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Mapping the Public Domain – Call for Assistance!
For a while we’ve been planning to help to produce a set of Public Domain Calculators – which each aim to indicate whether or not a given work is in the public domain in a given jurisdiction. The idea arose in relation to our Public Domain Works project (a registry of works in the public […]
Read moreItalian Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added an Italian translation of the annotated Open Knowledge Definition – thanks to Primavera De Filippi, Andrea Glorioso and Juan Carlos De Martin at the NEXA Center for Internet & Society, Politecnico di Torino! If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in […]
Read moreMore Text Up from Shakespeare’s Entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition
Another 3 pages (4600 words) are up from the EB 11 Entry on Shakespeare covering most of Shakespeare’s plays in chronological order. Current material can be found on: Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition page Source version (plain text in subversion) can be found at: http://knowledgeforge.net/shakespeare/svn/trunk/shksprdata/ancillary/britannica-11th.txt
Read moreVersioned Domain Model v0.2 with Support for SQLAlchemy Released
v0.2 of versioned domain model is now finally done — it was 95% complete in Feb but it has taken another 3 months to iron out the last bugs and polish up! Apart from being a concrete implementation of a system for versioning data(bases) — and therefore important for efforts to do more collaborative development […]
Read moreAfter the first Open Visualisation Workshop
The first Open Visualisation Workshop took place on Saturday as we mentioned last week. Details, notes and links are available on the event’s wiki page. The event took place at Trampoline Systems’ new site in East London. To make sure the event was as informal as it was billed to be – we left the […]
Read moreOpen Visualisation Workshop, Saturday 24th May 2008, Trampoline Systems
As we mentioned last month we’ve been organising an informal, hands-on workshop focusing on open source visualisation technologies. This will take place on this coming Saturday in London. Details are as follows: When: Saturday 24th May 2008 from 11 am until whenever people need to leave (probably 4 or 5 pm); Where: Trampoline Systems, 8-15 […]
Read moreDispatches from Digistan
Chris Puttick of OpenArchaeology sends news of the Digital Standards Organisation: A new group is being formed to promote open digital standards, starting with a declaration regarding the importance of digital standards being truly open. Part of Digistan’s effort to promote understanding, development, and adoption of open digital standards implies a clear definition of what […]
Read moreBeyond Strong and Weak: Towards a Typology of Open Access
Over the past week or so there has been a flurry of posts about ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ open access, including the following: Strong and weak OA, Peter Suber What’s in a Name? Strong and Weak Open Access, Glyn Moody The Two Forms of OA Have Been Defined: They Now Need Value-Neutral Names, Stevan Harnad Lower […]
Read moreFirst Open Knowledge London Meetup on Wednesday 30th April
The first Open Knowledge London meetup will take place this Wednesday at the London Knowledge Lab. The meetup should be great opportunity for informal discussion of open knowledge projects and issues. If you’d like to participate or present, please add details to the wiki page! When: Wednesday 30th April, 19:00-21:00 Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 […]
Read moreSPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals
SPARC Europe (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) have just announced a new SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals. In order for journals to be approved, they must use a Creative Commons Attribution license – which is compliant with the Open Knowledge Definition. It is great […]
Read moreOpen Scholarly Communities on the Web
Dr. Paolo D’Iorio recently invited me to attend the first meeting of an EU funded Working Group “devoted to analyzing the current debate on the legal, economic and social conditions for setting-up open scholarly communities on the web”. The meeting was part of COST: COST – European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical […]
Read moreOpen Shakespeare / Milton Mini Hackathon and Planning Session
After a fairly quiet period over the last 6 months development will be hotting up again thanks to discussion at Open Knowledge 2008 and the involvement of Iain Emsley (who will be focusing especially on a sister Milton project). To kick this off we’re planning a mini-hackathon: Wiki page: (sign up here) http://www.okfn.org/wiki/MiniEvents When: Saturday […]
Read moreOpen Visualisation Workshop in London
We are currently in the process of organising an informal, hands-on workshop for those who work with, or are interested in, open-source visualisation technologies: http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenVisualisation/Workshop http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenVisualisation The event will take place somewhere in central London on a weekend in May. If you are interested in participating, please add your name to the wiki page and […]
Read moreOpen Textbooks Statement to Make Textbooks Affordable
Make Textbooks Affordable, a campaign composed of Student Associations and Public Interest Research Groups from across the US, yesterday released a statement in support of open textbooks signed by 1000 academics. From the press release: Open textbooks are complete, reviewed textbooks written by academics that can be used online at no cost and printed for […]
Read moreOpen Data Going Mainstream?
Bret Taylor’s recent post entitled “We Need a Wikipedia for Data” has been garnering a lot of attention around the blogosphere. While his suggestions are not particularly novel, the post and the attention it has garnered, is, I think, indicative of the growing interests in the issues of (open) data and its importance for the […]
Read moreOKCon 2008 Documentation and Open Knowledge Local Groups!
We’re pleased to announce that audio, images and slides from OKCon 2008 are now available at the Post-Event Information page. Most of the material can be obtained from the OKF subversion repository. If you’ve blogged the event or have pictures or the like, please let us know and we’ll post a link from the Post-Event […]
Read moreFree our Bills!
Free Our Bills! is a campaign led by a cheeky platypus, just escaping from the portcullis of Parliament. Sign up now, or read on… Sometimes data being free isn’t good enough – it needs to be released in a properly structured format. If you want to reproduce the text of Bills (proposed new laws in […]
Read morePublic Domain Dedication & License (PDDL) v.1.0 released at OKCon!
Jordan Hatcher, of opencontentlawyer.com and chair of the Advisory Council for the Open Knowledge Definition took the Public Domain Dedication & License out of beta on Saturday at OKCon. The PDDL (which we blogged about in December) was initially sponsored by Talis and is specifically aimed at providing a suitable license for open data — […]
Read morePublic Domain Dedication & License (PDDL) v.1.0 released at OKCon!
Jordan Hatcher, of opencontentlawyer.com and chair of the Advisory Council for the Open Knowledge Definition took the Public Domain Dedication & License out of beta on Saturday at OKCon. The PDDL (which we blogged about in December) was initially sponsored by Talis and is specifically aimed at providing a suitable license for open data — […]
Read moreThe 2008 Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is on Tomorrow at LSE in London
Our second annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is taking place tomorrow. Like last year, the event will bring together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of seminars and workshops. Though we’re nearing capcity, there are still a few places left for last minute registrants! Details When: Saturday 15th March […]
Read moreReview of economics of trading funds published by UK Government
Hot off the press – the UK’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has published a review of the economics of trading funds. The review follows (I think) recommendation 9 of the Power of Information review: Recommendation 9. By Budget 2008, government should commission and publish an independent review of the costs and benefits […]
Read moreBasque Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added a Basque translation of the Open Knowledge Definition – thanks to Gotzon Egia. If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in touch on our discuss list, or at info at the OKF’s domain name.
Read moreOpen Bibliographic Data: The State of Play
Given the public role of libraries and the fact that bibliographic metadata (i.e. the material in library catalogues) doesn’t seem that exciting from a commercial point of view you might think that, of all the types of data out there, it would be bibliographic data that would be the most open. You might even think, […]
Read moreCatalan and Spanish Translations of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
Following on from a spate of fresh translations of the Open Knowledge Definition last week, we’ve just added translations in Spanish and Catalan – thanks to Ignasi Labastida i Juan of CC Spain and CC Catalonia. Once again – if you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, of if you’ve already done so, […]
Read moreDavid Cameron for open knowledge?
In a speech today, the Leader of the Opposition in the UK said some interesting things about freeing up Government information. He begins with some general open information philosophy: But look at our Government at home. It’s still bureaucratic, still top-down and still old-world. It still thinks it knows best and that it should keep […]
Read morePolish Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’re on a bit of a roll with translations of the Open Knowledge Definition! We’ve now got a Polish translation thanks to JarosÅ‚aw Lipszyc. Again – if you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, of if you’ve already done so, please get in touch on our discuss list, or at info at the […]
Read moreDanish Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve now added a Danish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) to opendefinition.org – thanks to Peter Froberg. We look foward to adding more translations in the near future. If you would like to help out translating the Definition into another language – please don’t hesitate to get in touch on our discuss list.
Read moreCreative Commons adopts ‘Free Cultural Works’ seal of approval
Yesterday Creative Commons announced that their Attribution and Attribution Sharealike licenses will feature a seal of approval and link to Freedom Defined – the Definition of Free Cultural Works. We’ve been in touch with Freedom Defined since May 2006 (we blogged about the project last year) as their aims are so similar to that of […]
Read moreA Traffic Data Odyssey
Recently, partly as an experiment regarding access to government data, partly out of genuine interest in the material itself, I looked into getting hold of some UK traffic count data — useful for, among other things, doing traffic analysis which is key to much road planning and policy (see e.g. this work by R J […]
Read moreOpen Definition Advisory Council launched
We are pleased to announce the launch of an Advisory Council for opendefinition.org. The Council will be formally responsible for maintaining and developing the Definitions and associated material found on the Open Definition site – including the Open Knowledge Definition and the Open Service Definition. As many of you will know, these definitions aim to […]
Read moreWhen is my bus?
Sometimes you find some data whose lack of freedom is totally mysterious from a commercial point of view. At mySociety, we recently released made some travel time maps which help you work out where you should live that would have the quickest commute to your place work. Interactive flash sliders to balance this delicate equation […]
Read moreSpeaking at Oxford Geek Night on Open Knowledge and Componentization
Tomorrow I’ll be speaking with Nate Olson at the latest Oxford Geek Night on the subject of Open Knowledge and Componentization. Here’s the blurb: Componentization on a large scale (such as in the Debian ‘apt’ packaging system) has allowed large software projects to be amazingly productive through their use of a decentralised, collaborative, incremental development […]
Read moreOn Getting Raw Data for Cancer Research
Andrew Vickers, a biostatistician at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, recently published an article in the New York Times about his experiences trying to get hold of raw data for cancer research: Cancer Data? Sorry, Can’t Have It. In it he describes various difficulties he has encountered trying to get hold of the […]
Read moreCKAN 0.5 Released
The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) version 0.5 has just been released. Changes include: feature to list and search tags feature to make data available in machine-usable form via sql dump feature to purge a revision and associated changes support for reserved html characters in urls upgrade to Pylons 0.9.6 new spam management utilities including […]
Read moreFirst COMMUNIA Workshop – “Technology and the Public Domain”
Last week I went to the first COMMUNIA workshop on Technology and the Public Domain in Turin. COMMUNIA coordinator Juan Carlos De Martin and Rishab Ghosh of MERIT, University of Maastricht gave opening talks. I was on a panel with Kaitlin Thaney of Science Commons, Nathan Yergler of Creative Commons and Keith Jeffery of euroCRIS. […]
Read moreFree Knowledge Institute is launched
Today the Free Knowledge Institute is officially launched in the Netherlands: The Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) is a non-profit organisation that fosters the free exchange of knowledge in all areas of society. Inspired by the Free Software movement, the FKI promotes freedom of use, modification, copying and distribution of knowledge in four different but highly […]
Read moreMeeting on UK Public Sector Information Re-use Request Service
On Saturday I attended a ‘BarCamp’ on the Power of Information Review Recommendation 8 – which suggests there should be a re-use request service for UK Public Sector Information (we blogged about this in October). The event was organised by John Sheridan of the Office of Public Sector Information and was attended by representatives from […]
Read moreResponse to ‘The Future of Bibliographic Control’ draft from the Library of Congress
