http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/The-case-for-context-in-defining-Open-Data-tp5474p5477.html
Thanks for your post, Ted, but I'm not sure I recognize what the problem is it's trying to address.
The post seems to rely on the implied notion that "open data" should refer only to good, happy things. Which I don't agree with. We've seen "open" as adjective used in endless warm, fuzzy, and fundamentally meaningless political uses; for "open data", I think we're far better off with the current more-or-less objective consensus definition.
So without getting into specific examples, it's in no way contradictory or problematic in terms of definitions for an open data release to have negative effects. Nobody with any kind of voice is claiming that all government data should be open.
> When using or building an open data site or app ask yourself:
> who is this built for, to do what with, and why? Please don’t
> only ask: is the data open enough?
Well, of course -- I don't think anyone is asking only that. Even in this community, where we know how tricky and important licenses are and so pay particular attention to them, I've never heard the argument that openness should be our sole concern. This feels a little strawmanny.
> To open data means to apply any combination of open principles
> to achieve one’s goals in the context of a particular situation.
At the moment, it doesn't. Thanks to years of effort by a global community, there's a consensus definition as to what "to open data" means (
opendefinition.org). The above definition -- which is so broad as to apply to virtually anything -- would lose us precision and hurt interoperability between open data projects (one of the essential goals of the movement), on the way to making "open data", whether as verb or noun, an empty feel-good term.
I think you'll find open-data advocates very ready to agree that open data is a tool that isn't the solution to every problem, that some data should not be open, and that it's possible and potentially desirable for a business model to embrace collaboration and openness without actually opening data. Far better to acknowledge this than try to make "open data" refer to everything good and nothing bad.