[open-government] [euopendata] [psi-workers] Rules + website for Open Data Challenge

[Marcus Dapp]

@Paul, sorry, I was not aware that only my initials are visible. The 
name is Marcus Dapp. :-)

First, I understand what Paul and Federico are saying. Because of the 
consortium of organizers among other things, "we" cannot be a strictly 
open as we want to be. So, the proposal is to be as open as possible by 
e.g., using the Ottawa/4.4. approach:

> /4.4 Your Application must be hosted and publicly available on your
> website or a third-party website as of the start of the Selection
> Period up to and including the end of the Selection Period for
> public voting and judging purposes. The City encourages you to
> maintain your application for a period of 6 months following the
> Contest Period. Contest Winners, in consideration of being selected
> as a Contest winner, must agree to make their winning Application
> publicly available for three months after the date the release [...]/

Although I understand that we try to find a balanced approach I see 
confusion arise with this provision.

What does "make publicly available for three months" mean in practice?
(a) That I can use it? I thought that is the 6 moths provision mentioned 
a few lines above.
(b) That I can study/modify it? Then it is an unfortunate way of putting it.
(c) other?

I guess my question is: How do we ensure some sustainability when we 
adopt the Ottawa rules?

Marcus


> /4.5 You retain ownership of your Application and are permitted to
> sell the use of your Application commercially after the Contest
> Period if you choose to do so. /
>
> Since we need visibility, we can ask for open access to the apps, as
> above, for a certain period of time. I think this is what we should
> "require". We may suggest to do more, of course, but I would not put
> this "more" as a formal requirement..
>
> My two cents,
>
> Federico
>
>
> On 03/24/2011 03:06 PM, MD wrote:
>> Am 24.03.2011 13:36, schrieb Thomas Roessler:
>>> On 24 Mar 2011, at 13:32, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>
>>>> Re: open source + open data in apps, what about 'we strongly encourage
>>>> entrants to use open licenses for code, content and data'?
>>>
>>> I don't think we should require open source licenses for the apps (or
>>> make this part of the evaluation) -- in fact, if somebody came up
>>> with something that's productized and sold later on, we should
>>> welcome that.
>>
>> I beg to differ. We should think very hard whether we want to actively
>> prevent reuse of the results (=useful software code) of an OKF
>> competition.
>>
>> Maybe I am mistaken as I joined OKF only recently, but for
>> myunderstanding OKF would shoot itself and its mission in the foot if
>> we do not -require- reusability of the competition results through
>> open source licensing. If OKF wants that a lot of data will become
>> open and actively (re)used, why should we ever selfimpose a limit on
>> the creation and availability of tools to do exactly that? From that
>> POV, I even think it is of strategic importance to OKF's mission.
>>
>> Somebody may object and say that we hinder companies to participate
>> because we kill the for-profit motivation. Well, no, we do not. :-)
>> This is the general argument brought forward, but the very existence
>> of heaps of open source software, wikipedia and many other
>> collaboratively created digital resources prove the opposite: digital
>> stuff gets created if enough people have an interest in it. And I am
>> very confident that there are people out there with an interest to
>> (re)use open data..
>>
>> Finally, from a legal perspective every participant is the copyright
>> holder of the software submitted. They are completely free in
>> licensing the same piece of software in another way and sell it (so
>> called 'dual-licensing'). Yet, plenty of companies do exist today that
>> live from offering full services aruond FOSS web tools (e.g., typo3,
>> joomla etc.)
>>
>> This, however, is a competition run by OKF to further the mission of
>> OKF. Therefore we need to require open licensing for all submissions.
>>
>> IMO, at least. :-)
>>
>>
>>> At the same time I do think we need to say something about the data
>>> used: For example, I don't think we're looking for an app that
>>> required 1M EUR upfront investment to acquire the data.
>>>
>>>> J.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Federico Morando
>>>> <federico.morando at polito.it> wrote:
>>>>> On 03/24/2011 01:08 PM, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Some key ideas for rules:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Pan-European angle is strongly encouraged
>>>>>
>>>>> I surely agree. We may even say that you should use data from at
>>>>> least 2
>>>>> member states and/or that your app shoul make sense in at least two
>>>>> member
>>>>> states (e.g. in London and Paris).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Entries for apps must come from team which contains
>>>>>> groups/individuals
>>>>>> from at least 2 EU member states
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think that this is necessary: let's put constraints on the
>>>>> apps/data
>>>>> (as you did above and below) and not on the
>>>>> institution/organization/group
>>>>> that proposes them... It's a call for apps, not a EU project ;-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Repurposed apps are allowed (i.e. an app that exists for London
>>>>>> can be
>>>>>> expanded to work for Paris + Torino and entered)
>>>>>
>>>>> OK, sure!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Apps must be open source
>>>>>> * Core data must be freely reusable and derived data must be openly
>>>>>> licensed
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not entirely sure: we may say that this is a plus in the
>>>>> evaluation, but
>>>>> is it a requirement? What needs to the open are the public data (in
>>>>> input),
>>>>> not necessarily the code/data of the re-users ("derived data")...
>>>>> [Personally, I'm sympathetic with this rule - in particular the
>>>>> part about
>>>>> open source code: it's just that I think it deserves an explicit
>>>>> and open
>>>>> discussion.]
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks and best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Federico
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Jonathan Gray
>>>>
>>>> Community Coordinator
>>>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>>> http://blog.okfn.org
>>>>
>>>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>
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