[open-government] government data licenses - best practice?

Mon Sep 13 00:10:01 UTC 2010

Did anyone actually reply on this post?

On 09/03/2010 06:47 AM, Olav Anders Øvrebø wrote:
 > The Norwegian government is currently working on formulating licenses
 > that will be used when agencies publish their data.

The obvious answer in the U.S. would be: agencies should apply NO 
license to any work. I tend to qualify these things with "in the US" 
because I recognize that cultures seem to vary on this, but over here 
it's just a no-brainer that when the government publishes information 
(which is never copyrighted) that it should not tell its people in what 
ways it can or can't use that information. (Except for info that relates 
to privacy, security, etc.) And by and large this is actually how things 
are, which is good.

There is some consensus in the open gov community that this is the way 
things should be, see e.g. www.opengovdata.org.

The EU Public Sector Information Directive specifically allows for 
certain types of licenses that cover "liability, the proper use of 
documents, guaranteeing non-alteration and the acknowledgment of 
source". These don't seem terribly onerous (in fact, I wouldn't object 
to a no-liability clause --- that's common in open source software, for 
instance), but I think the first question is exactly why agencies need 
these protections in the first place? What does acknowledgment do but 
boost their ego? Is that worth the limitations on the free expression by 
the public?

I haven't seen a best-practices discussion about writing an open 
government data license, if one has to me made, so it would make for 
interesting further discussion.

But again, I'd hope there just would not be one in the first place!

- Josh Tauberer
- CivicImpulse / GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info | www.govtrack.us | civicimpulse.com

"Members of both sides are reminded not to use guests of the
House as props."

On 09/03/2010 06:47 AM, Olav Anders Øvrebø wrote:
> The Norwegian government is currently working on formulating licenses
> that will be used when agencies publish their data. Here is a blog post
> (in Norwegian) about the considerations so far:
> http://data.norge.no/blogg/2010/08/en-klausulbuffet-av-vilkar/
>
> A question to list members: Do you know of a "best practice" for such
> licenses? Licenses that are in line with the principles of open data
> (the Open Knowledge Definition?).
>
> National legislation of course complicates things. For instance one has
> to take into consideration the law on copyright, see §43:
> http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/KKD/Medier/Acts%20and%20regulations/Aandsverkloven_engelsk_versjon_nov2008.pdf
>
> All the best,
> olav
>
>
>
>
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