[okfn-discuss] [BlueObelisk-discuss] [Blueobelisk-discuss] What is an Open Standard?

Fri Dec 11 13:47:00 UTC 2009

2009/12/10 Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>:
[...]

> The BO list has started a discussion on what is meant by "Open Standards"
> which is part of the BO mantra ("Open data", Open Source, Open Data"). There
> is also a concern about what is meant by "Community" as in Community Norms.

Both good questions and the question of what open standards has come
up before in relation to the open definition. Several years ago we ran
a project called the "information accessibility initiative" which
focused on open formats. That had registry which can be found here:

<http://wiki.okfn.org/p/iai/registry>

> It is a matter of record that there has been intense discussion for many
> years about Open Data and Open Source and although the latter has a fairly
> clear agreement, open Data is still far from being formalised or indeed
> recognised. It's also true that in all these endeavours most of the activity
> and discussion is initially in a very small sector of the "community". So
> insofar as the BO is trying to create Open approaches and define what's
> meant it is the early initiator of these discussions.

At our end we'd take http://opendefinition.org/ as defining what is
meant by "open" data.

> I would also add that it is more important to arrive at a "rough consensus"
> than a formal definition (especially through legal documents).

I'm not sure you'd ever have a legal document for "defining" open,
instead you'd have a set of principles like
http://opendefinition.org/.

However when actually provide data I would say that you do need to
apply something reasonably formal to it just as you do with code and
content. For open licensing of data I'd recommend using one of the
Open Data Commons licenses: http://www.opendatacommons.org/

> I have had a say, and I'd hope that other BO and OKF people will contribute.
>
> [There are specific aspects of Andrew's post that I shall refer to under a
> different heading.]

Not sure I received this post so I can't comment on that :)

Regards,

Rufus
-- 
Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/