[School-of-data] Is data open if you can not create derivatives?

Fri Jul 11 10:00:26 UTC 2014

Hello Simon,

As Michael mentions, the Open Definition, which offers criteria for judging
the openness of the dataset as an artefact would judge these non-open, as
license restrictions, or incompatibilities, would limit the ability to
combine, work with and redistribute the results.

The wider issues you mention of data description and quality don't feature
in the Open Definition - but are important elements of 'openness' more
broadly - and well worth documenting.

You might want to share your findings on the difficulty of re-using this
data with the currently-developing Global Initiative on Open Data for
Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN - http://godan.info/) which has some
strong backing, and is currently setting out an agenda / workplan for
future projects. Highlighing to them the importance harmonising licenses in
this space could be a good move.

All the best

Tim

On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 9:06 AM, Michael Bauer <michael.bauer at okfn.org>
wrote:

> Simon,
>
> According to the OpenDefinition (http://opendefinition.org/) these
> datasets
> are _not_ open.
>
> Michael
>
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 12:44:18PM +1000, Simon Cropper wrote:
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > I am currently collating some public datasets on nutrition as fodder for
> > some community data wrangling projects and events I am planning.
> >
> > https://github.com/SimonChristopherCropper/Food_Data_Analysis
> >
> > Interestingly I have discovered that most datasets are released under a
> > limited license -- put simply, the custodian agencies allow for
> > redistribution of the dataset with attribution but derivatives of any
> kind
> > are not allowed or allow you to look at their data but not even download
> > them. Most nutritional datasets released worldwide fall into this
> > category[1].
> >
> > To me this data is not open. Open data, in my mind, should allow for
> > derivatives to be created and redistributed. I understand that agencies
> wish
> > to be attributed and in some cases disclaimers included with any
> derivatives
> > as means of indemnifying the source agency, but having constraints on
> > 'working [2]' on and 'working' with the data makes the dataset of no real
> > value.
> >
> > For the record -- the only datasets I have confirmed allow derivatives is
> > the Australian, USA and Swiss Datasets, and maybe the UK dataset (still
> > waiting for official confirmation of the ambiguous license documentation
> on
> > the UK website).
> >
> > What is your opinion regarding 'openness'?
> >
> > When looking at licenses or terms of use statements, what attributes are
> you
> > looking for? Do you have a preferred license type?
> >
> > Open Data in my mind has the following attributes:
> > - freely downloadable/accessible in a common data format
> > - the data is clearly described so other people can understand
> >   what they are seeing (e.g. no undefined acronyms)
> > - the methodology and sources of the information presented,
> >   and any inherent problems, are clearly described and this document
> >   freely available
> > - there are no restrictions on working with the data and redistributing
> >   your results (attributing the source and including disclaimers are
> >   not considered to be restrictions in this definition)
> >
> > [1] This statement is based on inspection of the term of use for all the
> > database identified from General Internet Searches using Google and all
> the
> > databases specified in the list of Food Composition Databases managed by
> > EuroFin (http://www.eurofir.org/?page_id=96)
> > [2] Definition of 'working' -- cleansing, standardizing, wrangling,
> munging,
> > coding, geocoding, summarizing, graphing, analyzing, etcetera.
> >
> > --
> > Cheers Simon
> >
> >    Simon Cropper - Open Content Creator
> >
> >    Free and Open Source Software Workflow Guides
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