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Flickr put shapefiles in the public domain
Last week there was some great news from Flickr: We are releasing all of the Flickr shapefiles as a single download, available for use under the Creative Commons Zero Waiver. That’s fancy-talk for “public domainâ€. They gave the following reasons for their decision: We want people (developers, researchers and anyone else who wants to play) […]
Read moreINSPIRE Directive heading towards UK law
INSPIRE, the directive establishing a spatial data infrastructure for environmental information in Europe, is heading into UK law at last. DEFRA is doing a consultation on the transposition of the law and OKFN will hopefully co-submit a response by 26th May with the Open Rights Group, a summary of the responses is on the okfn-discuss […]
Read moreData.gov goes live!
The US governments new data.gov site (which we blogged about last month) is now live! There are currently a selection of core datasets available – from information about World Copper Smelters to results from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey. Raw data is available in XML, Text/CSV, KML/KMZ, Feeds, XLS, or ESRI Shapefile formats. As well […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009 – Post-Event Information
We’re pleased to announce that slides, audio and photos from OKCon 2009 are now available at: http://okfn.org/okcon/2009/after Speakers included: Mark Charmer, AKVO Vinay Gupta, Appropedia Simon Parrish, Aidinfo + Karin Christiansen, PublishWhatYouFund Tom Scott, BBC Jeni Tennison, London Gazette + RDFa Leigh Dodds, Talis David Bollier, OnTheCommons + Author of Viral Spiral If you have […]
Read moreVirtual Meeting for Open Textbooks, 20th May 2009
The Community College Open Textbook Project, California Digital Marketplace, and the Open Knowledge Foundation invite those with an interest in open textbooks to a meeting on Wednesday, May 20th at 1330-1530 pm PDT (2130-2330 GMT or 2230-0030 CET). The meeting will be primarly focused on metadata, tagging, interoperability issues, and repository efforts for open textbooks. […]
Read moreLaunch of Open Data Grid
In the last couple of months we’ve had several threads on the okfn-discuss list about distributed storage for open data (see here and here). Last month 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 […]
Read moreCornell University Library keeps reproductions of public domain works in the public domain
Yesterday Cornell University University Library announced that it will ‘remove all restrictions’ on digital reproductions of public domain works, meaning these are open as in opendefinition.org. From the press release: ITHACA, N.Y. (May 11, 2009) – In a dramatic change of practice, Cornell University Library has announced it will no longer require its users to […]
Read moreCKAN 0.8 Released
A new release of CKAN is now out together with a new, and substantially improved versioned domain model library. Changes include: View information about package history (ticket:53) Basic datapkg integration (ticket:57) Show information about package openness using icons (ticket:56) One-stage package create/registration (r437) Reinstate package attribute validation (r437) Upgrade to vdm 0.4 The CKAN code […]
Read moreEuropean Open Data Summit
Last week was the first European Open Data Summit in Brussels (which we blogged about here) organised by EU Transparency, who created farmsubsidy.org. The event 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. At the […]
Read moreCKAN package party and general online meetup: Saturday 16th May 2009
We’re planning another CKAN package party + general OKFN online meetup for Saturday 16th of May. It’s a general meetup but with a focus on CKAN packaging so feel free to come and chat about anything open knowledge related — everyone and anyone is welcome. When: Saturday 16th May 2009, 1430-1730 BST (1330-1630 GMT, 0930-1230 […]
Read moreOpen Data Commons Release v1.0 Release Candidate for Open Database License
Open Data Commons, a project we help host, has put out a v1.0 “Release Candidate” for their Open Database License (ODbL). As it states in the announcement: This updated version of the license incorporates a whole set of changes arising out of the earlier comments period and the main changes are summarized below. As the […]
Read more5th Communia Workshop: Post-Event Information + Statement
The 5th Communia Workshop took place last month at the London School of Economics. It brought together researchers, policy-makers, stakeholders and representatives from across Europe, the United States and Australia for two days of talks and discussions about reusing public sector content and data. In the afternoon of the first day, participants co-drafted a simple […]
Read moreEuropean Open Data Inventory
We’re currently working on a European Open Data Inventory: This is an inventory of EU-relevant datasets that is being compiled by EU Transparency, the NGO that made farmsubsidy.org and the Open Knowledge Foundation. It includes data that is already available, as well as data that we know exists but is not published – from budget […]
