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wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

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Michael Lenczner-2

wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/

It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?

Michael Mulley

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

Initial thoughts:

- They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.

- The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the Responsabilité clause:

Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la présente licence.

My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result of the users' use of the data.

- Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating, when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.

- This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely useless. Examples:

-- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML format don't make it open data.

-- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel, not 'XML'.

-- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7 ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:

http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/

It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

Michael Lenczner-2

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

Thanks, Michael.

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

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Initial thoughts:
>
> - They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online
> beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.
>
> - The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the
> Responsabilité clause:
>
> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
> présente licence.
>
> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
> of the users' use of the data.
>
> - Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that
> query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a
> customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating,
> when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more
> and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to
> build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.
>
> - This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose
> framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely
> useless. Examples:
> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as
> 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML
> format don't make it open data.
> -- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them
> as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel,
> not 'XML'.
> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7
> ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by
> age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML
> format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead
> of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding
> skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty
> annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>>
>> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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

Glen Newton

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

In reply to this post by Michael Mulley

> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
> présente licence.
>
> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
> of the users' use of the data.

Yes, this indemnification pretty much nullifies this license as an
Open Data license.
Nasty example:
If the data provided by the Quebec government contains an error or a
fault, and you put the data in your fancy SuperOpenDataViewer(tm) and
someone uses this data and because of it is hurt or dies because of
this error, when the Quebec government is sued for $10m and loses,
this license says that you have to pay. Oh, and even if they do win,
you have to pay their legal fees.
Yes, this is an extreme example, but not impossible. It isn't even improbable.

This is the kind of license NO commercial entity would agree to, and
no lawyer would ever support a client in taking on this sort of
liability
Bad bad bad...

-Glen

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
<[hidden email]> wrote:

--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

James McKinney-2

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

I'm not sure of the proper interpretation of the French text, but Kent Mewhort had discussed the difference between liability and indemnity clauses in open data licenses on the OpenDataBC list: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/opendatabc/P_CiT4D0G8w/discussion

Most open data licenses have a liability clause that establishes that there is no warranty on the data (a warranty would allow consumers to pull publishers into their legal battles). However, none I've seen have an indemnity clause (i.e. one that allows publishers to pull consumers into their legal battles). If that's the case in QC, then that's a big problem with the license!

On 2012-06-28, at 4:07 PM, Glen Newton wrote:

>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>> présente licence.
>>
>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>> of the users' use of the data.
>
> Yes, this indemnification pretty much nullifies this license as an
> Open Data license.
> Nasty example:
> If the data provided by the Quebec government contains an error or a
> fault, and you put the data in your fancy SuperOpenDataViewer(tm) and
> someone uses this data and because of it is hurt or dies because of
> this error, when the Quebec government is sued for $10m and loses,
> this license says that you have to pay. Oh, and even if they do win,
> you have to pay their legal fees.
> Yes, this is an extreme example, but not impossible. It isn't even improbable.
>
> This is the kind of license NO commercial entity would agree to, and
> no lawyer would ever support a client in taking on this sort of
> liability
> Bad bad bad...
>
> -Glen
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Initial thoughts:
>>
>> - They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online
>> beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.
>>
>> - The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the
>> Responsabilité clause:
>>
>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>> présente licence.
>>
>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>> of the users' use of the data.
>>
>> - Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that
>> query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a
>> customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating,
>> when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more
>> and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to
>> build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.
>>
>> - This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose
>> framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely
>> useless. Examples:
>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as
>> 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML
>> format don't make it open data.
>> -- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them
>> as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel,
>> not 'XML'.
>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7
>> ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by
>> age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML
>> format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead
>> of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding
>> skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty
>> annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>>>
>>> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>
>
>
> --
> -
> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
> -
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

Stéphane Guidoin

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

In reply to this post by Michael Lenczner-2

It's also surprising that they did not incorporate some very useful
dataset that are already published a "dashboard".

For example, the famous list of "infrastructures" and "grands
chantiers", published by the Transportation Ministry
(http://www.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/pls/apex/f?p=TBM:ACCL). The dashboard is
linked in the data portal, by why not providing the underlying data?

--For those who are less aware of the situation in Québec: large
corruption investigation are ongoing, mainly around road and
infrastructure maintenance contracts as well as the pitiful state of our
road infrastructures. The dashboards linked above where published after
strong pressure from the public to know the current status of individual
structures and the cost and contractors responsible for construction and
maintenance.

Those dashboard have already been scraped by several people... But it
would be nice to have the data officially released to be analysed.

Steph

Le 12-06-28 15:17, Michael Lenczner a écrit :
> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>
> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
> .
>

Kent Mewhort

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

In reply to this post by Glen Newton

It's actually a good license in terms of its wide grant of rights and
permissions. I'm glad to see they didn't bog it down with obligations
such as "share-alike" (which should not have any place in government data).

