[open-science] Openness and Licensing of (Open) Data: norms as codes of practice?

[John Wilbanks]

I'm trying to hold back a bit, as I have made my arguments again and 
again. I also want to make sure everyone knows that I'm having these 
arguments in the spirit of finding common ground, and I have enormous 
respect for Rufus and his positions here.

But I wanted to say that this below is precisely what we mean by norms 
at SC.

jtw
ps - are there any communities other than OSM looking for share alike? 
I've not found any, but it'd be good to know. I know OSM actually is 
paying for the creation of the license, and that OSM is getting a fork 
to create a PD version already...

Heather Morrison wrote:
> Would it make sense for norms for open data to be expressed as codes  
> of practice?  Perhaps different groups (disciplinary, regional etc.)  
> could each have their own codes of practice.  This would allow for  
> real-world experimentation, in a way that lets each group move  
> forward in the way they are most comfortable with, without the legal  
> messiness of licensing being attached to each datum / dataset.   
> Within academia, it seems to me that this leaves enforcement with the  
> academics themselves.  Simply using someone else's data without  
> attribution and without adding value is a lot like plagiarism, for  
> example.
> 
> A code of practice could easily accomodate the kinds of things I see  
> as desirable about noncommercial and sharealike, without hard-coding  
> licensing terms in a way that prevents use of the data.  One way to  
> develop such codes of practice in a way that helps steer us towards a  
> more inclusive global world, could be to involve Without Borders-type  
> groups in the early stages of developing potential codes of  
> practice.  Even a simple statement in such a code along the lines of,  
> "in our discipline / lab / country, we share our data openly.  All  
> that we ask in return is that you respect this open sharing by  
> ensuring that any commercial products or services made possible by  
> this data are provided in a way that is fair and responsible for the  
> people of the planet, and sustainable for the environment".
> 
> This approach gives leadership to the development of norms to  
> scholars themselves - in the long run, in my opinion, this has value  
> in and of itself.  This would not be a quick fix for every  
> discipline, although there is nothing here to stop those in areas  
> like environment science from forging ahead quickly.
> 
> thoughts?
> 
> Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and  
> does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library  
> Network or Simon Fraser University Library.
> 
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> open-science mailing list
> open-science at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/open-science