Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 14

March 12th, 2010

Welcome to the fourteenth Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter! For a plain text version for email, please see Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 14 - on our main okfn-announce list

OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 14

Contents:

  • Mapping open government data around the world
  • Launch of the Panton Principles for open data in science
  • Where Does My Money Go? The hunt for data
  • Release of Datapkg 5
  • Interested in open data for international development?
  • New features in CKAN!
  • Update on Open Shakespeare: annotations and word of the day
  • New working group on open data in archaeology
  • Draft of new attribution license for data
  • Other news in brief
  • Thanks to our volunteers!
  • Support the Open Knowledge Foundation
  • Further information

To support the OKF see: http://www.okfn.org/support

 MAPPING OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA AROUND THE WORLD

The Open Knowledge Foundation and Access Info are currently seeking information on open government data initiatives around the world, as part of a scoping paper supported by the Open Society Institute:

With major announcements from the UK and and the US in the past few months, and numerous open government data catalogues popping up around the world, there is a lot going on in the world of open government data at the moment. Hence we are putting out an open call for information about open government data around the world - including citizen-driven initiatives, official government polices and projects, mash up competitions, data sources and innovative reuses of open government data:

If you’d like to keep in touch with what we’re doing, or join the conversation, you can subscribe to our open government data mailing list

LAUNCH OF THE PANTON PRINCIPLES

We’re delighted to announce the Panton Principles for Open Data in Science were launched on February 19th.

The principles themselves state that legal status of scientific datasets should be made explicit and that content licenses are not appropriate for data. They strongly discourage non-commercial licenses and strongly encourage dedication to the public domain. You can endorse the principles at:

The first draft of Panton Principles was written in July 2009 by Peter Murray-Rust, Cameron Neylon, Rufus Pollock and John Wilbanks at the Panton Arms on Panton Street in Cambridge, UK, just down from the Chemistry Faculty where Peter works. They were then refined with the help of the members of the Open Knowledge Foundation Working Group on Open Data in Science.

We’d greatly appreciate any help in disseminating the principles - including blogging, microblogging and forwarding to relevant people!

WHERE DOES MY MONEY GO? THE HUNT FOR DATA

As you may have seen the prototype of our ‘Where Does My Money Go?’ project was launched in December.  We’ve had an excellent response to the launch - including quite a bit of press coverage in the UK and across the world - such as in the Guardian, BBC News, and the Telegraph. The prototype can be viewed at:

*http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/prototype/.

The Open Knowledge Foundation’s Lisa Evans has been hard at work acquiring and cleaning up more detailed data for the next stage of the project’s development - including via FOI requests, meetings with HM Treasury and converting existing material into more reusable formats.

If you would like to join the hunt and contribute to the project, we’d love to hear from you! You can drop Lisa and the team an email at wdmmg at okfn dot org.

  RELEASE OF DATAPKG 0.5

Part of our long term vision for the ecosysem of open data is one in which we can work with large datasets in increasingly automated ways. Hence we are pleased to announce the release of v.0.5 of Datapkg, a user tool for distributing, discovering and installing data (and content). This is a key part of making data sharing automatable.

By packaging the data its metadata becomes standardised and can be placed within a repository, such as CKAN, whereby it becomes significantly easier to find, retrieve and use: as an end-user tool it allows automated  (command-line or scripted) discovery, installation and sharing of data “packages” either standalone or via interaction with a registry like CKAN.

For further information, and documentation on Datapkg 0.5 see:

OPENING UP INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT DATA

We’re soliciting another round of feedback for the draft of a working paper on opening up data related to international development. The report covers how to legally and technically open up aid data, as well as recommendations for how to make aid data easier to find and reuse. It now has a dedicated website at:

We’re actively soliciting for comments on the paper. In particular there’s a list of questions we’re looking for input on.

CKAN 0.11 Released

The release of version 0.11 of the CKAN software, our open source registry of open data used in ckan.net and data.gov.uk is our biggest release so far, with lots of new features and improvements. This release also saw a major new production deployment with the CKAN software, powering data.gov.uk - which had its public launch on January 21st.

We’re very proud that data.gov.uk is using CKAN, our open source registry of open data, to list official UK government datasets (as we announced in October) and we’ve been working closely with the Cabinet Office team to get this out the door. Consequently, over 2500 datasets have now been released via the site!

