[Talk-GB] Historic England designation data

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On 24 May 2016 at 13:37, Roger James <roger at beardandsandals.co.uk> wrote:
> Historic England have made their designation data available as shapefile
> downloads.
>
> https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/data-downloads/
>
> These appear to be covered by the following licence which references the OS
> opendata licence
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/3467kwj3pos6ewa/OSOpenData_HE.pdf?dl=0
>
> Has anyone used this data in OSM or got any comments about it and the
> suitability of the licence for use in OSM?

I believe that licence isn't suitable for OSM, as some of the terms
(notably 3-6, 8) are not forwards compatible with the ODbL that OSM
uses. However, I've already asked Historic England (aka the "Historic
Buildings and Monuments Commission for England") if they can licence
their data under the standard OGL (which is ok for OSM) instead. My
request and their reply is online at
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re_use_request_for_national_heri
.

I think what they're saying in their reply is that any of the data
available from https://services.historicengland.org.uk/NMRDataDownload/SecurePages/Download.aspx
may in fact be used under the OGL, and that they'll be updating the
web pages to reflect that soon. Given licensing complexities, and the
possibility of some at Historic England misunderstanding something,
I'd personally rather wait until the web pages are updated. Also, as
you technically you still have to explicitly click "I agree" to the
previous terms before you download the data, it's not entirely clear
whether what they wrote in response to my WDTK request would be
binding.

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker