[Talk-us] Baltimore County GIS Data is now public domain

[Richard Weait]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Elliott Plack <elliott.plack at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings OpenStreetMappers,
>
> I am very excited to announce that my organization, Baltimore County
> Government Office of Information Technology is releasing our GIS data to the
> public in a free and nonrestrictive way!

Wonderful news!  I'm thrilled to hear that you intend to make the Data
of The People, By The People and For The People, available to The
People.  :-)

Your use of "public domain" in the subject is potentially confusing,
since there is no reliable method for you to declare that the data is
in the public domain.  Please see the wiki article linked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Government_works

It would be wonderful if you would choose and attach the following
license(s) to the data, and your web site on which they are published.
 ODC PDDL (preferred, because it is specific to data), CC-Zero.

Casual references to "making the data public domain" are common, and
are probably clouding the matter even further.  :(  Sorry to play the
license-pedant-card and harsh your mellow.  You are clearly trying to
do the right thing.  So many other places / institutions make the same
casual references to "making the data public domain" that it is no
surprise that you got caught by it.