Hi Mia

I think that anything that distinguishes between commercial and non-commercial use cannot be considered Linked OPEN Data. It may be justifiable in its own terms, but it doesn't fit that definition and it threatens to pollute the pool of real LOD if it becomes mixed in.

I also think there's an issue to explore around the distinction between two types of usage: publication of the data e.g. displaying some facts from a 3rd party LOD source in your applications; and reasoning with the data, whereby you may use data from 3rd party A to reach data from 3rd party B, but not actually publish any data from A. If LOD sources used for reasoning have to be treated in the same way as those used for publication you potentially have a lot more complexity to deal with*, because every node involved in a chain of reasoning needs to be checked for conformance with whatever restrictions might apply to the consuming system. When a data source might contain data with a mixture of licences, so you have to check each piece of data, this is pretty onerous and will make developers think twice about following any links to that resource, so it's really important that aggregators like Culture Grid and Europeana can apply a single licence to a set of data. But again, it's also really important that we can tease out whether it's OK to simply reason across data sources without a client having to, say, give attribution and check that commercial use is permitted for every step along the way. I'm not sure the CC is really set up to allow for this distinction, although ODC-ODbL might be. Besides, if data is never published to a user interface, who could check whether it had been used in the reasoning process along the way?

Cheers, Jeremy

* how much of a technical problem this is probably depends upon whether one is essentially harvesting data, or doing live querying across distributed data sources with SPARQL, Yahoo Tables or similar.

________________________________________
From: Museums Computer Group [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 24 June 2011 12:07
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; Jeremy Ottevanger
Subject: [MCG] Your thoughts? A 4-star classification-scheme for linked open cultural metadata

Dear MCGers,

I'd love to know what you think of the proposed '4-star
classification-scheme for linked open cultural metadata' devised at
the LOD-LAM workshop in San Francisco recently (you may remember
earlier posts inviting applicants to the event). The classification
stems from a belief that "To be useful for third parties, all metadata
made available online must be published under a clear rights
statement".

To quote, "This 4-star classification system arranges those rights
statements (e.g. licenses or waivers) that comply with the relevant
conditions (2-11) of the open knowledge definition (version 1.1) by
order of openness and usefulness: the more stars the more open and
easier the metadata is to used in a linked data context. Libraries,
archives and museums wanting to contribute to the Linked Open Data
ecosystem should strive to make their metadata available under the
most open instrument that they are comfortable with that maximizes the
data’s usefulness to the community."

More info is at
http://lod-lam.net/summit/2011/06/06/proposed-a-4-star-classification-scheme-for-linked-open-cultural-metadata/
(short version if the long link is mangled: http://bit.ly/k1p18v)

You could comment directly on the post but I'm also interested in the
issues that might emerge from a discussion here.

For example, is the first star (definition below) achievable for your
organisation? In the definition below, metadata must be available for
commercial as well as non-commercial use - is that a barrier or a
bonus for you?

"★ Attribution Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA/ODC-ODbL)

as a user:

    * metadata can be used by anyone for any purpose

    * permission to use the metadata is contingent on providing
attribution in a way specified by the provider
    * metadata can only be combined with data that allows
re-distributions under the terms of this license

as a provider:

    * you get attribution whenever your data is used
    * you only allow use of your data by entities that also make make
their data available for open reuse under exactly the same license"

Cheers, Mia

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