting. It seems for bulk download, the excuse for registration or
> keys is even less compelling, but OTOH the application of "reasonable
> one-time reproduction cost" a little more straightforward.
>

I've always been of the view that provision of open data should be bulk
download wherever practicable.

APIs are usually a "service" and orders of magnitude more costsly to
provide and maintain than bulk access to the data. As such it is, for
example, in my opinion perfectly reasonable to charge for open data via an
API (assuming you are providing that data separately in bulk for free (or
the cost of reproduction). (It also means that restricting or rate-limiting
access is often a necessity).

As such, I'd generally hope that people are not satisfying their open data
obligations via API provision.

Regards,

Rufus
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