[okfn-za] [HacksHackers Cape Town] Restrictive licences on government websites

Fri Apr 5 07:00:32 UTC 2013

I strongly disagree with both you and Sandi.

You are both advocating for a supply-driven approach (convincing government
to open data of their own accord). I don't think we have the right
environment in South Africa to push this. Perhaps in the medium-long term.
The problems with supply-driven are:

- It's expensive.  We have limited resources in the public sector - asking
for another policy to be implemented is unlikely to find traction.
- It's untested - Paul, you mentioned that open-data creates jobs - really?
Which jobs do you envisage being created? How much will those jobs add to
the country's GDP? There are far bigger issues in South Africa to deal with
without worrying about opening datasets.
- Open data can easily be seen as adversarial - which government dept is
going to open up data which is likely to result in public scrutiny?
- We have a weak civil society pushing this issue. I might be wrong but
from my experience with the community in Cape Town (forgive me if I have
left out any important organisations) is that there is generally no
interest in this topic. OKFN has almost zero activity on its mailing list
and zero meetings to speak of. Odadi has not managed to follow through on
the hackathon that was held last year. HacksHackers is the most active
group of all but its constituents are not particularly interested in
advocacy (again - forgive me if I am wrong here) but rather how do we use
data to improve our ability to find stories.

In short, there is no momentum or interest to push this agenda. I'm sure
that the vast majority of subscribers to this mailing list are bored by
this topic. Please speak up if you would like me to take this conversation
off-line.

Sandi - you talk about piggy-backing onto a larger process such as BRICS or
SADC. I have spent the last 3 years of my life working on an open data
mechanism in SADC in order to promote information sharing between countries
in the  health sector. There are so many political hoops to jump through
that this process is likely to take many more years before all countries
jump on board. Interestingly, South Africa is the most open and the most
closed country that I have worked with. Open because tenders are published
in the public domain on the DoH website but closed because South Africa
considers the oddest data to be secret and will not share it publicly.

I believe that demand-driven (groups like HacksHackers demanding access to
existing data sources) approaches are key:
- They don't require much more effort from the public sector. The data is
already available but perhaps under restrictive licences.
- It tries to mobilise civil society to start to demand data. HacksHackers
for instance does not care about the theoretical benefits of open data. We
care about data availability and how we can exploit datasets in order to
produce real, tangible products.
- It is much more short term. We can see results immediately through the
creation of products.
- I want commercial access to data now because I want to build products and
sell them either in a for profit or not for profit vehicle.
- We already have legal instruments in place such as PAIA and the Copyright
Act - why not take advantage of them?

My goal is to try to convince potential users of open data to start
producing products. Only through products will we have a "me too effect"
which will produce an environment where advocacy will have significant
effect.

Until we have more than a handful of interested parties pushing this issue
- I'm afraid that I'm very dubious of the approaches suggested.

Adi

On 5 April 2013 06:37, Paul Murphy <paul.murphy.ptm at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think this is where the advocacy element of ODADI (and others) comes to
> the fore.
> And we should recognise that we have a long journey to convince the powers
> that be that OpenData is a good thing and the way to go, particularly in
> the current climate of the secrecy bill.
> So whilst I can be convinced about OpenData relatively easily and change
> my behavior accordingly, getting change to happen in the public sector will
> take time.
>
> I am reminded of the UNDP Workshop on Open Data that I attended last year.
>
> http://unpan.org/Events/BrowseEventsbyCalendar/tabid/94/mctl/EventDetails/ModuleID/1532/ItemID/2228/language/en-US/Default.aspx?selecteddate=10/10/2012
> and I attach the Canadian presentation which I found the most enlightening
> and perhaps represents a version of a future that we can aim for in South
> Africa.
> (Brazil were also good but their presentation is a lot bigger - 7mb - so I
> didn't want to attach)
>
> I agree with Sandi that rather than going the legal route we need to
> constantly spread the OpenData message
> - South Africa is meant to be a participatory democracy - Open Data
> promotes that
> - OpenData creates job opportunities
> - showcasing examples of what has been done with Open Data - ideally South
> African examples
> - other
>
> Paul
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 11:26 PM, Sandra Williams <sanditest7 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> As somebody who use to work in Govt IT I also know that it is an active
>> process of maintaining boundaries to data access not only for external
>> people but also within & between internal Govt divisions. This paradigm not
>> only adds transactional costs to Govt services but also leads to added risk
>> to Govt as an entity but also risk to society.
>>
>> E.g. Deeds office data standards (or lack thereof) leads to massive
>> transactional costs with ripple effects on multiple economic value chains.
>>
>> It comes down to architecture (designing for open data access), standards
>> & data governance policies - but mostly we need a new mindset about data
>> "ownership" and empathy with citizens who have a legitimate right to data
>> access.
>>
>> Legal challenge is 1 path but how bout using market forces? I.e I'm
>> thinking of BRICS & the idea of closer integration between
>> Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA can be supported by open Govt data standards.
>> The same applies to our Southern African Economic Development Region - the
>> cost of doing business in this region. Remember this sort of thing (among
>> other idea was) exactly the rationale behind formation of the EU.  And
>> although the EU project is floundering i.t.o. political & economic
>> paradoxes yet as a data project it has shown us the power & value of open
>> data.
>>
>> These are just thoughts - but I think in order to change the current data
>> access paradigm requires the marshaling of significant energy (legal
>> battles don't give you that) so maybe what's needed is piggybacking on
>> other big ideas?
>>
>> Sandi
>>
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-- 
Adi Eyal
Data Specialist
phone: +27 78 014 2469
skype: adieyalcas
linkedin: http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
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