Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] defining a Geospatial Integration Showcase to be launched at FOSS4G 2009

[Cameron Shorter]

Chris, and the geodata list,
Your comments are valid.

Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think we
should.
Currently, the Australian government is moving licencing the majority of
their data (including geospatial) under Creative Commons.

The responses I've heard from Australian government about Zero Commons
is that the license is still in draft, and that a government will need
the license to move out of draft before a government can recommend
government agencies use it.

I assume this is the license being referred:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCZero

Christopher Schmidt wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 08:21:03PM +0900, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
>  
>> Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>    
>>> If we find a data custodian who is keen to get their data into the
>>> Integration Showcase, what sort of criteria should we be specifying for
>>> that dataset?
>>> What license?
>>>      
>> Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
>> Same as OpenStreetMap
>>    
>
> Please do not encourage new data releasers to release geodata under
> creative commons licenses. It has ben a source of major disagreements
> with regard to openstreetmap, and I don't think it's any better for
> anyone else.
>
> Geodata is not creative. Creative Commons licenses are written for
> creative works. Even the Creative Commons people I've talked to don't
> think geodata should be covered under anything other than 'CC Zero'.
>
> http://www.opengeodata.org/?p=262 sums this up quite well: if you
> haven't read it, *Please do* before advising anyone who has not already
> released data on license issues.
>
> Regards,
>  

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: [phone]
Mob: [phone]

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
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[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 06:22:50AM +1100, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Chris, and the geodata list,
> Your comments are valid.
>
> Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think we
> should.
> Currently, the Australian government is moving licencing the majority of
> their data (including geospatial) under Creative Commons.

I've been waiting for the Open Database License to move forward, since
at the moment, I see no licenses that make sense to license new geodata
under. OSGeo/Geodata committe has not expressed an opinion at this time.  


> The responses I've heard from Australian government about Zero Commons
> is that the license is still in draft, and that a government will need
> the license to move out of draft before a government can recommend
> government agencies use it.

If the reason they're concerned is the CC0 license isn't actually
'done', would they really be willing to release their data with no legal
restrictions? If so, then the Public Domain Dedication
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/) seems sufficient,
simple, and not to offer any more or less legal protection than CCZero
seems intended to.

My expectation is that neither CCZero nor Public Domain dedications are
sufficient for most organizations, who would rather maintain Attribution
and Share Alike requirements (sometimes just the former).

For those cases, the Open Database License
(http://www.opencontentlawyer.com/open-data/open-database-licence/) is
probably what most people want, but it also is incomplete: Jordan (who
was the primary lawyer behind the license) has not done any work on it
in a long time, and I don't see any evidence that it will ever be
completed at this point, which is a shame, since I've been pinning my
hopes and dreams for licensing on it for more than a year.

In any case, in the US, CC-By-SA has no practical meaning for factual
information, so any organization which actually seeks to protect their
databases of information via copyright (rather than just make them
available regardless of the things that will be done with them) should
be made aware that at least in some jurisdictions, the lack of
creativity (depending, of course, on the type of data) means that their
data can't be protected that way. (In other countries, database effects
kick in, and may have a different interaction with the CC licenses:
in the US, even collections of pure facts are not protected.)

Encouraging users to 'protect' their data with CC this way is a mistake
-- and if they don't actually care, then encouraging Public Domain
dedications of data seems like the right way to go.

> I assume this is the license being referred:
> http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCZero
> ddi
> Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> >On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 08:21:03PM +0900, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
> >  
> >>Cameron Shorter wrote:
> >>    
> >>>If we find a data custodian who is keen to get their data into the
> >>>Integration Showcase, what sort of criteria should we be specifying
> >>>for that dataset?
> >>>What license?
> >>>      
> >>Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
> >>Same as OpenStreetMap
> >>    
> >
> >Please do not encourage new data releasers to release geodata under
> >creative commons licenses. It has ben a source of major disagreements
> >with regard to openstreetmap, and I don't think it's any better for
> >anyone else.
> >
> >Geodata is not creative. Creative Commons licenses are written for
> >creative works. Even the Creative Commons people I've talked to don't
> >think geodata should be covered under anything other than 'CC Zero'.
> >
> >http://www.opengeodata.org/?p=262 sums this up quite well: if you
> >haven't read it, *Please do* before advising anyone who has not already
> >released data on license issues.
> >
> >Regards,
> >  
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Systems Architect
> Tel: [phone]
> Mob: [phone]
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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[Mikel Maron, OSM]

Hi

> I've been waiting for the Open Database License to move forward, since
> at the moment, I see no licenses that make sense to license new geodata
> under. OSGeo/Geodata committe has not expressed an opinion at this time.  