Take a look at some of the datasets and access CKAN at:

*http://ckan.net/

OPEN SHAKESPEARE ANNOTATIONS AND WORD OF THE DAY FEATURES

OKF’s Open Shakespeare project team members have been hard at work recently. The Open Shakespeare website is part of the The Open Shakespeare package - a set of materials and tools for exploring Shakespeare’s life and works in more creative, interesting, and most importantly, open ways.

We’re delighted to announce that two new features are now live on the site. These include the annotations tool, which provides users with the ability to annotate specific text within individual plays. For an example of how this works, see:

*http://www.openshakespeare.org/work/annotate/hamlet

We’re very excited about this development, as it opens us a whole new world of collaboration in the use of Shakespeare’s works and enables in-depth information sharing within the texts themselves.

Additionally, the ‘word of the day’ feature is now live and operational on Open Shakespeare. You can see it in action on the home page or indeed, the direct link to our current Word of the Day, ‘baker’.

There are, of course, plenty of improvements to each feature that we’ll continue to work on behind the scenes, but please do feel free to start annotating away if you’ve a burning addition to make! Select a text to annotate here.

WORKING GROUP ON OPEN DATA IN ARCHAEOLOGY

To better understand archaeological research processes and to encourage others to open up archaeological knowledge, a few weeks ago we started a new Open Knowledge Foundation Working Group on Open Data in Archaeology.

We’ve also started a group on CKAN, the Open Knowledge Foundation’s registry of open data.

If you’d like to get involved with any of this, we encourage you to join our open-archaeology mailing list and introduce yourself.

Stefano Costa from the University of Siena, the Working Group Coordinator, recently wrote about the importance of ‘opening up’ archaeology on the OKF blog.

DRAFT OF OPEN DATA COMMONS ATTRIBUTION LICENSE

Early January 2010 saw the release of an Open Data Commons draft of the new attribution license, specifically aimed at data and databases. We would warmly welcome feedback on the new draft, and all and any help in circulating it to relevant parties (including legal experts, prospective users and so on)! The draft is available here.

A commentable version of the text is available at:

Meanwhile, for anyone who is interested, we’ve recently started a CKAN group for public finance data packages:

There are 26 packages listed so far, and as well as the group we’ve started a ‘reading list’ for key official documents and secondary sources on UK Government finance on the OKF wiki.

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

Other news items in brief from the open knowledge community…

If you have an item of news that you’d like us to include in the next newsletter, please let us know!

THANKS TO OKF VOLUNTEERS!

As usual, a big thank you to our volunteers and to our extended virtual community for all of their valuable input!

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you would like to know more about what we are up to, please take a look at our active projects page.

If you are interested in participating in any of the OKF’s projects, please see our participate page, or join the OKF discuss list.

For further news and comments, see our blog:

You can follow us on Identi.ca or Twitter at:

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee with company number 5133759. The registered office is 37 Panton Street, Cambridge, CB2 1HL, UK.

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Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 13

December 23rd, 2009

Welcome to the thirteenth Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter! For a plain text version for email, please see:

Microblog version:

OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER NO. 13

Contents:

  • Seasons Greetings from the Open Knowledge Foundation!
  • Where Does My Money Go? Prototype Launched
  • Data.gov.uk is using OKF’s CKAN software
  • Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2010 Call for Proposals
  • OKF at Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin
  • After the Open Data and Semantic Web workshop
  • Documentation from the Public Domain Calculators meeting
  • Climate Change, Climate Sceptics and Open Data
  • New board and advisory board members
  • Macedonian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
  • Other news in brief
  • Thanks to our volunteers!
  • Support the Open Knowledge Foundation
  • Further information

To support the OKF see: http://www.okfn.org/support

SEASONS GREETINGS FROM THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION!

A big Merry Christmas from the Open Knowledge Foundation to all our friends and supporters. In the festive spirit, we’ve put together a few images, texts and audio recordings from various open knowledge projects for your delectation. See you again in 2010!

WHERE DOES MY MONEY GO? PROTOTYPE LAUNCHED

In mid December we had the first full release of our Where Does My Money Go? prototype. The project aims promote transparency and citizen engagement through the analysis and visualisation of information about UK public spending. A winner of the Cabinet Office’s Show Us A Better Way competition, we were very pleased to publicly release the first stage of this project. Where Does My Money Go? received coverage in the BBC and the Guardian newspaper, as well as in national press in Germany, Italy and Poland.