Read moreOpen Everything NYC, 18th April 2009
In the past, we have been involved in Open Everything London and Open Everything Berlin. John Britton, who organised Open Everything Hong Kong, is now organising an Open Everything NYC event which will take next Saturday 18th April. It should be a great opportunity to meet other people interested in ‘openness’ – from open knowledge […]
Read moreUS CIO Kundra Plans data.gov Site
I just saw this transcript of US CIO Kundra’s first conference call where he states: VK: One of the things we want to do is embark on launching data.gov which would democratize data and give data access to the public and based on that challenge whether it is citizens, NGOs the private sector to help […]
Read moreTalis launches ‘Connected Commons’ for open data at OKCon 2009
We’re pleased to announce that Talis launched their Connected Commons for open data at OKCon 2009 on Saturday! The Talis Connected Commons scheme is intended to directly support the publishing and reuse of Linked Data in the public domain by removing the costs associated with those activities. The scheme is intended to support a wide […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009: Saturday 28th March
Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009 will take place next Saturday 28th March – less than a week away! where: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, London when: 28th March 2009, 1030-1830 home: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/ register: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/register/ If you plan to attend, and haven’t registered yet – we encourage you to book your ticket now as space […]
Read more5th COMMUNIA Workshop: Programme Details
The 5th COMMUNIA Workshop will take place in London next week – on the 26-27th March. There’s a great programme of speakers – and details of which are below. There are a handful of tickets left – so if you’d like to come along, make sure and register now! If you aren’t able to make […]
Read moreBeta version of the Open Database Licence (ODbL)
As we announced in January the OKF has adopted the Open Data Commons project. As part of the project Jordan Hatcher has been working on a new Open Database License (ODbL) – which went into beta at the end of last month: The Open Database Licence (ODbL) is a licence agreement intended to allow you […]
Read moreWorking Group on Open Data in Science
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Working Group on Open Data in Science. In the first instance, the group will aim to: Act as a central point of reference and support for people who think they are interested in open data in science. Identify practices of early adopters, collecting data and […]
Read moreAppropedia: open knowledge for sustainability and development
Appropedia is a wiki for sharing knowledge related to sustainability and development: Appropedia is the site for collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development through the use of appropriate technology and the sharing of project information. Started in 2006, there are currently over 14,000 pages – covering everything from DIY energy and sanitation […]
Read moreChris Corbin joins OKF Advisory Board
We are pleased to announce that Christopher Corbin is now a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation Advisory Board: Christopher Corbin is an independent researcher and advisor on the information society and the knowledge economy with specific interest in policy and its implementation with respect to public sector information. He is an openly selected expert […]
Read moreAkvo: open knowledge project for water and sanitation
Akvo is a project to share tools and resources related to water and sanitation: Akvo creates and shares internet tools that help to provide clean water and proper sanitation to those who today have none. We help everyone share knowledge, match more projects to funds, and simplify reporting. We work with people around the world […]
Read moreOpen Everything Berlin + CC Salon Berlin
After the success of open everything Berlin last December (see documentation), the newthinking network and CC Salon Berlin teamed up to put on another event in Berlin last night: CC Salon Berlin and openeverything focus – Feb. 26 (CC Blog) openeverything focus + CC Salon (Michelle Thorne’s blogpost) I was invited to speak – and […]
Read more“Open Shakespeare Edition” Book Design
We’ve been thinking for a while that it would be a nice addition to the Open Shakespeare project to produce an “Open Shakespeare Edition” of the Bard’s works. By an ‘Edition’ we meant something designed as a book and suitable for printing: so an elegant title page, relevant front-matter, properly typeset text etc. This could […]
Read morePublic Interest Information Policy in Germany
I was recently asked to write a piece for Berlin-based think tank Das Progressive Zentrum on public interest information policy in Germany: Wem gehört das Wissen? Informationspolitik in Deutschland (Shorter German version) Public Interest Information Policy in Germany (Longer English version) The piece finishes with three policy suggestions: Support legislation as well as licensing and […]