However, in terms of risk -- rather than strike a balance, the license
does shift risks entirely to the user:

->Indemnity: As Michael and Glen noted, you have to indemnity the gov.
against any liability they face (where such liability relates to the
license / your use of the data)

->Choice of law and forum: A choice of law in favour of the licensor is
standard, but this license also sets out that solely courts of Quebec
are to have jurisdiction. Thus, even if you're in B.C. and combining
data from across Canada, you'll have to come to Quebec to deal with any
lawsuits regarding this license.

->Revocation: Interesting....the "Résiliation" clause looks fine now
(although an automatic-reinstatement clause would be better). However,
I'm certain that when I read this yesterday on my mobile it allowed
revocation for just about any reason, at the discretion of the
licensor. Looks like they changed the license since yesterday?

Kent

On 28/06/12 04:07 PM, Glen Newton wrote:

>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>> présente licence.
>>
>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>> of the users' use of the data.
> Yes, this indemnification pretty much nullifies this license as an
> Open Data license.
> Nasty example:
> If the data provided by the Quebec government contains an error or a
> fault, and you put the data in your fancy SuperOpenDataViewer(tm) and
> someone uses this data and because of it is hurt or dies because of
> this error, when the Quebec government is sued for $10m and loses,
> this license says that you have to pay. Oh, and even if they do win,
> you have to pay their legal fees.
> Yes, this is an extreme example, but not impossible. It isn't even improbable.
>
> This is the kind of license NO commercial entity would agree to, and
> no lawyer would ever support a client in taking on this sort of
> liability
> Bad bad bad...
>
> -Glen
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Initial thoughts:
>>
>> - They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online
>> beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.
>>
>> - The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the
>> Responsabilité clause:
>>
>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>> présente licence.
>>
>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>> of the users' use of the data.
>>
>> - Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that
>> query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a
>> customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating,
>> when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more
>> and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to
>> build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.
>>
>> - This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose
>> framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely
>> useless. Examples:
>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as
>> 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML
>> format don't make it open data.
>> -- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them
>> as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel,
>> not 'XML'.
>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7
>> ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by
>> age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML
>> format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead
>> of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding
>> skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty
>> annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>>>
>>> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>
>

Glen Newton

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

In reply to this post by James McKinney-2

Liability and indemnity are indeed not the same, but indemnity is still bad:

Wikipedia:"An indemnity is a sum paid by A to B by way of compensation
for a particular loss suffered by B. The indemnitor (A) may or may not
be responsible for the loss suffered by the indemnitee (B). Forms of
indemnity include cash payments, repairs, replacement, and
reinstatement."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indemnity

The core of the issue is that it is a blanket indemnification, i.e. it
does not release the licensee of indemnification in the case of
negligence or errors by the government.
Limited indemnification (in scope and cost) can be reasonable (i.e.
the licensor is indemnified in the case of negligence or errors by the
licensee, to a max of $1m), but I wouldn't accept this in any
(supposedly) Open [Source|Data] license...

Useful:
- http://www.legaltree.ca/node/565
-

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 4:19 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm not sure of the proper interpretation of the French text, but Kent Mewhort had discussed the difference between liability and indemnity clauses in open data licenses on the OpenDataBC list: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/opendatabc/P_CiT4D0G8w/discussion
>
> Most open data licenses have a liability clause that establishes that there is no warranty on the data (a warranty would allow consumers to pull publishers into their legal battles). However, none I've seen have an indemnity clause (i.e. one that allows publishers to pull consumers into their legal battles). If that's the case in QC, then that's a big problem with the license!
>
> On 2012-06-28, at 4:07 PM, Glen Newton wrote:
>
>>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>>> présente licence.
>>>
>>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>>> of the users' use of the data.
>>
>> Yes, this indemnification pretty much nullifies this license as an
>> Open Data license.
>> Nasty example:
>> If the data provided by the Quebec government contains an error or a
>> fault, and you put the data in your fancy SuperOpenDataViewer(tm) and
>> someone uses this data and because of it is hurt or dies because of
>> this error, when the Quebec government is sued for $10m and loses,
>> this license says that you have to pay. Oh, and even if they do win,
>> you have to pay their legal fees.
>> Yes, this is an extreme example, but not impossible. It isn't even improbable.
>>
>> This is the kind of license NO commercial entity would agree to, and
>> no lawyer would ever support a client in taking on this sort of
>> liability
>> Bad bad bad...
>>
>> -Glen
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Initial thoughts:
>>>
>>> - They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online
>>> beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.
>>>
>>> - The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the
>>> Responsabilité clause:
>>>
>>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>>> présente licence.
>>>
>>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>>> of the users' use of the data.
>>>
>>> - Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that
>>> query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a
>>> customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating,
>>> when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more
>>> and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to
>>> build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.
>>>
>>> - This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose
>>> framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely
>>> useless. Examples:
>>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as
>>> 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML
>>> format don't make it open data.
>>> -- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them
>>> as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel,
>>> not 'XML'.
>>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7
>>> ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by
>>> age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML
>>> format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead
>>> of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding
>>> skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty
>>> annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -
>> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
>> -
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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

--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

James McKinney-2

Re: wondering if anyone has explored the new Quebec portal or license?

