[okfn-discuss] Alpha ODI Open Data Certificates: comments please!

Mon Apr 8 10:03:02 UTC 2013

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:45:10 +0200, Pieter Colpaert <pieter.colpaert at okfn.org> said:

    > This is shifting the problem towards the question "is this
    > really an open license"?

Remember that the entire use of "open" originated as a weasel word to
avoid having to use the word "free" as in "freedom preserving". So
then you could have "open source" software that was not "free
software" and so was palatable to the investors of the dot com
era. That is the root of the nomenclature that was adopted for talking
about data. The OKF has made some headway in arbitrarily defining what
"open" means and trying to occupy enough mind-share to make the
definition stick, but there is still a lot of wiggle
room. Particularly so because we're now seeing big institutions and
governments that have realised that being "open" makes them look good
while at the same time watering it down what this ought to mean, and
because the word is so vague (pace OKF's definitions) this is easy to
do.  Which makes perfect sense, since that was the purpose of using
the word "open" to begin with...

-w