Tom Watson MP, commented on the release:

Where Does My Money Go represents another milestone in the UK’s transparency movement. We know that transparency changes individual and institutional behaviour and this new tool will have a big impact on the way the public sector is held to account by UK citizens.

As well as being a great public benefit, Where Does My Money Go is also an immensely complicated tool to code and design. I applaud the team behind the project for their commitment and hard work. They’re leading the way in transparency and making a difference for the country.

DATA.GOV.UK IS USING OKF’S CKAN SOFTWARE

The UK Government’s public sector data site launched in private beta in October. Its using the Open Knowledge Foundation’s CKAN, an open source registry for open data, as its backend for storing information about public datasets. Over 1000 existing data sets from 7 departments are all brought together for the first time in a reusable form. There’s been quite a lot of excitement about this in the developer community and in the media, and we’re very much looking forward to the launch!

OPEN KNOWLEDGE CONFERENCE (OKCON) 2010 CALL FOR PROPOSALS

OKCon, now in its fifth year, is the interdisciplinary conference that brings together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of presentations and workshops - ‘from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata’. The Call for Proposals for OKCon 2010 is now open. We welcome proposals on any aspect of creating, publishing or reusing content or data that is open in accordance with opendefinition.org.

OKF AT CHAOS COMPUTER CONGRESS IN BERLIN

Several of us from the Open Knowledge Foundation will be at the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin after Christmas. The 26th Chaos Communication Congress takes place from December 27th to December 30th 2009. OKF Director Rufus Pollock will give a talk on ‘CKAN, apt-get for the Debian of Data’. If you’re planning to attend, we’d love to hear from you. Just send us a message.

AFTER THE OPEN DATA AND SEMANTIC WEB WORKSHOP

In November we had a workshop on Open Data and the Semantic Web in London. There event brought together key people from the semantic web community - including developers, academics, and representatives from the UK Government, the BBC, and other public bodies. There were some excellent talks, demos and discussions - and documentation is now online! At the event we also launched a new Linking Open Data Group on CKAN, our open source registry of open data.

As a result of discussions we had at the workshop, we now have two new volunteer positions at the Open Knowledge Foundation:

  • An Editor for the Linking Open Data Group on CKAN to help keep the collection of datasets up to date with the latest offerings from the LOD/semantic web community!
  • An Linking Open Data/Open Data Commons Community Liason. Open Data Commons are looking for an member of the LOD/Semantic Web community to join their Open Data Commons Advisory Council with their role being to exchange information between the two communities.

If you’re interested in either of these positions - please get in touch!

DOCUMENTATION FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN CALCULATORS MEETING

In November we also had a meeting at the University of Cambridge about building a set of Public Domain Calculators for countries across Europe. The public domain calculators will help to determine whether or not a given work is in copyright in a given jurisdiction.

We started out by reviewing existing work on the calculators. We then put together first drafts of diagrams representing copyright law in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. We also started work on a tutorial to help others getting started in building public domain flow diagrams for other countries. Finally we shot some footage for a micro-short film introducing the project - so watch this space!

CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE SCEPTICS AND OPEN DATA

To mark the UN Climate talks in Copenhagen, we launched a Climate Data Group on CKAN - a collaboration between the Open Knowledge Foundation, Clear Climate Code and the scientists at Real Climate. Environmental data is an excellent case of where sharing is the key to scaling. Research institutions must share data with each other in order to build up as detailed a picture as possible of the climate, incorporating as much evidence as possible from around the world. As much of this research is publicly funded, and due to increasing public interest, there are now strong arguments for extending this sharing from sharing between research institutions to sharing to the public.

By better documenting existing open environmental data, we hope to make some small contribution to laying the groundwork for the shared picture about the state of our climate that we currently need!

NEW BOARD AND ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS!

In the past month several new faces have joined the OKF’s Board and Advisory Board, namely:

  • Dr. Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute,
  • Glyn Moody, a technology writer and expert on all things open,
  • Mark Surman, Executive Director at the Mozilla Foundation and one of the founders of Open Everything,

We hope you join us in giving them a big welcome!

MACEDONIAN TRANSLATION OF THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE DEFINITION (OKD)

There is now a Macedonian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) thanks to Ljube Babunski. The OKD provides a clear set of standards for making content and data open - whether this is open government data, open geospatial data or open data in science. If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please let us know!

