[Aust-NZ] Geoscience Australia goes CC-BY [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Sun Dec 6 19:39:07 EST 2009

Hi Bruce,

Similar situation in NZ, NZGOAL is the NZ Govt Open Access Licence, being discussed at present:

http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/information-data/nzgoalframework.html

They are also suggesting CC-BY, but as I said earlier, some of us have a few reservations about this as the ideal solution for data.

Attribution is fine, provided it facilitates mashups & remixes, but there is nothing about provenance.

One site in NZ offers its data free for reuse with an attribution requirement that simply says something like "Where users believe it is reasonable, please acknowledge the source"

Unfortunately, we are in an environment where governments are seen to be, (especially in their mirror) as owners of govt data, rather than custodians of public data. So data is owned & only released where required, instead of managed & only kept private when justified.

See http://opendefinition.org/licenses for a comparison of some of the more commonly used licences.

I very much believe CC licencing for Govt data is a significant step forward, but as a data manager & user, I believe CC-BY is really only a partial solution to this issue, but because it is seen by some as a simple & total solution, we are likely to be stuck with the ramifications of adopting a less than ideal approach for years to come if it is adopted as a universal standard for data.

Cheers,

  Brent

--- On Mon, 12/7/09, Bruce Bannerman <B.Bannerman at bom.gov.au> wrote:

> From: Bruce Bannerman <B.Bannerman at bom.gov.au>
> Subject: RE: [Aust-NZ] Geoscience Australia goes CC-BY [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
> To: "'pcreso at pcreso.com'" <pcreso at pcreso.com>
> Date: Monday, December 7, 2009, 11:37 AM
> Hi Brent,
> 
> The various CC licenses are quite well respected for
> releasing data under. Many Australian government
> organisations are moving in this direction, e.g. BOM Water
> Division (and hopefully other data to follow), the Victorian
> Government etc.
> 
> I don't know if you had to chance to catch the talk at
> FOSS4G, but Anne Fitzgerald from QUT gave a good review of
> the current state of play wrt licensing.
> 
> I think that this talk was recorded for playback.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> 
> > [mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]
> On Behalf Of 
> > pcreso at pcreso.com
> > Sent: Monday, 7 December 2009 7:52 AM
> > To: OSGeo Aust-NZ; Brianna Laugher
> > Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] Geoscience Australia goes
> CC-BY
> > 
> > Hi Brianna,
> > 
> > I have some concerns about the adoption of CC licences
> for 
> > data, which are shared by others, & have been
> discussed on 
> > the net in various places...
> > 
> > CC was designed as a content licence, not a data
> licence and 
> > IMHO has two main shortcomings as a data licence (and
> open 
> > database licences have yet further idiosyncracies).
> > 
> > Firstly, CC3-BY allows the data to be released with
> whatever 
> > attribution requirements the data provider cares to
> add. Not 
> > a problem for content generally, but the point in
> releasing 
> > data is to allow it to be used & re-used with
> other data & 
> > derivative data. Tracking & implementing some
> attribution 
> > requirements in this situation can lead to situations
> where 
> > the required attribution is impossible, difficult or 
> > cumbersome for users. If CC3 is to be used for data,
> then a 
> > common & facilitative standard government
> attribution 
> > requirement should be incorporated instead of the
> usual 
> > unrestricted one, which lets everyone create their
> own.
> > 
> > Secondly, any information on data provenance
> (metadata) is 
> > not required. To be useful, all such datasets should
> have 
> > some basic metadata available. For example, data
> precision, 
> > date of release, date of expiry (or when it is due to
> be 
> > superceded), etc. A road centreline dataset, or census
> 
> > information, or land use data is of very restricted
> use 
> > unless this information is available to provide users
> with 
> > enough information to know if the dataset is
> unsuitable for 
> > the intended purpose for any reason. Without this
> information 
> > datasets can easily be misused, misinterpreted &
> provide 
> > misleading results. If I have two census datasets, but
> don't 
> > know what year each was taken.... etc. 
> > 
> > Several licences for freely available (open) data are
> 
> > available & more are being developed, much like
> the variety 
> > of licences for FOSS software (GPL. LGPL, BSD, Apache,
> MIT, etc...)
> > 
> > A few examples of Open Data licences & sources of
> information: 
> > 
> > http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/
> > https://biblios.net/pddl
> > http://www.opencontentlawyer.com/open-data/open-database-licence/
> > http://opendefinition.org/guide/data
> > 
> > 
> > One example that may be of interest, the organisation
> I work 
> > for, NIWA in NZ (comments are my opinion, not
> necessarily 
> > NIWA's :-), used to sell access to our national
> climate 
> > database. About 18 months ago we made this freely
> available. 
> > We went from around 200 paying users to currently
> about 10,000. 
> > 
> > It has implications for the organisation, and some
> users now 
> > have expectations of availability, so any downtime
> (even for 
> > a free service) can occasionally result in quite
> abusive 
> > demands, but I believe the freeing up of these data
> has been 
> > a very positive exercise overall, despite the
> inevitable 
> > leeches of such services :-)
> > 
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> >   Brent Wood
> > 
> > --- On Mon, 12/7/09, Brianna Laugher 
> > <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> > > From: Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>
> > > Subject: [Aust-NZ] Geoscience Australia goes
> CC-BY
> > > To: "OSGeo Aust-NZ" <Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org>
> > > Date: Monday, December 7, 2009, 1:28 AM Hi,
> > > 
> > > Apologies if this was discussed before, but I was
> wondering if the 
> > > Geoscience Australia move to the CC-BY license
> had come to the 
> > > collective attention?
> > > 
> > http://www.ga.gov.au/about-us/news-media/latest-news/index.jsp#commons
> > > 
> > > As a geospatial onlooker rather than
> in-the-thick-of-it 
> > member I would 
> > > be interested to hear from the folks here what
> they think this is 
> > > likely to mean, or how it may play out, eg more
> stuff available 
> > > directly online, less sales?
> > > 
> > > cheers
> > > Brianna
> > > (Wikimedia Australia)
> > > 
> > > --
> > > They've just been waiting in a mountain for the
> right
> > > moment:
> > > http://modernthings.org/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Aust-NZ mailing list
> > > Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
> > > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz
> > > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Aust-NZ mailing list
> > Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz
> > 