Re: Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live. COMMERCIAL re-use

[Content Research]

Dear Tracey,

 

your wrote:

Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness 

 

 

(we all bear in mind that PSI re-use and OGD do constitute different topics. But anyway, there are interrelated to a certain extent).

 

When the European Commission in 1987 and later in 2000 started to push open data,  they had the following telos in mind:

 

a.       Jobs in the ICT and telecom sector did already stagnate, and no further jobs were created. Nowadays they even sack employees.

b.      Therefore they thought that INSTEAD the CONTENT sector might great new jobs – and primarily LOCAL jobs, done by SMEs

c.       Therefore, they pushed the PSI re-use to provide them with fresh and cheap raw material.

 

I listened to Richard Stallman two weeks ago in Vienna. I do share his thoughts. But anyway, somebody has to create new jobs to help us out of the economic crisis.

 

Kind regards from lazy Europe,

 

 

Gerard

 

 

 

Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Tracey P. Lauriault
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juli 2011 19:19
An: civicaccess discuss
Betreff: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live.

 

It is good to have home grown, even better to build on international examples to foster greater legal and policy interoperability. 

 

Canadian  'open data' licencing is a balkanized system. What is legal in one town or province/territory conflicts with another or other levels of government and also internationaly.  Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness - $ could be made with open source apps using open data - apps licencing and open data licencing.

 

It would be really great if we could encourage cities, provinces, territories, national departments and agencies to work more closely with CIPPIC and with each other to aim towards some sort of unity in licensing and understandings of what openness really is.  The UK, New Zealand and Australia are examples of this type of CC licensing. They are Westminster systems like Canada's and we could embrace something like this if only we worked together more and worked with the public legal agencies that can best lead us toward better licensing.  Open data citizens, I would argue, need to foreground licencing along with their hackfest ideals & apps development zeal.

 

I know this is a dry read, and that I have mentioned it on numerous occasions, but worth reading nonetheless - http://www.cippic.ca/open-licensing/.

 

Cheers

t

 

 

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Michael Mulley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In particular, I read the license the data is available under and
started grinning. It's based on the UK opengov license, but it's a
custom BC version, which in this case may be good: a homegrown
Canadian example, created by a provincial government. David Eaves
wrote more this morning:
http://eaves.ca/2011/07/19/province-of-bc-launches-open-data-catalog-what-works/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pamela MacDonald <[hidden email]>
Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Subject: [OpenDataBC] DataBC (Beta) is now live.
To: OpenDataBC <[hidden email]>


http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/index.page?

The Province has launched their new site and included the first
release of datasets in the link above.

Pamela
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/

 

[David Eaves]

Hear, hear Gerard.

The openness of app developers is not what is under debate here. They are not a public asset - the data they are using is, as long as it is shared openly, by governments, I could care less what the users do with it (as long as it is legal) or what model (business, non-profit, open or closed) they adopt.

Anything that veers into a debate of that kind makes me very nervous.



On 11-07-19 11:10 AM, Content Research wrote:

Dear Tracey,

 

your wrote:

Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness 

 

 

(we all bear in mind that PSI re-use and OGD do constitute different topics. But anyway, there are interrelated to a certain extent).

 

When the European Commission in 1987 and later in 2000 started to push open data,  they had the following telos in mind:

 

a.       Jobs in the ICT and telecom sector did already stagnate, and no further jobs were created. Nowadays they even sack employees.

b.      Therefore they thought that INSTEAD the CONTENT sector might great new jobs – and primarily LOCAL jobs, done by SMEs

c.       Therefore, they pushed the PSI re-use to provide them with fresh and cheap raw material.

 

I listened to Richard Stallman two weeks ago in Vienna. I do share his thoughts. But anyway, somebody has to create new jobs to help us out of the economic crisis.

 

Kind regards from lazy Europe,

 

 

Gerard

 

 

 

Von: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Tracey P. Lauriault
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juli 2011 19:19
An: civicaccess discuss
Betreff: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live.

 

It is good to have home grown, even better to build on international examples to foster greater legal and policy interoperability. 

 

Canadian  'open data' licencing is a balkanized system. What is legal in one town or province/territory conflicts with another or other levels of government and also internationaly.  Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness - $ could be made with open source apps using open data - apps licencing and open data licencing.

 

It would be really great if we could encourage cities, provinces, territories, national departments and agencies to work more closely with CIPPIC and with each other to aim towards some sort of unity in licensing and understandings of what openness really is.  The UK, New Zealand and Australia are examples of this type of CC licensing. They are Westminster systems like Canada's and we could embrace something like this if only we worked together more and worked with the public legal agencies that can best lead us toward better licensing.  Open data citizens, I would argue, need to foreground licencing along with their hackfest ideals & apps development zeal.

 

I know this is a dry read, and that I have mentioned it on numerous occasions, but worth reading nonetheless - http://www.cippic.ca/open-licensing/.

 

Cheers

t

 

 

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Michael Mulley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In particular, I read the license the data is available under and
started grinning. It's based on the UK opengov license, but it's a
custom BC version, which in this case may be good: a homegrown
Canadian example, created by a provincial government. David Eaves
wrote more this morning:
http://eaves.ca/2011/07/19/province-of-bc-launches-open-data-catalog-what-works/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pamela MacDonald <[hidden email]>
Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Subject: [OpenDataBC] DataBC (Beta) is now live.
To: OpenDataBC <[hidden email]>


http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/index.page?

The Province has launched their new site and included the first
release of datasets in the link above.

Pamela
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/

 

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[michael gurstein]

And I'm made a bit nervous when there is no attention paid to the circumstances/conditions under which the public asset is made "open" which I would suggest determines to a considerable degree (it would be interesting to figure how much) the extent to which the data in fact is used by business, or not for profits, or grassroots, (or all, some, or none of the above).

 

Clearly not all data will or could be usable by everyone, nor should it; but I would very much like a lot more thought and research being put into how data is being made "open" and what the conditions might be for making use of the data once available.

 

M

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Eaves
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 12:08 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live. COMMERCIAL re-use

Hear, hear Gerard.

The openness of app developers is not what is under debate here. They are not a public asset - the data they are using is, as long as it is shared openly, by governments, I could care less what the users do with it (as long as it is legal) or what model (business, non-profit, open or closed) they adopt.

Anything that veers into a debate of that kind makes me very nervous.



On 11-07-19 11:10 AM, Content Research wrote:

Dear Tracey,

your wrote:

Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness 

(we all bear in mind that PSI re-use and OGD do constitute different topics. But anyway, there are interrelated to a certain extent).

When the European Commission in 1987 and later in 2000 started to push open data,  they had the following telos in mind:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->a.       <!--[endif]-->Jobs in the ICT and telecom sector did already stagnate, and no further jobs were created. Nowadays they even sack employees.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->b.      <!--[endif]-->Therefore they thought that INSTEAD the CONTENT sector might great new jobs – and primarily LOCAL jobs, done by SMEs

<!--[if !supportLists]-->c.       <!--[endif]-->Therefore, they pushed the PSI re-use to provide them with fresh and cheap raw material.

I listened to Richard Stallman two weeks ago in Vienna. I do share his thoughts. But anyway, somebody has to create new jobs to help us out of the economic crisis.

Kind regards from lazy Europe,

Gerard

Von: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Tracey P. Lauriault
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juli 2011 19:19
An: civicaccess discuss
Betreff: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live.

It is good to have home grown, even better to build on international examples to foster greater legal and policy interoperability. 

Canadian  'open data' licencing is a balkanized system. What is legal in one town or province/territory conflicts with another or other levels of government and also internationaly.  Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness - $ could be made with open source apps using open data - apps licencing and open data licencing.

It would be really great if we could encourage cities, provinces, territories, national departments and agencies to work more closely with CIPPIC and with each other to aim towards some sort of unity in licensing and understandings of what openness really is.  The UK, New Zealand and Australia are examples of this type of CC licensing. They are Westminster systems like Canada's and we could embrace something like this if only we worked together more and worked with the public legal agencies that can best lead us toward better licensing.  Open data citizens, I would argue, need to foreground licencing along with their hackfest ideals & apps development zeal.

I know this is a dry read, and that I have mentioned it on numerous occasions, but worth reading nonetheless - http://www.cippic.ca/open-licensing/.

Cheers

t

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Michael Mulley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In particular, I read the license the data is available under and
started grinning. It's based on the UK opengov license, but it's a
custom BC version, which in this case may be good: a homegrown
Canadian example, created by a provincial government. David Eaves
wrote more this morning:
http://eaves.ca/2011/07/19/province-of-bc-launches-open-data-catalog-what-works/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pamela MacDonald <[hidden email]>
Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Subject: [OpenDataBC] DataBC (Beta) is now live.
To: OpenDataBC <[hidden email]>


http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/index.page?

The Province has launched their new site and included the first
release of datasets in the link above.

Pamela
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

Hey gang!

I have no problem with commercialization I do have a problem with us getting grumpy when government disseminates information in non open formats and then apps developers use the very open data government provided, do not attribute the source of the data and and then close their code and at times also restrict access to the very data they advocated for.  That is what I was referring to.

There is also a cultural disconnect between open source communities and open data communities and then again with community groups.  The open source communities have matured and have learned to be entrepreneurs in an open environment whereas many of the new apps developers have not been acculturated into those practices and are often less politicized about what they developed and about the policies around open data.  The ethos of just making stuff is excellent, and we have all seen really interesting apps developed as a result, but we have not seen issues around the policy of access such as licensing, transparency or engagement with data and public policy or as part of the public policy process or evidence based decision making.  Transit apps but not engagement in transit committees using transit data for example.  Community groups do that, but alas, most of the data available in open data cities are not the types of data many community based researchers use.

There are many successful open source businesses.  Carleton University's Tony Bailetti has created an innovation space for his students (http://sprott.carleton.ca/news/2011/tony_bailetti_ocri.html) and has tirelessly worked with open source entrepreneurs.  He has also created the Open Source Business Resource (http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr), which is a monthly newsletter of excellent innovative and commercialized open source companies, initiatives and products.

Quebec has also been great at creating a national open source agenda and for changing the province's procurement processes to enable local developers to participate in economies created by government procurement.  That also means that universities have to focus on training students to do open source, and it means that bureaucrats need to change how they tender and developers need to become more accountable and adopt business models that will work and scale.  That took much politicking to make that happen.

The ROC, and open data apps developers are not quite there yet, and I hope they do get there soon as the app contest model in the long term may undermine their wish for business in the future.  Procurement practices have to change for them to be able to bid on projects like the big kids.  I hear murmurs of that discussion, but it is not yet the norm.

Gotta go!

Ciao for now

t

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:18 PM, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote:

And I'm made a bit nervous when there is no attention paid to the circumstances/conditions under which the public asset is made "open" which I would suggest determines to a considerable degree (it would be interesting to figure how much) the extent to which the data in fact is used by business, or not for profits, or grassroots, (or all, some, or none of the above).

 

Clearly not all data will or could be usable by everyone, nor should it; but I would very much like a lot more thought and research being put into how data is being made "open" and what the conditions might be for making use of the data once available.

 

M

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of David Eaves
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 12:08 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live. COMMERCIAL re-use

Hear, hear Gerard.

The openness of app developers is not what is under debate here. They are not a public asset - the data they are using is, as long as it is shared openly, by governments, I could care less what the users do with it (as long as it is legal) or what model (business, non-profit, open or closed) they adopt.

Anything that veers into a debate of that kind makes me very nervous.



On 11-07-19 11:10 AM, Content Research wrote:

Dear Tracey,

your wrote:

Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness 

(we all bear in mind that PSI re-use and OGD do constitute different topics. But anyway, there are interrelated to a certain extent).

When the European Commission in 1987 and later in 2000 started to push open data,  they had the following telos in mind:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->a.       <!--[endif]-->Jobs in the ICT and telecom sector did already stagnate, and no further jobs were created. Nowadays they even sack employees.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->b.      <!--[endif]-->Therefore they thought that INSTEAD the CONTENT sector might great new jobs – and primarily LOCAL jobs, done by SMEs

<!--[if !supportLists]-->c.       <!--[endif]-->Therefore, they pushed the PSI re-use to provide them with fresh and cheap raw material.

I listened to Richard Stallman two weeks ago in Vienna. I do share his thoughts. But anyway, somebody has to create new jobs to help us out of the economic crisis.

Kind regards from lazy Europe,

Gerard

Von: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Tracey P. Lauriault
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juli 2011 19:19
An: civicaccess discuss
Betreff: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: DataBC (Beta) is now live.

It is good to have home grown, even better to build on international examples to foster greater legal and policy interoperability. 

Canadian  'open data' licencing is a balkanized system. What is legal in one town or province/territory conflicts with another or other levels of government and also internationaly.  Even apps developers are closing their apps and selling them with open data inside them, hardly in keeping with the ideas of openness - $ could be made with open source apps using open data - apps licencing and open data licencing.

It would be really great if we could encourage cities, provinces, territories, national departments and agencies to work more closely with CIPPIC and with each other to aim towards some sort of unity in licensing and understandings of what openness really is.  The UK, New Zealand and Australia are examples of this type of CC licensing. They are Westminster systems like Canada's and we could embrace something like this if only we worked together more and worked with the public legal agencies that can best lead us toward better licensing.  Open data citizens, I would argue, need to foreground licencing along with their hackfest ideals & apps development zeal.

I know this is a dry read, and that I have mentioned it on numerous occasions, but worth reading nonetheless - http://www.cippic.ca/open-licensing/.

Cheers

t

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Michael Mulley <[hidden email]> wrote:

In particular, I read the license the data is available under and
started grinning. It's based on the UK opengov license, but it's a
custom BC version, which in this case may be good: a homegrown
Canadian example, created by a provincial government. David Eaves
wrote more this morning:
http://eaves.ca/2011/07/19/province-of-bc-launches-open-data-catalog-what-works/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pamela MacDonald <[hidden email]>
Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Subject: [OpenDataBC] DataBC (Beta) is now live.
To: OpenDataBC <[hidden email]>


http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/index.page?

The Province has launched their new site and included the first
release of datasets in the link above.

Pamela
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
<a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/

[Michael Lenczner-2]

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hey gang!
> I have no problem with commercialization I do have a problem with us getting grumpy when government disseminates information in non open formats and then apps developers use the very open data government provided, do not attribute the source of the data and and then close their code and at times also restrict access to the very data they advocated for.  That is what I was referring to.
>

<snip>

I will enumerate your concerns to see if I understand them correctly:

1. Developers using open data and not attributing the source of that data.

2. Developers using open gov data in their applications and then not
putting the code they wrote under open / free licenses.

3. Developers restricting access to the data used in their applications.

In the best interest of open data, I would argue that:
- #1 is a license issue, although you could easily say that
applicaitons clearly stating their use of gov data would help bring
broader awareness of the utility of open data. Also it could encourage
the governments providing that data to put more data online since they
are getting some credit for the application the end-user interacts
with.

-#2 Developers should be encouraged to make commercial (non-open
source) applications. Economic actiivity around open data is mostly
non-open source and we should encourage both kinds of models.

-#3 I'm not sure I get this one. Maybe you're saying that developers
should re-publish the data? I wouldn't understand why when someone can
just get them from the same place the developer accessed them.

Mike

--
Michael Lenczner
CEO, Ajah
http://www.ajah.ca
514-400-4500
1-888-406-2524 (AJAH)

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

on #3, so lets say a developer gets data from a non government source,
or produces/collects his or her data themselves, or changes gov data
in such a way that it could be most helpful more broadly to the
community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.

I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.

on #2, for sure there should be both, but the scale it tipped toward
closed, so we hold government to a high ethical standard, the 10
principles of open, but we do not adhere to it ourselves.  Also, back
to the ethos, if we simply focus on the sale of apps with the use of
free data and the only concern is for this is profit, then we only get
instrumentalist approaches to open data as opposed to the broader
democratic principles, which the early advocates of open data lobbied
for (mid 1980's, or the early citizen scientists during nuclear
proliferation, etc.).  Which are access to public data for evidence
based decision making, transparency, accountability, evening the
playing field, etc.  The profit motive in a sense has closed many
minds to the politics of open access to data and their related policy
issues.

I can see why developers close, people need to make money and because
it is also true that many developers steal ideas, do not attribute, do
not collaborate, and so it makes the entrepreneur who open's their app
vulnerable.  Concurrently,  if open data apps developers also do not
advocate for a change in procurement practices by government, then, we
also do not increase the size of the market developers can operate in.
 At the moment, for small entrepreneurs, I would say the market is
small and highly competitive while open data has at least provided
them with the opportunity to more broadly showcase their stuff. All
good things.

I struggle though with the double standard.