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

THANKS TO OKF VOLUNTEERS!

As usual, a big thank you to our volunteers and to our extended virtual community for all of their valuable input!

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you would like to know more about what we are up to, please take a look at our active projects page.

If you are interested in participating in any of the OKF’s projects, please see our participate page, or join the OKF discuss list.

For further news and comments, see our blog:

You can follow us on Identi.ca or Twitter at:

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee with company number 5133759. The registered office is 37 Panton Street, Cambridge, CB2 1HL, UK.

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Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12

September 29th, 2009

Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12 has just been sent out. If you would like to receive this via email, you can join our main okfn-announce list.

Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12

Welcome to the twelfth Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter!

Contents:

  • New report on sharing aid information is now open for comments
  • Open Data and the Semantic Web Workshop, London, 13th November 2009
  • Beta release of Weaving History
  • Opening up government data - give it to us raw, give it to us now!
  • Open data session at Repository Fringe 2009
  • New release of CKAN, a registry for open data
  • Postboxes, plaques and transport stops: more open data in the UK
  • Opengov.se - a registry of open government data in Sweden
  • Fields of Gold: short film about open data on EU farm subsidies
  • Open dictionary databases: an overview
  • Swedish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
  • Other news in brief
  • Thanks to our volunteers!
  • Support the Open Knowledge Foundation
  • Further information

NEW REPORT ON SHARING AID INFORMATION IS NOW OPEN FOR COMMENTS

Earlier this month we announced the publication of a new report: “Unlocking the potential of aid information”. The report, by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Aidinfo, looks at how to make information related to international development (i) legally open, (ii) technically open and (iii) easy to find. It aims to inform the development of a new platform for publishing and sharing aid information.

We are now welcoming comments on the report until Sunday 1st November 2009. The report and relevant background information can be found at:

Back in July 2009, we launched a new working group and a discussion list on open knowledge for international development.

» New report on sharing aid information is now open for comments
» Interested in open knowledge and international development?

OPEN DATA AND THE SEMANTIC WEB WORKSHOP, LONDON, 13TH NOVEMBER 2009

Semantic web technologists and advocates are increasingly beginning to see the value of ‘open data’ for the data web. Tim Berners-Lee has spoken about the importance of open data, and being able to access raw data in easy to use formats, and the Linking Open Data project demonstrates what can be done by linking together a rich variety of publicly re-usable datasets.

We’re currently organising a informal, hands-on workshop on ‘open data and the semantic web’ in London this autumn which will bring together researchers, technologists, and people interested in open data and the semantic web from both public and private sector organisations for a day of talks and discussions. Details are as follows:

  • When: Friday 13th November 2009, 1000-1800
  • Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS.
  • Wiki: http://wiki.okfn.org/SemanticWeb
  • Participation: Attendance is free. If you are planning to come along please add your name to the wiki.

The workshop is kindly sponsored by Talis, and space is provided by the London Knowledge Lab.

» Open Data and the Semantic Web Workshop, London, 13th November 2009

BETA RELEASE OF WEAVING HISTORY

In July we released the first public beta of Weaving History. Weaving History lets you create ‘factlets‘, containing basic information about historical events, persons, and so on, which you can string together to create historical ‘threads‘. These threads can then be visually represented on maps and timelines.

http://weavinghistory.org/

Each factlet can be used in a multiplicity of different threads. For example, a factlet giving the birth and death dates for Leonardo Da Vinci might be included in a thread on renaissance painting, a thread on the history of famous inventors and a thread on the history of anatomy.

» Beta release of Weaving History!

OPENING UP GOVERNMENT DATA - GIVE IT TO US RAW, GIVE IT TO US NOW!

Rufus Pollock, Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, spoke at OpenTech 2009 in July as part of a session with Richard Stirling of the Cabinet Office and John Sheridan of the Office of Public Sector Information.

His talk, titled “Opening Up Government Data: Give it to Us Raw, Give it to Us Now”, gave a blueprint for how to open up government data. Slides and audio from the session are linked to from the blog post.

» Opening Up Government Data: Give it to Us Raw, Give it to Us Now

OPEN DATA SESSION AT REPOSITORY FRINGE 2009

In July, Open Knowledge Foundation board members Jordan Hatcher and Jo Walsh gave a tutorial on open data at the Repository Fringe 2009 in Edinburgh.

