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Rufus Pollock | 1 Apr 16:54
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Re: Open Source movie definition

2009/3/31 Patrick Anderson <agnucius@...>:
>> http://www.opendefinition.org/1.0 in a nutshell says:
>> 1. You should be able to get the work (in a modifiable source form)
>
> Unfortunately, the OKD does not even *mention* the Sources of Production.

It says: "The work must also be available in a convenient and
modifiable form." Do you have a suggestion for a mod here that would
improve this to be more specific (without becoming too verbose?)

> A parenthetic mention here is not legally binding.

Just to be clear: the OKD is a set of principles *not* a license.
There is a list of conformant licenses here:
<http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/>

> Unless the Sources (such as uncompressed media) and the supporting
> Sources (such as tools needed to reconstruct the end product) are made
> available to the Users of that product, then they will not have the
> opportunity to build upon that work.

I quite agree that sources are crucial. To my knowledge (though I may
be wrong) the (open) CC licenses don't really talk about this. Of
course for software you've always had a clear source/binary
distinction and this has even been written into the licenses.

Such a distinction clearly also exists for content (pdf vs. the raw
document from which the pdf was made). However, I think it is rather
less agreed exactly what is source and what is binary in most areas
(one of our retired projects from 4/5 years ago was aiming at trying
(Continue reading)

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Rufus Pollock | 1 Apr 17:01
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Re: Open Source movie definition

2009/3/31 Tim Baumann <jayday@...>:

[snip]

> (The OKD and the FCW definition are very similar in essence -- the two
> projects have been extensive contact with the OKD being developed
> slightly before the FCW definition and being slightly broader in
> focus).
> Regards,
>
> Rufus
>
> I partly disagree. The point of the Open Source movie definiton is the
> availability of sources because film being a complex medium where many parts
> can be reused in other works only if the fhe respective source (and not the
> mashed-up final piece) is available (3d models, single shots, underlying
> music, screenplay, etc.). While the Open knowledge definiton is suitable for
> open (content) films it doesn't really require sources to be available. The
> def. of free cultural works does but as I wrote in a previous posting this
> def. is too demanding on the "free" part.

No the definition is definitely intended to include sources: "The work
must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form."

If this is not clear we should add a mod to the definition or at least
an explanatory note.

> It isn't clear to me from the requirements listed that a new
> definition is needed -- rather a guide to complying with the FCW/OKD
> for filmmakers.
(Continue reading)

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Rob Myers | 1 Apr 17:28
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Re: Open Source movie definition

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock@...> wrote:
>
> No the definition is definitely intended to include sources: "The work
> must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form."

This sounds more like "transparent form" from the FDL than
"accompanying source" from the GPL.

The CC licences don't require source, they just disallow DRM.

If someone mashes up two MP3s they won't have the structured
high-quality sources to produce a structured high-quality source form
for their own work.

So requiring sources can be burdensome for some popular (think fan
mash-ups) or high cultural forms (think painting and sculpture) and
isn't supported by most licences.

These aren't fundamental arguments against requiring source, and I
think cinema could definitely benefit from a source requirement (it's
one of the examples I use when discussing requiring source for
cultural works with people). But it will be a logistically and
culturally difficult requirement to introduce.

- Rob.
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Mike Linksvayer | 1 Apr 19:06
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Re: Open Source movie definition

2009/3/31 Tim Baumann <jayday <at> gmx.de>:
> I partly disagree. The point of the Open Source movie definiton is the
> availability of sources because film being a complex medium where many parts
> can be reused in other works only if the fhe respective source (and not the
> mashed-up final piece) is available (3d models, single shots, underlying
> music, screenplay, etc.). While the Open knowledge definiton is suitable for
> open (content) films it doesn't really require sources to be available. The
> def. of free cultural works does but as I wrote in a previous posting this
> def. is too demanding on the "free" part.

The OKD does require modifiable form, and I could definitely see
spelling out what that means for film.

What do you mean by FCW being too demanding on the "free" part?  It
makes the same demands as the OKD.

Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock <at> okfn.org> wrote:
> I quite agree that sources are crucial. To my knowledge (though I may
> be wrong) the (open) CC licenses don't really talk about this. Of
> course for software you've always had a clear source/binary
> distinction and this has even been written into the licenses.

You're right.

> Such a distinction clearly also exists for content (pdf vs. the raw
> document from which the pdf was made). However, I think it is rather
> less agreed exactly what is source and what is binary in most areas
> (one of our retired projects from 4/5 years ago was aiming at trying
> to address this: <http://okfn.org/iai/>).
(Continue reading)

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Rufus Pollock | 2 Apr 12:09
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Re: Open Source movie definition

[snip]

> Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock <at> okfn.org> wrote:
>> I quite agree that sources are crucial. To my knowledge (though I may
>> be wrong) the (open) CC licenses don't really talk about this. Of
>> course for software you've always had a clear source/binary
>> distinction and this has even been written into the licenses.
>
> You're right.
>
>> Such a distinction clearly also exists for content (pdf vs. the raw
>> document from which the pdf was made). However, I think it is rather
>> less agreed exactly what is source and what is binary in most areas
>> (one of our retired projects from 4/5 years ago was aiming at trying
>> to address this: <http://okfn.org/iai/>).
>
> The distinction exists but is a lot fuzzier and degraded forms remain
> useful for modification, just somewhat less useful, unlike software
> where object code is tremendously less useful than source.
>
> I often put a few slides on this in presentations eg
> http://www.slideshare.net/mlinksva/how-far-behind-free-software-is-free-culture-presentation
> but need to (am) write it up more thoroughly.

Very good to hear. I think this is interesting issue that merits
further elucidation :)

[snip]

>> If you actually wanted something in a license the obvious approach
(Continue reading)

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Tim Baumann | 3 Apr 10:13
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Open Knowledge Definition and Open Sources

Hello,

Rufus Pollock wrote:
No the definition is definitely intended to include sources: "The work must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form." If this is not clear we should add a mod to the definition or at least an explanatory note.
I would suggest adding at least an explanatory note but would consider it even more practicable to adjust the license. A "convenient and modifiable" form is too vaguely expressed. Coming back to movies, to make an example, it can be even the film itself being the only thing required. Since the (final) work is  already in a convinient and modifiable form. As long as you can load it into your favourite film editing software the work fulfills the defintion's requirements. So there is no underlying material needed in order for the work to be Open Knowledge. I would really recommend to include the expressions "sources" and/or "underlying material" (or "underlying data" in case of more abstract knowledge like the contents of databases) and something which states that the sources however they might look like have to be complete in a way that the final work can be re-assembled using these.

Rufus Pollock wrote:
I think it is great you are doing something here -- as you say clear definitions are needed (by the way: is it the case that archive.org will let you upload stuff with a CC Non-Commerical license? I thought that they restricted to CC by and by-sa but may be wrong).
There is no restriction. You can choose there any CC license you want. It is also possible to upload movies to the Archive which are not CC licensed. In this case users are only allowed to watch the movies on the Archive's pages. I don't know however if the latter are tagged then Open Source movies. I consider that only the CC licensed movies are tagged this way Example of an "Open Source" by-nc-nd movie in the Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/Kinetic_Art_Demo_Video.

Tim

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Tom Chance | 3 Apr 11:39
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Opportunity for open format access to some env data


Hi all,

The UK Govt has released the new sustainable development indicators.
There's a lot of very useful and important data here, and the best they can
do is a set of clunky web pages and some Excel spreadsheets.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/progress/regional/index.htm

This would be great if offered in a more machine-readable way, with
historical data included. How much work would it be to make it available
properly, and what do people think about asking for that?

Regards,
Tom
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Jonathan Gray | 3 Apr 16:51

David Wiley on NC restrictions

Interesting piece by David Wiley on NC restrictions:

  Contra NC - Mostly
  http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/810

--

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org
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Rob Myers | 3 Apr 17:01
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Re: David Wiley on NC restrictions

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray@...> wrote:
> Interesting piece by David Wiley on NC restrictions:
>
>  Contra NC - Mostly
>  http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/810

Oh wow the argument in that post against copyleft is just so broken!

If people don't want more copyleft licences because too many copyleft
licences will fragment the commons and harm freedom then the solution
is not to write them and to try to reduce the number of ones being
used for major projects, like the FSF and Wikimedia have. Not to use
licences that allow work to be made proprietary.

- Rob.
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Rufus Pollock | 3 Apr 17:10
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Re: Opportunity for open format access to some env data

2009/4/3 Tom Chance <tom@...>:
>
> Hi all,
>
> The UK Govt has released the new sustainable development indicators.
> There's a lot of very useful and important data here, and the best they can
> do is a set of clunky web pages and some Excel spreadsheets.
>
> http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/progress/regional/index.htm

Though raw data is always good!

> This would be great if offered in a more machine-readable way, with
> historical data included. How much work would it be to make it available

That would be great. By machine readable I assume you mean something
like csv or sql (anything that isn't human readable only excel
spreadsheets!). Where would historical data come from?

> properly, and what do people think about asking for that?

Asking the gov to do this "properly" is probably not that productive
though asking for more data probably is ...

It might not be that hard to this ourselves. For example we did this
for the Millenium Development Goals:

<http://www.openeconomics.net/mdg/>

And we've been doing quite a bit of parsing and presenting of similar
UK Govt Excel spreadsheets for "Where Does My Money Go" (see [1] for
parsing code):

<http://www.openeconomics.net/wdmmg/>
<http://www.openeconomics.net/wdmmg/table/2>

It probably would not be hard to knock up something like this for
these sustainability indicators.

Rufus

[1]: <http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/hg/file/a639efe4e1d6/econdata/ukgovfinances/>
<http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/hg/file/a639efe4e1d6/econdata/ukgovfinances/data.py>
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