Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

[Tracey P. Lauriault-2]

I just perused this declaration, and well, it is pretty good!

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities - http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html 
this declaration has some strong signatories-
http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html

CODATA- is the International Committee on Data for Science and
Technology, an interdisciplinary Scientific Committee of the
International Council for Science (ICSU) is having a conference on open
access to strengthen support for the declaration. CODATA also has some
key principles on the topic of access to data -
http://www.codata.org/codata/data_access/principles.html.  Most national
science foundations - in Canada the National Research Council is the
CODATA which is doing the following - National Consultation on Access to
Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) at -
http://ncasrd-cnadrs.scitech.gc.ca/home_e.shtml.

I send it, to see if anyone would be interested in working on something
like this for access to civic data and information in Canada.  I would
still love to get a  brainstorm of reasons (practical, economic,
political, social, philosophical) why civic info and data should be free
for both commercial and non-commercial purposes and then try and
formulate a declaration based on those.

would love to hear your thoughts!
Tracey