[open-bibliography] More needed to define "open"

Tue Apr 23 16:01:35 UTC 2013

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:

> All,
>
>
Good points

> We've done a good job of defining the license terms for open bibliographic
> data, but there is another step that seems essential that we haven't
> addressed: making the data openly available, and what that means. One can
> announce a data license of CC0 but if the data itself is behind a paywall,
> or otherwise isn't available for use, then the license isn't doing anyone
> any good.
>
> if it's CC0 then it is possible for someone to extract the data and copy
it and mount it publicly. So if that is disallowed it is not CC0.

> It seems to me that there are at least 2 ways that data becomes truly open:
>
> 1. There is a data dump that is openly available to anyone who wishes to
> download it. This solution has problems relating to updating, however, and
> puts the burden of making the data usable on the recipient. It's a
> solution, but perhaps not the best.
>

Statics dumps are much easier to create than continually updated resources
and if they are of high quality can be very valuable. They are much easier
to work with.

>
> 2. The data owner provides an open interface that allows searching and
> linking. Linking needs to be bi-directional -- that the data can link out,
> but also that others can "link in."
>

The main requirement IMO is that it is possible to know the extent of the
data and *if necessary* download it systematically. That's the only way
that it is truly open - it can be forked.

I am not sure that link-in is always valuable. Can you explain? would all
consumers link in?

>
> I've probably expressed this poorly, but that should just give others an
> incentive to develop this thought further. :-)
>
> kc
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
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-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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