Read moreKForge v0.15 Released
Another release of KForge is out. KForge is the software we use to run: http://www.knowledgeforge.net/ The code is now pretty stable, being 1.0 is in all but name and so releases are fewer and further between. This release saw some significant feature additions plus bugfixes and documentation improvements. Changes include: KForge plugin discovery via setuptools […]
Read moreComments on the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data
Here I briefly comment on the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data as the protocol strongly advocates a position of ‘PD’-only. As will be apparent from the earlier essay on Open Data: Openness and Licensing I do not entirely share this view. The Protocol gives 3 basic reasons for preferring the ‘PD’ approach […]
Read moreFacts and Databases
[This post is an addendum to the earlier essay on Open Data: Openness and Licensing] It is important to be clear that any IP ‘rights’ in data(bases) are not ‘rights’ in the facts those data represent but in the ‘data collection’ (or database). Here I try to explain the difference (fairly crudely) with some examples. […]
Read moreBarCamp UKGovWeb 2009
Last Saturday was BarCamp UKGovWeb at the Ministry of Justice. There were plenty of new faces in addition to the usual suspects! Three sessions that we found particularly interesting: Directgov and Innovation: Directgov have launched a new innovate part of their site, and are keen on supporting innovation around government data (mashups, services, etc.) from […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009: London, 28th March 2009
where: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, London when: 28th March 2009, 1030-1830 home: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/ programme: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/programme register: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/register/ call for proposals: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/cfp/ last year: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/2008/ The Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is back for its fourth installment bringing together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of discussions workshops. This […]
Read moreOpen Data: Openness and Licensing
Why does this matter? Why bother about openness and licensing for data? After all they don’t matter in themselves: what we really care about are things like the progress of human knowledge or the freedom to understand and share. However, open data is crucial to progress on these more fundamental items. It’s crucial because open […]
Read morePhotographing public domain works – Wikipedia Loves Art launches on Sunday!
This coming Sunday 1st February will be the first day of Wikipedia Loves Art – which will run until the end of the month. The event will see cultural heritage institutions around the world open up their doors for the public to take pictures of items in their collections that have passed into the public […]
Read moreInterview with Rufus Pollock on NetSquared
Jed Sundwall of Netsquared just published an interview with Rufus Pollock, co-founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation. The interview includes discussion about the distinction between price and value, about the Open Knowledge Definition, about CKAN, about decentralised approaches to working with large quantities of data, about packaging for knowledge and about ‘Shiny Front End Syndrome’. […]
Read moreOpen Economics: Recent Progress
Recently we made some substantial improvements/additions to our Open Economics project including: Improved javascript graphing. Extend Millenium Development Goals package and added web interface. First efforts at ‘Where Does My Money Go’ Aim: Dig up govt finance info and visualize the results (online) http://okfn.org/wiki/projects/Where_Does_My_Money_Go More details on each of these can be found below. Also […]
Read moreOpen Data Commons now at the OKF
Just over a year ago Open Data Commons was launched as a home for the new open data licenses such as the PDDL which had been developed by Jordan Hatcher and Dr Charlotte Waelde. From early on, Jordan, the legal expert and aficianado-of-openness and the main mover behind these efforts, had been talking with us […]
Read moreWhat Obama can do to promote openness
With the inauguration of US President-Elect Barack Obama later today – we thought we’d prepare a brief list of things he can do to promote openness in his new role. Open government data. Make core government data open (as in opendefinition.org) – so that it can be re-used in mashups, visually represented, used in semantic […]
Read moreIcelandic Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
Over the holiday we added an Icelandic translation of the Open Knowledge Definition! Many thanks to Hjalmar Gislason and Icelandic Open Data! 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 moreMore library-related open data!
