[open-bibliography] Openbiblio at OCLC

[MJ Ray]

Karen Coyle wrote:
> There is some "yeah, but..." to this story. When Karen Calhoun said at  
> the recent members council meeting that OCLC is considering the ODC-BY  
> license, she also said that they still consider the OCLC record use  
> policy to be in force. It appears that they consider these two -- the  
> license and the policy -- to be able to co-exist. The policy states  
> that any "down stream" users must abide by the policy, which has  
> stricter requirements than ODC-BY. [...]

Damn it!  I was getting all optimistic for a few hours there!

So it won't be simply ODC-BY (which I forget what that is) but
ODC-BY+OCLC-usage-policy... which isn't really ODC-BY then.

I simply don't understand why a cooperative wants that record use
policy.  "Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help,
self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In
the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the
ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring
for others." (from www.ica.coop)  OK, it might have been adopted
democratically, while solidarity and social responsibility are probably
arguable, but several of the others seem less so.

Of course, I didn't find the ICA values on oclc.org just now!
The OCLC values and principles that you can download from
http://www.oclc.org/us/en/about/cooperation/governance/default.htm 
are very different.  If they lose the argument in court over whether
they are a co-op, I think those unusual values and principles may be
part of the reason.

Down again...
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha