[open-science] On expressing access constraints in a repository of mixed openness

Mon Sep 20 09:18:09 UTC 2010

> [...]
> My question is: how could constraints like these sensibly be expressed, in
> either a human-readable or (better) machine-readable way?

I think its a struggle to present these in an easily readable way because
the conditions for b) and c) can differ so much. So while the impulse
towards a Creative Commons style iconography that is easy to read and easy
to code up in machine readable form is understandable we've got some way to
go before those conditions can be easily codified. Then of course there is
the whole argument over licences vs technical measures vs norms for
"controlling" access. I presume that technical measures would be the case
here.

Its reasonably easy at least to designate the fully open case, use ccZero or
PDDL and these have machine codings as well. There is certainly some value
in standardising embargo language and markup for case b). To say that "this
will be available under X licence/waiver on date Y". But c) is a real mess
and will probably be case by case for the forseeable future until we get a
real handle on what kind of conditions are workable and needed in practice.

Cheers

Cameron

-- 
Scanned by iCritical.