[Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing with Statistics Canada

[John Marshall]

I agree with Bernie.

The intent of the City of Ottawa was for this data to be added to OSM.

John Marshall
Ottawa

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 9:06 AM, Bernie Connors <berniejconnors at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Stewart,
>
>       Governments are writing open data policies, creating open data
> portals, and adopting the OGL-CA Licence because they want their data to be
> used. There are many benefits for governments to do this. It makes them
> appear more transparent, it supports citizens, businesses  and researchers,
> and it largely relieves them from having to monitor and police the
> licensees of their data (although I suspect that little or no effort was
> ever applied to monitoring licencees).
>
>        So we know their intentions, we have a very permissive ‎licence,
> and the chance of OGL-CA licence issues arising are very, very slim. We
> should stop fretting over the OGL-CA derived licences and start mapping.  I
> don't hide inside my home for fear of being struck by lightning and I don't
> refrain from mapping with data that has a very permissive licence. It's not
> a perfect licence but nothing in life ever is perfect.
>
> Best regards,
> Bernie.
>
> Bernie Connors, P.Eng
> Geomatics Engineer and Civil Servant
> New Maryland, NB
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
>   Original Message
> From: Stewart C. Russell
> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 12:05 AM
> To: talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing with Statistics Canada
>
> Hi Bjenk -
>
> > I am not sure why there is confusion about Ottawa's ODL and it's
> > equivalence to OGL because the information is public but here it is to
> > clarify:
> >
> > "The Open Data License is based on version 2.0 of the “Open Government
> > Licence – Canada” which was developed through public consultation and
> > consultation with other jurisdictions"
>
> I sense your frustration, and understand that this process must be
> trying. But it's partly an artifact of the licence itself.
>
> The Open Government Licence - Canada, version 2.0 (OGL-CA) is compatible
> with OSM's licence. This was confirmed in 2013:
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ca/2013-
> November/005906.html
>
> (Paul Norman tells me that there's an official notice somewhere from
> Government confirming this, but neither he nor I can find it.)
>
> Unfortunately, one trait of the licence inherited from its parent (the
> Open Government Licence United Kingdom 2.0,
> https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/
> )
> is that it is not _reusable_. Here, reusable means that the licence is
> not specific to an organization or jurisdiction. The OGL-CA has Her
> Majesty the Queen in right of Canada baked in as Information Provider.
> No-one but the Federal government can be that Information Provider. So
> even if Municipality of X wished to adopt the “Open Government Licence -
> X” by replacing ‘Canada’ with ‘X’, it would have to make textual changes
> to the licence, and in doing so — and this is the critical part — makes
> a new and different licence from the OGL-CA.
>
> (Paul N. previously suggested that the UK OGL was more reusable, and had
> better CC BY and ODC BY compatibility than OGL-CA.)
>
> So we can't use Ottawa's data under the Federal OGL-CA.
>
> Even with the best intentions, adoption of the OGL-CA results in
> fragmentation. For example, there's the "Open Government Licence –
> Ontario", the "Open Government Licence – Toronto" and the "Open
> Government Licence - Toronto Public Library". All of these, though based
> on OGL-CA, are *different* licences, and necessarily so. Accepting the
> OGL-CA hasn't allowed OSM to automatically accept all the derivatives
> under it.
>
> (It also helps that OSM explicitly has a statement from the Federal
> Government saying that we have permission to use their data. This
> permission does not flow down to provincial or municipal data.)
>
> If one happens to be a government, or a large commercial entity, one can
> muster lawyers to ensure one's continued existence if there's a legal
> challenge. OpenStreetMap doesn't have that luxury. In order to ensure
> continuity of the OSM project, a degree of caution is required.
>
> So while access to open data is valued by the community, it would be
> lovely if someone could pay for all the lawyers needed to go over the
> licences on behalf of OSM/OSMF too. To the best of my knowledge this
> assistance has seldom been forthcoming.
>
> Best Wishes,
> Stewart
>
>
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