Last week Michael Gurstein attended OKCon2011 in Berlin and wrote a blogpost
which was critical of OKCon and/or OKF (not sure which). It upset some of my colleagues but frankly bewildered me – despite reading the debate on his blog. He seems to have picked up (and probably amplified) a thread of subculture which I don’t recognize even if I look for it. Here’s an example:
“these World of Warcraft warriors off on a joust with various governmental dragons.” …
“I see a huge disconnect between the idealism and the passionate belief in the rightness of their cause and the profound failure to have any clear idea of what precisely that cause is and where it is likely to take them (and us) in the very near future.”
I do not recognize me and my collaborators in this description.
Strangely (to me) all the initial comment was highly favourable. Jordan Hatcher replied making it clear EXACTLY what openness is and pointing Michael to the Open Knowledge Definition. A definition which has emerged from the mainstream of Open Source thinking and practice.
The Open Definition, linked to from the OKFN homepage and discussed during at least some of the sessions of OKCon, defines _exactly_ what “openness” means in the context of the Open Knowledge Foundation: http://www.opendefinition.org/
Of course you shouldn’t confuse one organisation with an entire movement. Other organisations and individuals, including those that presented their views at the conference, may feel differently about openness and what it means.
Inside your post you mention two good examples of goals that someone (a government, an academic, or an NGO, etc) may want to achieve with making data more accessible:
1) More political participation by currently underrepresented groups
2) Participation by those without technical skills or other access to technology
I’ll generally sum these up as saying using data to help bridge the digital divide.(PMR’s emphasis)
This is a great end goal, however in order for a anyone looking to help solve digital divide issues by building technical tools — or even non-technical tools — if those tools involve data, they will need:
1) access to the data
AND
2) legal rights to use and reuse the data
Michael, were you are Glyn Moody’s (on OKF advisory board) opening keynote? Where he highlighted the threat we face from all forms of monopoly and closed practice? Or Richard Stallman (whom I missed because I was running a session on Open Science)? Or Brewster Kayle (who built the Internet Archive) whom I also missed because I was running a session on Open access to Bibliographic data – a struggle which matters critically. These represent the thinkers that the OKF wishes to learn from.
Jordan and I’m on the advisory board so you can now have more examples of the sort of things that OKF cares about.
Tim Hubbard, head of Bioinformatics at the Sanger Centre UK (“where part of the human genome was sequenced”). There was a titanic struggle for Openness over the genome. It could have become commercial. Where only the rich and powerful could access genomic information. Tim and many others have battled for over a decade to keep genomic information free. OUR information. And we need to OKF as a centre to exchange practices, ideas, meet people, etc. Genomic information matters. Without it we have impoverished science and medicine.
Jo Walsh, (EDINA, a publicly supported informatics resource at the University of Edinburgh). “I helped to run a Public Geodata campaign with OKF support back in 2005-6. This focused deliberately on “state-collected” data in response to a bit of European law.” Jo, and others like her, work out all the aspects of making geodata serve the world community – semantics, coordinate systems, licences, practices, etc. I recently submmited a grant application with Jo. This is mainstream, publicly funded, research infrastructural work.
And me. You ask me…
I’ld like to have some clarity from you/the OKF as to whether they see “Open” data/knowledge as a “public” or a “private good” in the terms pointed to by Parminder Jeet Singh in an earlier comment to this blogpost? By this I mean is “openness” as you folks interpret it a characteristic to be enjoyed (or “consumed”) by an individual in his private capacity (based on his individual means for accessing and making use of the “open” data/knowledge etc.) OR is “openness” something that is to be enjoyed (or “consumed”) by the “public” in which case in addition to ensuring the “openness” of the data/knowledge etc. there is an obligation to ensure that the conditions and pre-conditions for such broad based public enjoyment and use are also associated with the open data/knowledge etc.
I’m an academic at Cambridge, UK and I am funded by the public purse (JISC) to work with OKF. We have two projects. JISCOpenbib which in a year has created the technology , the protocols, the practice and the licences to make 30 million bibliographic records Open. We’ve developed a new, lightweight universal approach to managing bibliographic references. We’ve published this Openly in an Open Access journal so that everyone including you can read it. It is awaiting peer-review but because it’s Open we can post the manuscript and I’d ask you to read it – or at least parts. If you don’t understand it or think it’s badly written or simply wrong let us know. See http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/238394 . The work would not have happened without OKF, the paper would not have been written and the very cool visualizations are an example of the sort of thing that is mainstream for OKF. (The other project OSID is funded by UK government (BIS) and is looking at the outcomes of mainstream research funding – what effect does grant XY12345 have on understanding climate change.