A couple of weeks back we blogged about the ‘Future of Bibliographic Control’ draft report from a working group at the Library of Congress. Since then, we’ve submitted to the group a brief, collaboratively edited response to the draft and an appendix with some additional detailed comments. The response was drafted by the Open Knowledge […]
Read moreGood news for open data: Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, Open Data Commons PDDL and CCZero
Last night Science Commons announced the release of the Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data: The Protocol is a method for ensuring that scientific databases can be legally integrated with one another. The Protocol is built on the public domain status of data in many countries (including the United States) and provides legal certainty to […]
Read moreOn data transport through payment networks
I recently ran across the Cruickshank Report, a review written in 2000 of the state of payment information systems in the UK, and enjoyed what it had to say about “money transmission” (Think ATM networks, point-of-sale networks in shops, credit card networks, as well as intra-bank schemes for larger sums.) A lot of value is […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge (OKCon) 2008: LSE, London, 15th March 2008
OKCon 2008 – ‘Open Knowledge: Applications, Tools and Services’ where: London School of Economics, London, UK when: 15th March 2008 (1030-1830) www: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/ register: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/register/ wiki: http://www.okfn.org/wiki/okcon2008/ Following on from the success of our inaugural conference last year, we’re pleased to announce that the second Open Knowledge conference (OKCon) will take place on Saturday 15th […]
Read more‘The Future of Bibliographic Control’ and Licensing Policies for Bibliographic Data
Last week the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control at the Library of Congress released their Draft Report. They are soliciting for public comment until the 15th December, in good time for final submission on the 9th January. The aim of the working group is to: Present findings on how bibliographic control and […]
Read moreBig Art Mob, public art and open heritage resources
I’ve just been poking around at the Big Art Mob website which was launched by Channel 4 earlier this year and picked up a Royal Television Society Innovation Award earlier this month. It aims to “create the UK’s first comprehensive survey of Public Art” using user-submitted camera phone pictures and a Google maps API. Though […]
Read moreKeeping “Open” Libre
Last week I attended the Jornadas gvSIG, the developer/user gathering for the open source GIS project supported by the regional government in Valencia. There seems to be a very supportive climate towards free software and open licensed data in Spain. I was impressed to hear people from commercial consultancies and local government information and infrastructure […]
Read morePublic Domain Calculators
As followers of the mailing list will know we are now planning to join forces with Creative Commons on the Internet Archive’s Open Library project. Our first step is to develop ‘public domain calculators’ for the different jurisdictions across Europe. Here a calculator is just an algorithm for determining whether a given work is Public […]
Read moreThe IPCC Data Distribution Centre – environmental data licensing
We’ve recently started looking into how much environmental data made available on the web is open in accordance with the Open Knowledge Definition. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a Data Distribution Centre (DDC) – which is a good start to see what data is available. The DDC “offers access to baseline and […]
Read moreEduserv study on open content licensing in cultural heritage sector published
Just a quick note to say that the study of usage of and attitudes towards open content licenses in cultural heritage organisations (which we blogged back in August) has now been published. The final report is available here. 107 organisations responded to the survey. The executive summary lists the following key findings: Only 4 respondents […]
Read moreGerald Aylmer Seminar 2007 – ‘Digital Horizons’
A few weeks ago, Rufus and I attended the annual Gerald Aylmer Seminar, jointly organised by the National Archives and the Royal Historical Society. The topic for the event was ‘Digital Horizons: how the digital revolution changes the relationship between historians and their historical sources’. Here are some belated jottings… Opening talk by Natalie Ceeney, […]
Read morePleiades: Lots of Ancient Geodata Released!
We’ve written about the pleiades project a couple of times before: Organized by the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S.A., Pleiades brings together a global community of scholars, students and enthusiasts to expand and enhance continually the information originally brought together by the Classical Atlas Project (1988-2000) […]
Read moreOpen social data progress
My last post here, Google vs. Facebook, was about how our own personal knowledge, that you’ve put into social networks like Facebook or MySpace, should also be open. By this I mean that you should have control of it, and it should be encoded in open formats with open protocols. The last week there’s been […]
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