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Hey gang!
>> I have no problem with commercialization I do have a problem with us getting grumpy when government disseminates information in non open formats and then apps developers use the very open data government provided, do not attribute the source of the data and and then close their code and at times also restrict access to the very data they advocated for.  That is what I was referring to.
>>
>
> <snip>
>
> I will enumerate your concerns to see if I understand them correctly:
>
> 1. Developers using open data and not attributing the source of that data.
>
> 2. Developers using open gov data in their applications and then not
> putting the code they wrote under open / free licenses.
>
> 3. Developers restricting access to the data used in their applications.
>
> In the best interest of open data, I would argue that:
> - #1 is a license issue, although you could easily say that
> applicaitons clearly stating their use of gov data would help bring
> broader awareness of the utility of open data. Also it could encourage
> the governments providing that data to put more data online since they
> are getting some credit for the application the end-user interacts
> with.
>
> -#2 Developers should be encouraged to make commercial (non-open
> source) applications. Economic actiivity around open data is mostly
> non-open source and we should encourage both kinds of models.
>
> -#3 I'm not sure I get this one. Maybe you're saying that developers
> should re-publish the data? I wouldn't understand why when someone can
> just get them from the same place the developer accessed them.
>
> Mike
>
> --
> Michael Lenczner
> CEO, Ajah
> http://www.ajah.ca
> 514-400-4500
> 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH)
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
http://traceyplauriault.ca/

[Karl Dubost]

Le 20 juil. 2011 à 13:52, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
> community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.
>
> I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
> sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.

GPL vs MIT.
Broadly and quickly for people who are not used to the terms. In Open source code projects, in a business context:

* GPL license: you must contribute back your modifications to the community. (viral license)
* MIT license: you can close the source with your own modifications

It's a philosophical question. I like the GPL point of view for its commitment to the society, but it becomes unreasonable in a mixed society with business interests. I'm not saying it's impossible, but their will be less people participating. It makes perfect sense in a small group of likely minded people.

For example, all the code published by W3C is under MIT license for the simple reason that what is driving W3C is the adoption of Open Web Standards. So if the code is a push toward this direction without too much constraints for people building upon it. Perfect.

Let's go back to open data.

The city through open data will enable broad participation. The added value to data modification is very hard to evaluate. That's one issue. I would also think that if a company is making an interesting product by modifying the data and not giving access to this enriched data. Someone else might do it (wikipedia model, openlibrary model).

It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving back directly to the community. You might think for example about a road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being tax payers of the city.

--
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/

[James McKinney]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 1:52 PM, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:

on #3, so lets say a developer gets data from a non government source,
or produces/collects his or her data themselves, or changes gov data
in such a way that it could be most helpful more broadly to the
community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.

 

A principal way of making money using open data is to take open data and enrich it/add value to it. This new data is now something of value, something that is otherwise unavailable, something people will pay for. This added value requires an investment, and it makes sense to me for people to make a living doing it. If we want this added-value data to be free, then we should make our government do it for us - but I think it's fine to leave it to the market to figure out.

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

"It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen
commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving
back directly to the community. You might think for example about a
road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their
activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being
tax payers of the city."

That is exactly what I am getting at Karl.

The road infrastructure was built purely to meet the demands of the
car industry, and now we are trapped with that form and all the urban
sprawl and unsustainable consumption associated with it, combined with
a near loathing of investment in public transit.  (Think who killed
the electric car or peak oil).  Fighting for pedestrian access and
bike lanes, more public transit, light rail, etc.  alternative methods
is so very difficult because of the momentum of the infrastructure
created for the car and the fact that we do not do the cost accounting
of things like the cost of air pollution on our health care system vs
the cost of building more roads, or the cost of infrastructure
development to serve outlying suburbs vs urban intensification, and so
on.  So what if that infrastructure was built build with
sustainability and the public in mind?  Would our cities look
different?  Would we spend less on pavement and more on car free zones
in the city?  Would we consider air quality first and driving
convenience second?

What if we think more carefully about this nascent open data ecology
we are building and build it for long term sustainability, for the
public and in a form that differs to what we are accustomed and
habituated to?  What would that look like?  Would there be more women?
 Would numeracy be part of the program? Would community groups be
involved? Would apps developers volunteer their skills in community
groups as well as developing for personal private gain? Is it to be
created only for apps developers?  What are the public policy issues
that apps developers are missing?  Is it the job of government to
build only for commecialization? What if it was being build with the
notion of participatory democracy?  What if developers learned how to
also work within the democratic process?  It is in the public good?d
If we only share raw data and do not produce information products, do
the public loose access to intel?

I would love to be thinking about these things, and we have the
opportunity to really build something interesting as it is still early
days.  Practices will soon congeal and will become difficult to
change, and it would be great that we really think carefully about how
the shape and form can best reflect our ideals.



On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Karl Dubost <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Le 20 juil. 2011 à 13:52, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
>> community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.
>>
>> I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
>> sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.
>
> GPL vs MIT.
> Broadly and quickly for people who are not used to the terms. In Open source code projects, in a business context:
>
> * GPL license: you must contribute back your modifications to the community. (viral license)
> * MIT license: you can close the source with your own modifications
>
> It's a philosophical question. I like the GPL point of view for its commitment to the society, but it becomes unreasonable in a mixed society with business interests. I'm not saying it's impossible, but their will be less people participating. It makes perfect sense in a small group of likely minded people.
>
> For example, all the code published by W3C is under MIT license for the simple reason that what is driving W3C is the adoption of Open Web Standards. So if the code is a push toward this direction without too much constraints for people building upon it. Perfect.
>
> Let's go back to open data.
>
> The city through open data will enable broad participation. The added value to data modification is very hard to evaluate. That's one issue. I would also think that if a company is making an interesting product by modifying the data and not giving access to this enriched data. Someone else might do it (wikipedia model, openlibrary model).
>
> It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving back directly to the community. You might think for example about a road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being tax payers of the city.
>
> --
> Karl Dubost
> Montréal, QC, Canada
> http://www.la-grange.net/karl/
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
http://traceyplauriault.ca/

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

"A principal way of making money using open data is to take open data
and enrich it/add value to it. This new data is now something of
value, something that is otherwise unavailable, something people will
pay for. This added value requires an investment, and it makes sense
to me for people to make a living doing it. If we want this
added-value data to be free, then we should make our government do it
for us - but I think it's fine to leave it to the market to figure
out."

