[open-government] Share-alike

[Julian Tait]

Hi Jonathan,

These are my thoughts from what has been happening in Manchester. A few public bodies wanted Share-Alike and even Non-Commercial but I think this came down to them understanding the potential of open data, the impact of differing licensing regimes and a conversation about what type of innovation and businesses they would like to see in the city. 

It was a pragmatic argument. By having a non-SA licence such as the UK Goverment's, Open Government Licence you allow the space for service creation from data augmentation and aggregation businesses. I think Jonathan Raper's www.placr.com is one example of this and there are many others.

I get the feeling that SA licenses can limit the amount of services and products developed out of open data as there is minimised space for return on investment - although I am unaware of any research to back me up on that.

Open data development is not without its risks - there is no liability or continuity of service implied by the release of open data and I think that non-SA licences can help mitigate that to a certain level.

Cheers

Julian


On 16 Sep 2011, at 22:19, Jonathan Brun wrote:

> Hello All,
> 
> I am at MontrealOuvert.net and we are happy to announce that Montreal will soon have an open-data policy and portal. Generally speaking, it looks very promising, however, they are planning to include a Share-alike clause in the licence. 
> 
> While we have some reservations about this, we would like your help to formulate an argument on why this is not ideal. Please send us comments, links and other information as soon as possible as the city is looking to move fast. 
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> Jonathan
> MontrealOuvert.net
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Julian Tait
Open Data Cities and DataGM

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