Jo gave an overview of the Open Knowledge Foundation - in particular focusing on open knowledge development and componentization, as well as CKAN, KnowledgeForge and the Open Knowledge Definition.

Jordan spoke about legal aspects of open data, giving an overview of legal tools for making data open - such as the PDDL and ODbL of the Open Data Commons project.

» Open Data Session at Repository Fringe 2009

NEW RELEASE OF CKAN, A REGISTRY FOR OPEN DATA

CKAN version 0.9 was released in August. CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects.

Changes included a new bookmarklet to make it easy to add packages, listing new and recently updated packages on the front page, as well as general usability improvements, bug fixes and so on.

There are now over 590 packages in the registry - which means that on average we’ve been adding a package a day since version 0.8 was released in May!

» CKAN 0.9 Released

POSTBOXES, PLAQUES AND TRANSPORT STOPS: MORE OPEN DATA IN THE UK

There has been a spate of new open data in the UK in the past few months, including datasets containing:

  • the locations and collection times of over 116,000 postboxes;
  • the locations of over 350,000 public transport access points;
  • the locations of over 1700 plaques commemorating heritage sites.

» Where’s my nearest postbox? Open data for UK postbox locations
» Open Plaques: open data about UK heritage sites
» UK Department for Transport adds NaPTAN data to Open Street Map

OPENGOV.SE - A REGISTRY OF OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA IN SWEDEN

Opengov.se is a registry of open government data in Sweden. It makes a note of what percentage of the datasets are fully open - i.e. material that is free for anyone to re-use and re-distribute without restriction, and that is in an open format. This is currently at 16%, or 5 out of a total of 30 datasets. The open datasets can be viewed at:

The site has received favourable press coverage in Sweden, and has been feature on Swedish national television and in a national newspaper. Peter Kranz, who runs the site, has been contacted by both civil servants that want help with open data plans and politicians that want advice on how legislation should change to increase the amount of open government data.

» Opengov.se - a registry of open government data in Sweden

FIELDS OF GOLD: SHORT FILM ABOUT OPEN DATA ON EU FARM SUBSIDIES

Farm Subsidy have just released a short film called Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe’s Farm Subsidies.

The film tells the story of a campaign to open up data about where money from the Common Agricultural Policy goes - from national Freedom of Information requests from the likes of Jack Thurston and Nils Mulvad, to the construction of FarmSubsidy.org, a website which hosts cleaned up and aggregated European CAP data. It looks at the history of European farming policies, as well as news headlines resulting from the disclosure of where money goes - putting the data into context.

The film discusses the value and importance of making data open. Journalist Brigitte Alfter argues that the public have a right to know where public funds are spent. European policy analyst David Osimo talks about how making data open allows it to be aggregated, analysed and visualised by third parties - which can facilitate richer and more meaningful exploration. Finally the film alludes to Siim Kallas’s broader drive towards transparency in European institutions, and talks about how Farm Subsidy paves the way for more open access to official European datasets.

» Fields of Gold: short film about open data on European farm subsidies

OPEN DICTIONARY DATABASES: AN OVERVIEW

Open dictionaries are excellent examples of open knowledge projects. Whether monolingual or bilingual, and whether dealing with definitions, etymology, translation or pronounciation - they can often be large, collaborative undertakings.

Dictionary databases have a wide variety of potential applications - from education and research to machine translation and integration with software applications and services.

We’ve started listing several open dictionary projects and packages on CKAN at:

If you know of any other open dictionary projects - we’d love to hear about them!

» Open dictionary databases: an overview

SWEDISH TRANSLATION OF THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE DEFINITION (OKD)

We’ve just added a Swedish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) thanks to Peter Krantz and Staffan Malmgren.

If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in touch!

» Swedish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

THANKS TO OKF VOLUNTEERS!

As usual, a big thank you to our volunteers and to our extended virtual community for all of their valuable input!

SUPPORT THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION

A donation to the Open Knowledge Foundation would greatly help us with our overhead costs, including hosting (currently around £1000/year) and project development. To find out more about supporting our work, please visit:

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you would like to know more about what we are up to, please take a look at our active projects page.

If you are interested in participating in any of the OKF’s projects, please see our participate page, or join the OKF discuss list.

For further news and comments, see our blog:

You can follow us on Identi.ca or Twitter at:

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee with company number 5133759. The registered office is 37 Panton Street, Cambridge, CB2 1HL, UK.