I think we can have added value, make money and give back. We let the
market determine broadband access in Canada and what did we get?  We
let the car market dismantle transit? We let the market move toward
the construction of nuclear power plants?

Also, one of the possible outcomes of our open data work is actually
less data turned into information by government as there will be an
expectation that open data folks will do that instead. Recall the fate
of investigative journalism?  We are already seeing government doing
this and I have grave concerns, as I know that critical issues like
social policy for instance will not be well addressed.  The killing of
the Canadian census and of national science programs & think tanks in
Canada is also part of that.

We need the government creating information products and disseminating
data, and we need people outside government doing that, but not just
the market.  Also recall the Radarsat story
(http://serendipityoucity.blogsome.com/2008/03/08/whats-the-deal-with-radarsat-2/),
catering to shareholder needs nearly got our most strategic monitoring
system sold to a US arms manufacturer in a Patriot Act system which
would have gotten us cut off from strategic data about the north?
Mining market interests impeded access to mines tailing data as well
see (http://www.ecojustice.ca/cases/mining-pollution-exposed).

Bref, what can we co-build that will allow for participatory democracy
ideals in access to public data actions in Canada?

[michael gurstein]

(I think this is line with Tracey's recent comments...

I'm going to ask a question of the group which may be naïve or something
that you have already covered, if so please let me know.

Government data is a "public resource".  As such, perhaps for simplicity's
sake, we can take it as analogous to other "public resources" as for
example, the land underlying a national park.  The government makes the
(crown land) park available (and accessible) to the public by putting in
roads, other infrastructure items, policing etc.etc. The government also
makes it available for "reuse" (value added resale) by private sector folks
for the consumer through licensing privately funded for-profit lodges,
expeditions, activity destinations that sort of thing.

But the government also ensures that those who for whatever reason (cost
etc.) don't want to or can't take advantage of the private sector offerings
by making facilities available to the broad public as for example through
camp sites, publicly maintained hiking trails, cook houses etc.

My question in response to the below and also in the context of the BC
Government website is who or what is the equivalent to the above i.e.
government's taking responsibility for ensuring a non-commercial use of the
data. What I understand from what I've read is that government seems to
think that it's responsibility is complete by simply making the resource
available and putting in an infrastructure for use, leaving the actual
investment for using that infrastructure to the private sector to develop
for-profit oriented uses (the equivalent of leaving the development of all
facilities in the national park to private interests).

I've no problem with the development of private sector value added uses but
I am a bit concerned about who or what is representing/acting on behalf of
the "public" in these contexts. Certainly NGO's will do some of this, but in
practice that is a very hit and miss and generally "volunteer" effort with
the broad public interest/need requiring sustained funding among other
things.

Am I wrong in this analogy or have I missed something in my observations in
the range of OGD sites?

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Karl Dubost
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 12:03 PM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open Data, added values and licenses



Le 20 juil. 2011 à 13:52, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
> community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.
>
> I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
> sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.

GPL vs MIT.
Broadly and quickly for people who are not used to the terms. In Open source
code projects, in a business context:

* GPL license: you must contribute back your modifications to the community.
(viral license)
* MIT license: you can close the source with your own modifications

It's a philosophical question. I like the GPL point of view for its
commitment to the society, but it becomes unreasonable in a mixed society
with business interests. I'm not saying it's impossible, but their will be
less people participating. It makes perfect sense in a small group of likely
minded people.

For example, all the code published by W3C is under MIT license for the
simple reason that what is driving W3C is the adoption of Open Web
Standards. So if the code is a push toward this direction without too much
constraints for people building upon it. Perfect.

Let's go back to open data.

The city through open data will enable broad participation. The added value
to data modification is very hard to evaluate. That's one issue. I would
also think that if a company is making an interesting product by modifying
the data and not giving access to this enriched data. Someone else might do
it (wikipedia model, openlibrary model).

It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen
commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving back
directly to the community. You might think for example about a road enabling
business to get here, and then these people by their activities contribute
to the life of the city without necessary being tax payers of the city.

--
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Glen Newton]

Your analogy is a false one, and mirrors the errors made in the
intellectual property discussion: the belief that intellectual
property should and does follow rules similar to physical property.
They do not. If I take your sweater or your shoe or your house, you
don't have them. I can copy (take) your data or your code or your idea
and you will still have your data or your code or your idea. Also, I
can "build" and distribute 1 billion copies of my data at almost zero
cost; it is unlikely that I can even build one billion physical
objects, never mind distribute them (although with the help of
nanobots this kind of thing might soon be possible, at least for very
small objects).

In your example, the analogy between transportation policy and Open
(digital) data policy fails. In transportation, decisions can imply
huge costs, large and often damaging physical manifestations and
various long-term implications. You have not convinced me that any of
these can happen or will happen in open data.

You use the term "open data ecology" but use it in a very restrictive
way. In a way that does not allow "a thousand flowers to bloom" or a
diversity of business models and community models (if you think these
two things are different...) to exist, co-exist, and flourish. That
includes for-profit and non-profit re-use; value added that either
holds back the value-added or shares it; etc.