You may have heard that lcsh.info – which explored how Library of Congress Subject Headings could be represented as a Semantic Web application – was closed down last month. The good news is that there are now two new projects publishing library-related open data: http://ckan.net/package/read/iconclass http://ckan.net/package/read/hud-library-usagedata The first, ICONCLASS, is “an experimental service that makes […]
Read more5th COMMUNIA Workshop: Accessing, Using and Reusing Public Sector Content and Data, London, 26-27th March 2009
Update (2009-02-23): registration for this workshop is now open. There is also a provisional programme. We are pleased to announce that the 5th COMMUNIA Workshop, “Accessing, Using and Reusing Public Sector Content and Data” will take place in London in March 2009. Details are as follows: When: 26-27th March 2009 Where: New Academic Building, London […]
Read moreHans Rosling of Gapminder joins the OKF Advisory Board!
We are excited to announce that Professor Hans Rosling, Director of the Gapminder Foundation and Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet, has joined the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Advisory Board! The Gapminder project is an excellent example of how public data can be built upon to create rich and compelling new applications. Hans is a […]
Read moreAustralian Bureau of Statistics to use an open license!
In just over a week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will release a new version of their website – which will mostly be under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia license. From the announcement: Creative Commons provides a spectrum of licensing for the use of intellectual property between full copyright and public domain – […]
Read moreOpen Milton launched for Milton’s 400th birthday!
The 9th of December 2008 is John Milton’s 400th birthday. To celebrate this life-long advocate of liberty we’ve officially launched ‘Open Milton’ – an open set of Milton’s works, together with ancillary information and tools, in a form designed for reuse: http://www.openmilton.org/ The Open Milton project has two main objectives: Provide the works of John […]
Read moreMusopen – free public domain music!
Musopen is a charity that aims to produce and distribute recordings and sheet music of public domain music. Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music. We want to give the world access to music without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has […]
Read moreBiblios – “world’s largest database” of open bibliographic data goes beta!
Biblios.net, “the world’s largest database of freely-licensed library records”, is now beta-testing. From their website: ‡biblios.net is a subscription-based, hosted version of the open-source ‡biblios metadata editor that we released earlier this year. In addition to the editor, ‡biblios.net includes some extended community features such as integrated real-time chat, forums, and private messaging. ‡biblios.net also […]
Read moreOKF joins COMMUNIA network!
We’re pleased to announce that (subject to final confirmation) the Open Knowledge Foundation is now a member of the EU funded COMMUNIA network, which is “the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain”. (We blogged about the first workshop in January and the third workshop in October.) As it says on the goals page: […]
Read moreOpen Everything Berlin, Saturday 6th December 2008
After the success of Open Everything London a few weeks ago, we’re now involved in putting on Open Everything Berlin, which will take place in early December. It will be a great opportunity to meet people interested in open knowledge, open source software, and so on. Details are as follows: When: Saturday 6th December 2008 […]
Read moreGreek Translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added a Greek translation of the Open Knowledge Definition! Many thanks to Ioannis Doukas of King’s College London and the University of Athens! 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 […]
Read moreAfter the Workshop on Open Scientific Resources
The Workshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources (cf. last week’s announce) took place on Saturday at the London Knowledge Lab. The day started with a discussion of various aspects of openness in educational and research materials – alluding to open access, open data and the Open Knowledge Definition. This was followed by brainstorming […]
Read moreWorkshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources, Saturday 8th November
As we announced earlier this month, tomorrow is our Workshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources. As a concrete outcome of the workshop, we hope to add more open scientific resources to CKAN, as we did last Saturday in the Workshop on Public Information and which we’ve blogged about in the past. So far, […]
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