The OSM Foundation is moving on the ODL. We're currently getting a second opinion on the latest draft.
The plan is to have the license finalized by the end of the year. Certainly want to get it out there asap,
so that it's an option for the Austrailian government and others.

http://foundation.openstreetmap.org/the-openstreetmap-license/

More background on the license change, and open questions on the license.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Open_Data_License
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Brief_for_proposed_OSM_licence

It would be great to get informal feedback from the geodata committee on the license.
(Been meaning to bring this up here since FOSS4G, but so much on my todo...)

Will this license serve your needs? Are there other use cases to consider?

-Mikel
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[Jo-2]

dear Cameron, all,

  Quoting Cameron Shorter <[hidden email]>:
  > Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think
  > we should.

No, it doesn't. Last year I started work on an "Open Geodata Licensing Guide";
not a recommendation but an overview of the options with their  
benefits and drawbacks, written with an audience of public  
administrations in mind.
It hasn't been updated in the light of recent discussions.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Guide_to_Public_Geodata_Licensing

  An official stance could be Quite Powerful. I want to avoid stirring  
up fruitless controversy though!

  > Currently, the Australian government is moving licencing the majority
  > of their data (including geospatial) under Creative Commons.

  I heard this about Andalucia's regional government geodata the other day.
  My first response is "which flavour of Creative Commons?" - as  
non-commercial is not really open and may restrict potential benefits  
to the data provider.
  This is before even getting into "is copyright appropriate for data?".

  > The responses I've heard from Australian government about Zero Commons
  > is that the license is still in draft, and that a government will need

I see on the CC wiki that CC0 is due to come out of draft Any Day Now.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_Feedback
Jonathan Gray from OKFN attended the workshop mentioned there and may  
know more.

Open Data Commons also has a PDDL - Public Domain Dedication and License -
which was launched last March and is currently the only open license  
that meets the "Science Commons protocol" for open data which CC0 is  
intended to be an implementation of. PDDL is like CC0 in that it is an  
"internationalised" method of placing work in the public domain plus a  
provision for "Community Norms" - which can be used for attribution /  
citation / linking etc.

  >>> Same as OpenStreetMap

I'm looking forward to the conclusion of the OSM relicensing effort  
which has been generating a lot of heat recently. However their  
eventual solution will be geared to aggregate collections with many  
contributors and not (initially)
appropriate for public authority data sets.

Apologies for my recent quietness, I still owe a long response to  
David's thought-provoking email from a month ago -  
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geodata/2008-September/000769.html


  jo
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[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:24:15PM -0500, [hidden email] wrote:

> dear Cameron, all,
>
>  Quoting Cameron Shorter <[hidden email]>:
>  > Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think
>  > we should.
>
> No, it doesn't. Last year I started work on an "Open Geodata Licensing
> Guide";
> not a recommendation but an overview of the options with their  
> benefits and drawbacks, written with an audience of public  
> administrations in mind.
> It hasn't been updated in the light of recent discussions.
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Guide_to_Public_Geodata_Licensing

Thanks; I hadn't been aware of this. I think that if we were to go ahead
with it, it could be a valuable talking point: my recent email here is
only a minor summary of many months worth of observations of
discussions, which I should have been conglomerating into this wiki
page. (I can't say that I'm really likely to devote explicit time to it
at the moment, but I definitely feel like it's the right path forward!)

>  An official stance could be Quite Powerful. I want to avoid stirring  
> up fruitless controversy though!
>
>  >>> Same as OpenStreetMap
>
> I'm looking forward to the conclusion of the OSM relicensing effort  
> which has been generating a lot of heat recently. However their  
> eventual solution will be geared to aggregate collections with many  
> contributors and not (initially)
> appropriate for public authority data sets.

I'm not convinced that it's neccesarily inappropriate for public
authority data sets; the licenses that I've seen so far, though
especially catered to many-users-one-database, are not *hostile* towards
other uses, and I think that the OSM crowd have been pushing towards
something I certainly think is more appropriate -- if agencies want the
benefits supposedly afforded by CC-By-SA -- than existing CC licenses
being applied to non-creative data.

Regards,
--
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer
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[Dave Patton]

On 2008/10/24 10:24 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

> dear Cameron, all,
>
>  Quoting Cameron Shorter <[hidden email]>:
>  > Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think
>  > we should.
>
> No, it doesn't. Last year I started work on an "Open Geodata Licensing
> Guide";
> not a recommendation but an overview of the options with their benefits
> and drawbacks, written with an audience of public administrations in mind.
> It hasn't been updated in the light of recent discussions.
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Guide_to_Public_Geodata_Licensing
>
>  An official stance could be Quite Powerful. I want to avoid stirring up
> fruitless controversy though!