Glen Newton

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> "It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen
> commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving
> back directly to the community. You might think for example about a
> road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their
> activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being
> tax payers of the city."
>
> That is exactly what I am getting at Karl.
>
> The road infrastructure was built purely to meet the demands of the
> car industry, and now we are trapped with that form and all the urban
> sprawl and unsustainable consumption associated with it, combined with
> a near loathing of investment in public transit.  (Think who killed
> the electric car or peak oil).  Fighting for pedestrian access and
> bike lanes, more public transit, light rail, etc.  alternative methods
> is so very difficult because of the momentum of the infrastructure
> created for the car and the fact that we do not do the cost accounting
> of things like the cost of air pollution on our health care system vs
> the cost of building more roads, or the cost of infrastructure
> development to serve outlying suburbs vs urban intensification, and so
> on.  So what if that infrastructure was built build with
> sustainability and the public in mind?  Would our cities look
> different?  Would we spend less on pavement and more on car free zones
> in the city?  Would we consider air quality first and driving
> convenience second?
>
> What if we think more carefully about this nascent open data ecology
> we are building and build it for long term sustainability, for the
> public and in a form that differs to what we are accustomed and
> habituated to?  What would that look like?  Would there be more women?
>  Would numeracy be part of the program? Would community groups be
> involved? Would apps developers volunteer their skills in community
> groups as well as developing for personal private gain? Is it to be
> created only for apps developers?  What are the public policy issues
> that apps developers are missing?  Is it the job of government to
> build only for commecialization? What if it was being build with the
> notion of participatory democracy?  What if developers learned how to
> also work within the democratic process?  It is in the public good?d
> If we only share raw data and do not produce information products, do
> the public loose access to intel?
>
> I would love to be thinking about these things, and we have the
> opportunity to really build something interesting as it is still early
> days.  Practices will soon congeal and will become difficult to
> change, and it would be great that we really think carefully about how
> the shape and form can best reflect our ideals.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Karl Dubost <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Le 20 juil. 2011 à 13:52, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
>>> community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.
>>>
>>> I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
>>> sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.
>>
>> GPL vs MIT.
>> Broadly and quickly for people who are not used to the terms. In Open source code projects, in a business context:
>>
>> * GPL license: you must contribute back your modifications to the community. (viral license)
>> * MIT license: you can close the source with your own modifications
>>
>> It's a philosophical question. I like the GPL point of view for its commitment to the society, but it becomes unreasonable in a mixed society with business interests. I'm not saying it's impossible, but their will be less people participating. It makes perfect sense in a small group of likely minded people.
>>
>> For example, all the code published by W3C is under MIT license for the simple reason that what is driving W3C is the adoption of Open Web Standards. So if the code is a push toward this direction without too much constraints for people building upon it. Perfect.
>>
>> Let's go back to open data.
>>
>> The city through open data will enable broad participation. The added value to data modification is very hard to evaluate. That's one issue. I would also think that if a company is making an interesting product by modifying the data and not giving access to this enriched data. Someone else might do it (wikipedia model, openlibrary model).
>>
>> It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving back directly to the community. You might think for example about a road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being tax payers of the city.
>>
>> --
>> Karl Dubost
>> Montréal, QC, Canada
>> http://www.la-grange.net/karl/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Tracey P. Lauriault
> 613-234-2805
> http://traceyplauriault.ca/
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

--

-

[Glen Newton]

Tracey wrote:

> We need the government creating information products and disseminating
> data, and we need people outside government doing that, but not just
> the market.  Also recall the Radarsat story
> (http://serendipityoucity.blogsome.com/2008/03/08/whats-the-deal-with-radarsat-2/),
> catering to shareholder needs nearly got our most strategic monitoring
> system sold to a US arms manufacturer in a Patriot Act system which
> would have gotten us cut off from strategic data about the north?
> Mining market interests impeded access to mines tailing data as well
> see (http://www.ecojustice.ca/cases/mining-pollution-exposed).
>
> Bref, what can we co-build that will allow for participatory democracy
> ideals in access to public data actions in Canada?

Having a license that allows commercial re-use and the
non-distribution of value-added would not impact participatory
democracy ideals in access to public data actions in Canada in any
way.

The two examples you give would have happened no matter what license
was in place. These were political decisions about exclusive rights,
and not releasing data in the first place, respectively. I have no
doubt that these were due to commercial or other inappropriate
influence.

In the Open data world, once data is released, with a true Open
license that does not allow the data to be taken back at some later
date (perhaps due to political decisions, perhaps from commercial
pressures: see my previous rants on this...), the genie cannot be put
back in the bottle. But if political decisions are made not to release
the data, then the license is pretty irrelevant.

-Glen

[David Eaves]

+1

On 11-07-21 8:41 AM, Glen Newton wrote:

> Tracey wrote:
>> We need the government creating information products and disseminating
>> data, and we need people outside government doing that, but not just
>> the market.  Also recall the Radarsat story
>> (http://serendipityoucity.blogsome.com/2008/03/08/whats-the-deal-with-radarsat-2/),
>> catering to shareholder needs nearly got our most strategic monitoring
>> system sold to a US arms manufacturer in a Patriot Act system which
>> would have gotten us cut off from strategic data about the north?
>> Mining market interests impeded access to mines tailing data as well
>> see (http://www.ecojustice.ca/cases/mining-pollution-exposed).
>>
>> Bref, what can we co-build that will allow for participatory democracy
>> ideals in access to public data actions in Canada?
> Having a license that allows commercial re-use and the
> non-distribution of value-added would not impact participatory
> democracy ideals in access to public data actions in Canada in any
> way.
>
> The two examples you give would have happened no matter what license
> was in place. These were political decisions about exclusive rights,
> and not releasing data in the first place, respectively. I have no
> doubt that these were due to commercial or other inappropriate
> influence.
>
> In the Open data world, once data is released, with a true Open
> license that does not allow the data to be taken back at some later
> date (perhaps due to political decisions, perhaps from commercial
> pressures: see my previous rants on this...), the genie cannot be put
> back in the bottle. But if political decisions are made not to release
> the data, then the license is pretty irrelevant.
>
> -Glen
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