Yes, I agreed that indemnity is bad - I apologize if my remarks suggested otherwise!

On 2012-06-29, at 9:11 AM, Glen Newton wrote:

> Liability and indemnity are indeed not the same, but indemnity is still bad:
>
> Wikipedia:"An indemnity is a sum paid by A to B by way of compensation
> for a particular loss suffered by B. The indemnitor (A) may or may not
> be responsible for the loss suffered by the indemnitee (B). Forms of
> indemnity include cash payments, repairs, replacement, and
> reinstatement."
> - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indemnity
>
> The core of the issue is that it is a blanket indemnification, i.e. it
> does not release the licensee of indemnification in the case of
> negligence or errors by the government.
> Limited indemnification (in scope and cost) can be reasonable (i.e.
> the licensor is indemnified in the case of negligence or errors by the
> licensee, to a max of $1m), but I wouldn't accept this in any
> (supposedly) Open [Source|Data] license...
>
> Useful:
> - http://www.legaltree.ca/node/565
> -
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 4:19 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I'm not sure of the proper interpretation of the French text, but Kent Mewhort had discussed the difference between liability and indemnity clauses in open data licenses on the OpenDataBC list: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/opendatabc/P_CiT4D0G8w/discussion
>>
>> Most open data licenses have a liability clause that establishes that there is no warranty on the data (a warranty would allow consumers to pull publishers into their legal battles). However, none I've seen have an indemnity clause (i.e. one that allows publishers to pull consumers into their legal battles). If that's the case in QC, then that's a big problem with the license!
>>
>> On 2012-06-28, at 4:07 PM, Glen Newton wrote:
>>
>>>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>>>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>>>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>>>> présente licence.
>>>>
>>>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>>>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>>>> of the users' use of the data.
>>>
>>> Yes, this indemnification pretty much nullifies this license as an
>>> Open Data license.
>>> Nasty example:
>>> If the data provided by the Quebec government contains an error or a
>>> fault, and you put the data in your fancy SuperOpenDataViewer(tm) and
>>> someone uses this data and because of it is hurt or dies because of
>>> this error, when the Quebec government is sued for $10m and loses,
>>> this license says that you have to pay. Oh, and even if they do win,
>>> you have to pay their legal fees.
>>> Yes, this is an extreme example, but not impossible. It isn't even improbable.
>>>
>>> This is the kind of license NO commercial entity would agree to, and
>>> no lawyer would ever support a client in taking on this sort of
>>> liability
>>> Bad bad bad...
>>>
>>> -Glen
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Michael Mulley
>>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>> Initial thoughts:
>>>>
>>>> - They've indexed quite a few datasets, at least. I believe most were online
>>>> beforehand, but they did go through the effort to find and list them.
>>>>
>>>> - The (new) license is brief and seems mostly fine, except for the
>>>> Responsabilité clause:
>>>>
>>>> Vous vous engagez à prendre fait et cause et à indemniser l’Administration
>>>> gouvernementale de tous recours, réclamations, demandes, poursuites et
>>>> autres procédures pris par toute personne relativement à l’objet de la
>>>> présente licence.
>>>>
>>>> My legal French is not exactly strong, but I think that means that users
>>>> take legal responsibility for all lawsuits against the province as a result
>>>> of the users' use of the data.
>>>>
>>>> - Appears to be a custom portal. Or, rather, based on the fact that
>>>> query-string parameters (e.g. topic=) are in English, I'm guessing it's a
>>>> customisation of an off-the-shelf CMS of some kind. But it's frustrating,
>>>> when there are so many dedicated data-portal packages available, to see more
>>>> and more crappy custom sites pop up, especially when it likely cost more to
>>>> build it than to, say, put up a CKAN instance.
>>>>
>>>> - This might turn into a minor rant: XML is not data format. It's a loose
>>>> framework for data formats, and saying "this data is in XML" is largely
>>>> useless. Examples:
>>>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=msss_305 is listed as
>>>> 'XML'. It's a Word document. That you can save a Word document into a XML
>>>> format don't make it open data.
>>>> -- There are also several Excel documents. In most cases I'd rather see them
>>>> as CSV, but I have no real quarrel with Excel -- but the data type is Excel,
>>>> not 'XML'.
>>>> -- http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/?node=/donnees-details&id=5dd015ba-966a-418b-8118-df0e8760e3f7
>>>> ("Writers who have never considered permanently leaving the profession, by
>>>> age group"!) is, along with several other things on the site, in an XML
>>>> format I've never seen before. And it's tabular data. By using XML instead
>>>> of CSV here, they are making it very difficult for someone without coding
>>>> skills to use the data (whereas anyone with Excel can use CSV), and plenty
>>>> annoying for someone who can write the necessary code.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/
>>>>>
>>>>> It doesn't look too impressive upon first look. Other thoughts?
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