[open-government] Notes from 13th meeting of the PSI Group in Luxembourg

[Jonathan Gray]

Some notes from the 13th meeting of the PSI Group in Luxembourg by
Marco Ricolfi at the University of Turin...


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[...]

1.      There is a clear divide between active or very active
countries (UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden), less active countries
(Germany and Austria), almost totally absent countries (I will mention
only Italy, which did not even send a national representative). What
is the reason of the divide is less clear to me; or at least is not
clear in cases like Germany, which I would expect to be at the
forefront. May be we should discuss the determinants of this.

2.      One issue which was hotly debated is the role of
international, interoperable licenses, in creating a pan-European
market in re-use. In this regard, the French, which seemed to me to be
extremely knowledgeable and well meaning, tend to stick (as far as I
could see) to an idea of home-made, or French made, license
conditions.

3.      The importance of default rules has emerged, particularly in
connection with access. Should provisions be enabling or mandatory
probably is a false dichotomy in this area; one might well conceive
that default rules apply, that is rules which are applicable unless
the competent body otherwise determines. Mr Hernandez Ros astutely
remarked that even default rules are not a panacea, as one should go
into detail as to the situations in which these apply and the
authorities which have jurisdiction to dictate alternatives to the
default. Fair enough; still this remains a promising field.

4.      On a more private level, while I was listening I was asking me
a number of interconnected questions, which I share with you whatever
they may be worth.

a.       Why is it that when biotech and digital technology took off,
there was an alliance between business, in part also incumbent
businesses, like big pharma, and universities to jump on the band
wagon, while here the visibile businesses are mostly (if I get it
right) smaller scale entities, the likes of Garmin, of some legal
publishers.

b.      Does the reality described in a. (to the extent it is
accurate) reflect the fact that by definition biotech and digital had
global markets, while PSI reuse still is to a large extent a national,
language bound affair?

5.      Another issue which cropped up all the time is: why to be
suspicious of commercial reuses? This has to do with the general
debate: when are licenses needed in the first place? They are not
needed at all if all the data are in the public domain. But if this is
not the case, do we realize that licenses do not allow reuse by large
non profit players, such as Wikimedia, if they are non commercial; and
that this is so for the simple fact that there is an issue of chain of
authorization, so that a non profit institution cannot access what it
intends to disseminate downstream without restrictions, if it gets the
data with strings attached.

[...]

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
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