The point Glenn is if we build something and do not think more
critically about it, we will build something that may bite us back.  I
used that metaphor as it was introduced by Karl.

cheers
t

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Glen Newton <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Your analogy is a false one, and mirrors the errors made in the
> intellectual property discussion: the belief that intellectual
> property should and does follow rules similar to physical property.
> They do not. If I take your sweater or your shoe or your house, you
> don't have them. I can copy (take) your data or your code or your idea
> and you will still have your data or your code or your idea. Also, I
> can "build" and distribute 1 billion copies of my data at almost zero
> cost; it is unlikely that I can even build one billion physical
> objects, never mind distribute them (although with the help of
> nanobots this kind of thing might soon be possible, at least for very
> small objects).
>
> In your example, the analogy between transportation policy and Open
> (digital) data policy fails. In transportation, decisions can imply
> huge costs, large and often damaging physical manifestations and
> various long-term implications. You have not convinced me that any of
> these can happen or will happen in open data.
>
> You use the term "open data ecology" but use it in a very restrictive
> way. In a way that does not allow "a thousand flowers to bloom" or a
> diversity of business models and community models (if you think these
> two things are different...) to exist, co-exist, and flourish. That
> includes for-profit and non-profit re-use; value added that either
> holds back the value-added or shares it; etc.
>
> Glen Newton
>
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> "It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen
>> commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving
>> back directly to the community. You might think for example about a
>> road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their
>> activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being
>> tax payers of the city."
>>
>> That is exactly what I am getting at Karl.
>>
>> The road infrastructure was built purely to meet the demands of the
>> car industry, and now we are trapped with that form and all the urban
>> sprawl and unsustainable consumption associated with it, combined with
>> a near loathing of investment in public transit.  (Think who killed
>> the electric car or peak oil).  Fighting for pedestrian access and
>> bike lanes, more public transit, light rail, etc.  alternative methods
>> is so very difficult because of the momentum of the infrastructure
>> created for the car and the fact that we do not do the cost accounting
>> of things like the cost of air pollution on our health care system vs
>> the cost of building more roads, or the cost of infrastructure
>> development to serve outlying suburbs vs urban intensification, and so
>> on.  So what if that infrastructure was built build with
>> sustainability and the public in mind?  Would our cities look
>> different?  Would we spend less on pavement and more on car free zones
>> in the city?  Would we consider air quality first and driving
>> convenience second?
>>
>> What if we think more carefully about this nascent open data ecology
>> we are building and build it for long term sustainability, for the
>> public and in a form that differs to what we are accustomed and
>> habituated to?  What would that look like?  Would there be more women?
>>  Would numeracy be part of the program? Would community groups be
>> involved? Would apps developers volunteer their skills in community
>> groups as well as developing for personal private gain? Is it to be
>> created only for apps developers?  What are the public policy issues
>> that apps developers are missing?  Is it the job of government to
>> build only for commecialization? What if it was being build with the
>> notion of participatory democracy?  What if developers learned how to
>> also work within the democratic process?  It is in the public good?d
>> If we only share raw data and do not produce information products, do
>> the public loose access to intel?
>>
>> I would love to be thinking about these things, and we have the
>> opportunity to really build something interesting as it is still early
>> days.  Practices will soon congeal and will become difficult to
>> change, and it would be great that we really think carefully about how
>> the shape and form can best reflect our ideals.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Karl Dubost <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Le 20 juil. 2011 à 13:52, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
>>>> community - it would be great that those data also be shared back.
>>>>
>>>> I am concerned with the one way street, gov give to us but private
>>>> sector, ngos, researchers, citizens at large, etc. do not give back.
>>>
>>> GPL vs MIT.
>>> Broadly and quickly for people who are not used to the terms. In Open source code projects, in a business context:
>>>
>>> * GPL license: you must contribute back your modifications to the community. (viral license)
>>> * MIT license: you can close the source with your own modifications
>>>
>>> It's a philosophical question. I like the GPL point of view for its commitment to the society, but it becomes unreasonable in a mixed society with business interests. I'm not saying it's impossible, but their will be less people participating. It makes perfect sense in a small group of likely minded people.
>>>
>>> For example, all the code published by W3C is under MIT license for the simple reason that what is driving W3C is the adoption of Open Web Standards. So if the code is a push toward this direction without too much constraints for people building upon it. Perfect.
>>>
>>> Let's go back to open data.
>>>
>>> The city through open data will enable broad participation. The added value to data modification is very hard to evaluate. That's one issue. I would also think that if a company is making an interesting product by modifying the data and not giving access to this enriched data. Someone else might do it (wikipedia model, openlibrary model).
>>>
>>> It's happening very often that a city set up the stage for a citizen commodity and that many people benefit of it without necessary giving back directly to the community. You might think for example about a road enabling business to get here, and then these people by their activities contribute to the life of the city without necessary being tax payers of the city.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Karl Dubost
>>> Montréal, QC, Canada
>>> http://www.la-grange.net/karl/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Tracey P. Lauriault
>> 613-234-2805
>> http://traceyplauriault.ca/
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> -
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
http://traceyplauriault.ca/

[Karl Dubost]

Le 21 juil. 2011 à 12:22, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit :
> The point Glenn is if we build something and do not think more
> critically about it, we will build something that may bite us back.  I
> used that metaphor as it was introduced by Karl.

My metaphor would have worked with bike lanes the same way. It is unrelated ;)
The (bad, obviously) was to express the orthogonality of the choices. The digital (and ideas) space has very different rules. I have done a few talks about that.

Open Data -- commercial usage ---> Enriched data
          -- participatory    ---> Enriched data

Both are possible *at the same time* without any constraints on the source with an open data license on the source. Now you could indeed put a constraint on the modifications kind of "ShareALike", but then you would close opportunities of doing stuff with them.

