[p2p-research] Fwd: A free software model for open knowledge

Mon Mar 22 11:14:17 CET 2010

would it be possible for someone to volunteer to publish something on the
cake test of freedom, see
http://blog.okfn.org/2010/03/15/the-cake-test-of-freedom/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ryan <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:25 AM
Subject: [p2p-research] A free software model for open knowledge
To: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>

 Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader:

 A free software model for open
knowledge<http://blog.okfn.org/2010/03/17/a-free-software-model-for-open-knowledge/>
via Open Knowledge Foundation Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/> by jwalsh on
3/16/10

*Notes describing the talk on the work of the Open Knowledge Foundation
given last week at Jornadas SIG
Libre<http://www.sigte.udg.edu/jornadassiglibre/>
.*

[image: OKF activity graph]

I was happily surprised to be asked to give this open knowledge talk at an
open source software conference. But it makes sense - the free software
movement has created the conditions in which an open data movement is
possible. There is lots to learn from open source process, in both a
technical and organisational sense.

In English we have one word “free” where Spanish like most languages has
two, *gratis* and *libre*, signifying separately “free of cost” and “freedom
to”. The Open Source Institute coined Open Source as a branding or marketing
exercise to avoid the primary meaning “free of cost”. So whenever I say
“open” I want you to hear the word “libre” [*Later i was told that *libre *can
have meaning in at least 15 different
ways*<http://www.slideshare.net/ivansanchezortega/son-libres-los-geodatos-libres>
]

The best way to talk about the work of the Open Knowledge
Foundation<http://okfn.org/>is to look at its projects, which form an
*open knowledge stack* similar to the OSGeo software
stack.<http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Software_Stack>
Open Definition <http://opendefinition.org/>

The Open Knowledge Definition <http://opendefinition.org/okd/> is based on
the OSI Open Source Software
Definition<http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php>(which OSGeo
uses as a reference for acceptable software licenses).
*No restrictions on field of endeavour* - non-commercial-use licenses are
not open as in the OKD. An open data license will pass the cake
test<http://blog.okfn.org/2010/03/15/the-cake-test-of-freedom/>
.
Open Data Commons <http://www.opendatacommons.org/>

Open Data Commons <http://opendatacommons.org/> is run by Jordan Hatcher,
who started work on the Open Database License with support from Talis, later
extensive negotiation with the OpenStreetmap community.
ODbL<http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/>is a ShareAlike
license for data, that obviates the problems of
inapplicability of copyright to facts, and greediness of the ShareAlike
clause when it comes to use of maps in PDFs, etc.

PDDL <http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/> is a license that
implements the Science Commons
protocol<http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/>for
open access data, explicitly placing it in the public domain.

The Panton Principles <http://www.pantonprinciples.org/> are four precepts
for publishers of scientific research data who wish that data to be freely
reusable. Being openly able to inspect, critique and re-analyse data is
critical to the effectiveness of scientific research.
Open Data Grid <http://grid.okfn.org/>

The Open Data Grid <http://grid.okfn.org/> is a project in early incubation;
based on the Tahoe <http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe-lafs> distributed
filesystem. It’s in need of development effort on Tahoe to really get going.
Provide secure storage for open datasets around the edges of infrastructure
that people are already running. [image:
4340727578_da9a6671a5_b]<http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/4340727578/sizes/l/>

People are handwaving about the Cloud, but storage and backup are not
problems that it is really meant to solve. People make different claims
about the Cloud - cheaper, greener, more efficient, more flexible. Can we
get these things in other ways?

There is a saying, “never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of DAT
tapes”
Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) <http://ckan.net/>

CKAN is inspired by free software package repositories, perl’s
CPAN<http://www.cpan.org/>,
R’s CRAN <http://cran.r-project.org/>, python’s PyPi<http://pypi.python.org/>.
It provides a wiki-like interface to create minimal metadata for packages
with a versioned domain model and HTTP API.