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Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11

July 2nd, 2009

Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11 has just been sent out:

Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11

Welcome to the eleventh Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter!

Contents:

  • The OKF turns five and we need your support!
  • Open Database License (ODbL) goes 1.0
  • European Open Data Inventory + Summit
  • Launch of the Open Data Grid
  • New developments on Public Domain Works
  • Other news in brief
  • Thanks to our volunteers!
  • Support the Open Knowledge Foundation
  • Further information

THE OKF TURNS FIVE - AND WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

This month the Open Knowledge Foundation is five years old. Over those last five years we’ve done much to promote open access to information — from sonnets to stats, genes to geodata — not only in the form of specific projects like Open Shakespeare and Public Domain Works but also in the creation of tools such as KnowledgeForge and the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, standards such as the Open Knowledge Definition, and events such as OKCon, designed to benefit the wider open knowledge community. (To find out more about what we’ve been up to in the last year, you can read our latest annual report [1]).

While we have achieved a lot, we believe we can do much, much more. We are therefore reaching out to our community and asking you to help us take our vision further.

Our aim: at least a 100 supporters committed to making regular, ongoing donations of £5 (EUR 6, $7.50) or more a month.

These funds will be essential in expanding and sustaining our work by allowing us to invest in infrastructure and employ modest central support. To pledge yourself as one of those supporters all you need to do is take 30 seconds to sign up to our “100 supporters” pledge at:

We will always be a not-for-profit organization, built on the work of passionate volunteers. But with these additional funds, we believe we can make our efforts go much, much further. Please consider becoming a supporter and help us take our work forward.

OPEN DATABASE LICENSE (ODbL) GOES 1.0

Open Data Commons, an OKF affiliated project, has now released v1.0 of the Open Database License (ODbL) after 6 months of consultation. The Open Database License (ODbL) is an open share-alike license for data and databases.

This license, the first of its kind, is a major step forward for open data as there are few license currently available which are appropriate to data and databases and none which provide for share-alike (existing share-alike licenses such as the GPL, GFDL and CC By-SA are all unsuitable for data).

This work has been led by an OKF Board Member, Jordan Hatcher, and has benefited over the last 6 months of consultation from extensive comments and feedback from the open data community, especially those in the Open Street Map project.

EUROPEAN OPEN DATA INVENTORY + SUMMIT

The First European Open Data Summit in Brussels brought together journalists, researchers, civic hackers, and representatives from European institutions for two days of documenting and building on documents and datasets from European institutions and member states. Work from the event received coverage from the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times.

We presented our work on the European Open Data Inventory, which includes just under 150 packages. You can see these under the ‘eutransparency’ tag on CKAN:

For each package we looked for legal information and whether or not items could be downloaded in bulk - providing direct download links where possible. Data includes everything from budget information to statistics to postcode databases.

LAUNCH OF THE OPEN DATA GRID

We started a distributed storage project, aiming to provide distributed storage infrastructure for OKF and other open knowledge projects. After researching various technical options, we’ve launched an Open Data Grid based on Allmydata’s open-source “Tahoe” system. Anyone can store open data on the grid, or start running a storage node.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS ON PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS!

We have now completed a major load of data into the Public Domain Works database. There are now 125318 persons, 12840 items and 299141 works in the database. The data we have there comes primarily from two sources: people and book data from Philip Harper’s NGCOBA and recordings data from the online discographies provided by KCL’s CHARM project.

We also have a load more sound recordings data (~ 600k items) almost ready to go courtesy of Edward Betts and the Open Library. (And we are yet to even get started on the BBC GRAMS data …).

Also work on the public domain calculators is still ticking over. Gisle Hannemyr recently put together a first draft of a copyright flowchart for Norway.

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

THANKS TO OKF VOLUNTEERS!

As usual, a big thank you to our volunteers and to our extended virtual community for all of their valuable input!

SUPPORT THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION

A donation to the Open Knowledge Foundation would greatly help us with our overhead costs, including hosting (currently around £1000/year) and project development. To find out more about supporting our work, please visit:

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you would like to know more about what we are up to, please take a look at our active projects page.

If you are interested in participating in any of the OKF’s projects, please see our participate page, or join the OKF discuss list.

For further news and comments, see our blog:

You can follow us on Identi.ca or Twitter at:

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee with company number 5133759. The registered office is 37 Panton Street, Cambridge, CB2 1HL, UK.

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