Here I'm on the side of the more liberal solution, still encouraging, showing the benefits of staying open. Aka if you make your enriched data open you create more opportunities to create markets around your activity and so make your ecosystem more stable.


--
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/

[James McKinney]

Let's not abuse strawmen. The market isn't perfect and doesn't solve everything, but it does solve some things. The government should not concern itself with adding all imaginable kinds of value to datasets. For example, it shouldn't create a linked dataset of nearby restaurants to metro stations in Montreal, for example, even if that dataset is something people want. It's just not the sort of thing the government is responsible for.

I think that this example dataset and most value-added datasets that the market would commercialize are not interesting in terms of our democracy. If we want our government to support social policy and science research, then we should pressure them to do so, either by doing it themselves or funding/incentivizing external organizations. It doesn't really have anything to do with forcing people to release value-added datasets for free. 

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

It is not about forcing it is about re-thinking it.  As the folks in
Quebec did with open source.

I totally agree with:

"if we want our government to support social policy and science
research, then we should pressure them to do so, either by doing it
themselves or funding/incentivizing external organizations."

The problem is, that these are the very things this government is
cutting and has cut.  The Census was the most obvious, community based
research has no funding sources, many really important surveys about
Canada's more marginalized, combined with the closing of Canadian
Policy Research Network, cutting CISTI, privatising libraries in
Toronto, etc.  Also, the private sector does not pick up on these
issues.

There are some who argue that if we make data available then we no
longer have to create information products which are expensive and by
not producing those products we can do away with policy researchers.
Many natural and social scientists are no longer allowed to publish
their findings, I have friends in Corrections, NRCan, PHAC and HRSDC
who have been told to not publish their findings, to shelve their
research or have seen their information sharing projects shut down.
Those information products and their associated data are really
important and will not be made available to the public as they do not
align with the political agenda of the day.  Those data are not easily
transformed into apps let alone deconstructed without some subject
matter expertises and if NGOs are not funded, programs are cut, and
silenced, then what have we gained if only the data are available but
not understood?

Anyway all, great discussion.
t


On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 1:36 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Let's not abuse strawmen. The market isn't perfect and doesn't solve
> everything, but it does solve some things. The government should not concern
> itself with adding all imaginable kinds of value to datasets. For example,
> it shouldn't create a linked dataset of nearby restaurants to metro stations
> in Montreal, for example, even if that dataset is something people want.
> It's just not the sort of thing the government is responsible for.
> I think that this example dataset and most value-added datasets that the
> market would commercialize are not interesting in terms of our democracy. If
> we want our government to support social policy and science research, then
> we should pressure them to do so, either by doing it themselves or
> funding/incentivizing external organizations. It doesn't really have
> anything to do with forcing people to release value-added datasets for
> free.
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
http://traceyplauriault.ca/

[James McKinney]

What if we think more carefully about this nascent open data ecology
we are building and build it for long term sustainability, for the
public and in a form that differs to what we are accustomed and
habituated to?  What would that look like?  Would there be more women?
 Would numeracy be part of the program? Would community groups be
involved? Would apps developers volunteer their skills in community
groups as well as developing for personal private gain? Is it to be
created only for apps developers?  What are the public policy issues
that apps developers are missing?  Is it the job of government to
build only for commecialization? What if it was being build with the
notion of participatory democracy?  What if developers learned how to
also work within the democratic process?  It is in the public good?d
If we only share raw data and do not produce information products, do
the public loose access to intel?

I would be wonderful to solve some of these problems, but I'm at a loss as to what the incentive structure would have to be for more developers to volunteer more of their time to community groups, participatory democracy, and public policy issues. I think the solutions would not be specific to the open data universe.

Re: Gurnstein's "ensuring a non-commercial use of the data": I think this is an important point, but I think we need to think of what exactly we want the government to build. In the case of parks, the government maintains camp sites, hiking trails, etc. What's the corollary in terms of open data? I'm not sure there is one, or that one is missing. Here's why. The data that the government is making available as open data, it already had; it didn't source new data just to put it on its open data portal. Why did it have this data? Because it was using it. For what? For the public good (hopefully). To me, open government data is just: "Here's some of the data that helps us do our job. Let's see what you can do with it." The government is already using it. I only see two concerns. (1) We may be saying that we want it to use its data more (fund Statcan better, etc.). (2) We don't want it to think that it can rely on companies and citizens to do all its work, i.e. shift its responsibilities to the public.

[michael gurstein]

Tks James (but ya gotta spell my name right :)

 

You make a very good point about Open Government Data below and I guess what I'm thinking of here are the "public"/non-commercial uses rather than the "governmental" issues (which are Tracey's concern and are matters I guess of policy/politics...

 

Thus the issue becomes as you say, a question of how to ensure that this latter work gets done in a very constrained resource environment.

 

Best,

 

Mike Gurstein

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James McKinney
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 10:58 AM
To: civicaccess discuss r 
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open Data, added values and licenses

 

Re: Gurnstein's "ensuring a non-commercial use of the data": I think this is an important point, but I think we need to think of what exactly we want the government to build. In the case of parks, the government maintains camp sites, hiking trails, etc. What's the corollary in terms of open data? I'm not sure there is one, or that one is missing. Here's why. The data that the government is making available as open data, it already had; it didn't source new data just to put it on its open data portal. Why did it have this data? Because it was using it. For what? For the public good (hopefully). To me, open government data is just: "Here's some of the data that helps us do our job. Let's see what you can do with it." The government is already using it. I only see two concerns. (1) We may be saying that we want it to use its data more (fund Statcan better, etc.). (2) We don't want it to think that it can rely on companies and citizens to do all its work, i.e. shift its responsibilities to the public.