CKAN supports groups, which can curate a package namespace - e.g. climate
data <http://www.ckan.net/group/climatedata> - and assess priorities for
turning into fully installable packages.

CKAN’s open source code <http://knowledgeforge.net/ckan/trac/> is being used
in the data package catalogue for the data.gov.uk project, part of the
Making Public Data Public effort in the UK.
datapkg <http://www.okfn.org/datapkg>

The Debian of Data - datapkg <http://www.okfn.org/datapkg> takes Debian’s *
apt* tool as inspiration for fully automatable install of data packages,
with dependencies between them. This is currently in usable alpha stage with
a python implementation.
Where Does My Money Go? <http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/>

The next challenge really is to bring the concerns and the solutions to a
mainstream public. Agustín
Lobo<http://www.ija.csic.es/gt/obster/alobowelcome.html>spoke of “a
personal consciousness but not an institutional consciousness”
when it comes to open source and open data. Media coverage, exemplary
government implementations, help to create this kind of consciousness.

Pressure for increased open access is coming from academia - for the
research data underlying papers, for the right to data mine and correlate
different sources, for library data open for re-use. Pressure is also coming
from within museums, libraries and archives - *memory institutions* who want
to increase exposure to their collections with new technology, and recognise
that open data, linked to a network of resources, will work for
sustainability and not against it.

The next generation of researchers, who are kids in school now, will grow up
with an expectation that code and data are naturally open. It will be
interesting to see what they make!

Meanwhile OpenStreetmap <http://openstreetmap.org/> is feeding several
startups, and more commercial presence in open data space will be of
benefit. Illustrative that one does not have to be proprietary to be
commercial.

Now higher-profile government projects opening data are helping to
mainstream. To what extent is open a fashionable position, to what extent is
open reflected throughout the way of working?

Open process; early release, public sharing of bugs, public discussion of
plans - everything in Nat Torkington’s post on Truly Open
Data<http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/03/truly-open-data.html>.
The opportunity to fail in public, to learn from others’ problems, and
self-interestedly collaborate.
------------------------------

I had a great time at SIG Libre 10. Oscar Fonts’ talk on OpenSearch
Geospatial interfaces to popular
services<http://unlockdata.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/opensearch-geospatial/>has
me itching to add an OpenSearch +Geo interface to CKAN, as well as to
work on getting the apparent version skew in the Geo extensions resolved
amicably.

Genís Roca <http://www.rocasalvatella.com/> spoke thought-provokingly
on *Retorno
y rentabilidad* (there isn’t really an equivalent English word -
“rentability” - less exploitative or focused than profitability).
Rentability, especially for online services, can come in ways that sustain
an organisation predictably, and don’t involve fishing in the pockets of
ultimate end-users.

Ivan Sanchez showed areas of OpenStreetmap Spain with stunning level of
detail, trees and fences, MasterMap-quality coverage. I’m inspired to pick
up JOSM <http://josm.openstreetmap.de/> and
Markaartor<http://www.merkaartor.org/>to add building-level detail
from out
of copyright 1:500 Edinburgh town
plans<http://geo.nls.uk/maps/towns/edinburgh1893/openlayers.html>at
the National
Library of Scotland’s map services <http://geo.nls.uk/maps/>.

Agustin Lobo talked about the distributed work and cross-institutional
support and benefit of the R project <http://r-project.org/>, and the impact
of open source on open access to data in science. He mentioned a Nature open
peer review experiment <http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/> that was
discarded - am thinking it wasn’t curated enough. The talk helped me to
connect the OKF’s work to the rest of the Jornadas.

The shiny slides prezi.com which many people asked for details of - this
should show embedded in the page I hope. I stupidly forgot to put URLs on
the slides which is partly why i have written this blog.

A Free Software Model for Open Knowledge <http://prezi.com/f8k9_9rnxlap/> on
Prezi <http://prezi.com/>

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