Makes me ask the question - "what would be a suitable type
of forum at FOSS4G 2009 for this issue"?

For example, if there was an "OSGeo-approved geodata license",
then perhaps a traditional FOSS4G Presentation as part of the
conference program would suffice.

However, if "the answer" is still 'up in the air', then would
having a BOF session be suitable?

I wonder if some other forum might be better, because BOFs are
'self organizing', and at an individual BOF level, are not
planned/scheduled/advertised as part of the conference program.

At FOSS4G 2007 the only 'panel discussion' was at as part of
the closing plenary, so would this type of issue indicate that
consideration is warranted for some form of "moderated panel
discussion + audience question & answer session" as part of
the main conference program?

--
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

OSGeo FOSS4G 2009 conference:
Conference Committee member
http://2009.foss4g.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
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[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 03:10:57PM -0700, Dave Patton wrote:

> On 2008/10/24 10:24 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> >dear Cameron, all,
> >
> > Quoting Cameron Shorter <[hidden email]>:
> > > Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think
> > > we should.
> >
> >No, it doesn't. Last year I started work on an "Open Geodata Licensing
> >Guide";
> >not a recommendation but an overview of the options with their benefits
> >and drawbacks, written with an audience of public administrations in mind.
> >It hasn't been updated in the light of recent discussions.
> >http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Guide_to_Public_Geodata_Licensing
> >
> > An official stance could be Quite Powerful. I want to avoid stirring up
> >fruitless controversy though!
>
> Makes me ask the question - "what would be a suitable type
> of forum at FOSS4G 2009 for this issue"?
>
> For example, if there was an "OSGeo-approved geodata license",
> then perhaps a traditional FOSS4G Presentation as part of the
> conference program would suffice.

In the same way that I don't really know if "OSGeo-approved" is the
right way to do standards, I also don't know if it's the right way to do
licenses. I like Jo's "Guide" much better: establish plus/minus on
licenses, and let the licensors make the call on what 'recommended'
means. I don't think there's *ever* going to be a 'recommended' license
-- in the same way that there isn't for software projects.

Regards,
--
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[Tim Bowden-2]

On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 15:10 -0700, Dave Patton wrote:

> On 2008/10/24 10:24 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> > dear Cameron, all,
> >
> >  Quoting Cameron Shorter <[hidden email]>:
> >  > Does OSGeo have an official stance on data licencing? If not, I think
> >  > we should.
> >
> > No, it doesn't. Last year I started work on an "Open Geodata Licensing
> > Guide";
> > not a recommendation but an overview of the options with their benefits
> > and drawbacks, written with an audience of public administrations in mind.
> > It hasn't been updated in the light of recent discussions.
> > http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Guide_to_Public_Geodata_Licensing
> >
> >  An official stance could be Quite Powerful. I want to avoid stirring up
> > fruitless controversy though!
>
> Makes me ask the question - "what would be a suitable type
> of forum at FOSS4G 2009 for this issue"?

I'd like to see a panel workshop as a core focus area happen for this at
FOSS4G 2009.  I've already informally asked Schuyler to contribute.  I'd
also like to see Tim Barker from Qld Govt treasury who's been pushing cc
licensing of Govt data in Aust.  If we could also get some of the legal
types behind the OSM effort that would be fabulous.

Regards,
Tim

>
> For example, if there was an "OSGeo-approved geodata license",
> then perhaps a traditional FOSS4G Presentation as part of the
> conference program would suffice.
>
> However, if "the answer" is still 'up in the air', then would
> having a BOF session be suitable?
>
> I wonder if some other forum might be better, because BOFs are
> 'self organizing', and at an individual BOF level, are not
> planned/scheduled/advertised as part of the conference program.
>
> At FOSS4G 2007 the only 'panel discussion' was at as part of
> the closing plenary, so would this type of issue indicate that
> consideration is warranted for some form of "moderated panel
> discussion + audience question & answer session" as part of
> the main conference program?

--
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.

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[Jo-2]

dear all,

> At FOSS4G 2007 the only 'panel discussion' was at as part of
> the closing plenary, so would this type of issue indicate that
> consideration is warranted for some form of "moderated panel
> discussion + audience question & answer session" as part of
> the main conference program?

Dave, I like the idea of a scheduled panel discussion on the lines of
"How We Open Licensed Our Formerly Proprietary Data And You Can Too".
Hopefully Cameron and crew can help find speakers from a couple of
.au and .nz public agencies, and if possible a commercial service provider.

Chris, thanks for the vote of confidence in the Guide and I will try  
to incorporate some of your recent summary comments into it.

cheers,


jo
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