City of Windsor's Open Data License has improved

[Mita Williams]

I'm *pretty sure* that the City of Windsor has improved their TOU in
respect to their Open Data Catalogue.
(I am now a firm advocate of version control when it comes licensing!)

I know I didn't see language like this before:
"The City of Windsor (City) now grants you a world-wide, royalty-free,
non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the data sets in
all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose."
http://www.citywindsor.ca/DataCatalogue/PDF/OpenDataTermsofUse.pdf

Thank you everyone who responded to my original query about the TOU
and for the pointer to the CIPPIC's recent work. It's my understanding
that your responses made their way to the City which I like to
believe, led to these changes.

Mita

[Glen Newton]

I agree, this is a slight improvement (sorry Mita).

1 - Still problematic (and fundamentally not 'Open'):
"The City may, in its sole discretion, cancel or suspend your access
to the data sets without notice and for any reason"

2 - The following is a weird thing to have (even in the introduction)
of something trying to be an Open license:
"By accessing the data sets, you agree to these Terms of Use, which
are intended to....ensure that the recipients of these data sets give
back to the community the benefits they derive from these data sets."
How people use the data should not be linked to "giving back to the community".
Yes, it is great if it does benefit the community, but who is to
decide what is a benefit?
While the above statement does not make the TOU non-Open, it is not in
the spirit of Open (Non-discrimination).

3 - "The City may at any time and from time to time add, delete, or
change the data sets or these Terms of Use."
This does not make clear whether a future change will impact the data
I got today. All things being equal, I would interpret this as being
retroactive. Again, versioning of both TOU and the data sets to which
it applies is needed here.
Clarity is better.

-Glen
Related:
 http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-not-open-data-so-stop-calling-it.html
 http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-is-open-gov-data-sunlight.html

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Mita Williams <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm *pretty sure* that the City of Windsor has improved their TOU in
> respect to their Open Data Catalogue.
> (I am now a firm advocate of version control when it comes licensing!)
>
> I know I didn't see language like this before:
> "The City of Windsor (City) now grants you a world-wide, royalty-free,
> non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the data sets in
> all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose."
> http://www.citywindsor.ca/DataCatalogue/PDF/OpenDataTermsofUse.pdf
>
> Thank you everyone who responded to my original query about the TOU
> and for the pointer to the CIPPIC's recent work. It's my understanding
> that your responses made their way to the City which I like to
> believe, led to these changes.
>
> Mita
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

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