Science is currently for the privileged few in rich universities. If a citizen wants access to research information they have to pay the publishers. See the first 10 minutes of Larry Lessig’s talk at CERN http://vimeo.com/22633948 where he shows that the top 10 papers about his child’s illness would cost 500 USD to read (rented for 2 days only). He calls it:
The Architecture of Access to Scientific Knowledge
I am one of many designing and building that architecture. That’s an example of what the OKF is for me.
I read the post (and left a comment). I feel his writing is not properly introduced, and setting a completely wrong tone. More importantly, his comments are, IMHO, completely besides the point.
Open Data is *not* about how to present (governmental) data in a human readable way to the general public to take advantage of (though I understand why he got that idea), but Open Data is about making this technically and legally *possible*. He did not get that point, unfortunately.
Pingback: “Open” – “Necessary” but not “Sufficient” « Gurstein's Community Informatics
Pingback: Are the Open Data Warriors Fighting for Robin Hood or the Sheriff?: Some Reflections on OKCon 2011 and the Emerging Data Divide « Gurstein's Community Informatics
This was posted as a new blogpost (with links) at http://wp.me/pJQl5-7h in response to the above.
“Open” – “Necessary” but not “Sufficient” Edit this entry
Posted on July 6, 2011 by Michael Gurstein
My somewhat off the cuff comments/reflections on the recent OKCon(ference), the annual event of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) seems to have caused a bit of a stir among certain of the more senior members of the latter group. The result has been a series of comments on my original blog post and now a blogpost on a separate blog by Peter Murray-Rust an OKF Board Member, taking considerable issue with my comments.
Since the discussion now has moved down to #29 or so in the breadcrumb trail of comments and responses it’s probably worthwhile to reprise and refocus the discussion a bit and hence this new blogpost taking off from the end point of the latter discussion thread.
To start, as I said in a parallel discussion concerning the original post: “It is a measure I think, of the success of a blogpost if it elicits comments which exceed the original in passion, knowledge and intelligence and this one I think, succeeded in spades.”
So where are we… First let me state FWIW as clearly as possible my own position—I am strongly in favour of “openness” both in the somewhat trivial sense of an “open everything” meme where not being “open” is equated with supporting the darkside AND in the rather more thoughtful and constructive definition given to the term by the OKF on their website “A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.”
A wee bit of biography might be relevant here. I’ve spent much of the last 15 years or so working in and around what has come to be known as Community Informatics (CI)—the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to enable and empower communities. There are several thousand people world wide who would in some way consider themselves as working within that overall discipline/strategy/approach. There is a peer reviewed journal (which I edit), a wiki, several elists, conferences, several blogs (including this one), even university courses etc.etc. I mention this because CI to some extent grew up in the broad context of local, technical, policy, advocacy based responses to the Digital Divide (DD)—broadly understood as the divide between those who have access to ICTs and those do not.
CI however, added a key component to the mix which was that while “access” to ICTs were a “necessary” condition for over-coming the DD, access alone was “insufficient” to make available (and operational) the range of opportunities for economic and social advance on the broadest possible basis of which ICTs are capable and which have so massively transformed (and enabled, enriched and empowered) business and governments. Hence the need for additional steps and interventions/supports to transform “access” into the opportunity for what I call “effective use“.
I see a direct parallel between the issues that I and my colleagues (and many many other people) have been addressing over the last 15 years or so in the context of the DD and what I am now seeing with respect to the Open Data and related movements.
I most certainly am not against Open Data/Open Government (OD/OG) in the same way as I am not (and as has been the focus of my work for much of the last 15 years) against the broadest possible distribution of access to the Internet and all of the associated ICT tools. However, I do see Open Data as defined above as not being sufficient to effect the positive changes in government, science, democracy itself as is being indicated as the overall goal of the OD/OG movement.
In some ways the argument here is even clearer than it was concerning the efforts to overcome the DD. Egon Willighagen commenting on Peter Murray-Rusk response to my blogpost writes:
Open Data is *not* about how to present (governmental) data in a human readable way to the general public to take advantage of (though I understand why he got that idea), but Open Data is about making this technically and legally *possible*. He did not get that point, unfortunately.
To respond to Egon (and Peter), I did understand that very well about “Open Data”; and it is precisely that of which I am being critical. I am arguing that “Open Data” as presented in this way is sufficient only (as argued in the original post) to provide additional resources to the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than to Robin Hood.
“Open Data” as articulated above by Willighagen has the form of a private club—open “technically” (and “legally”) to all to join but whose membership requires a degree of education, ressources, technical skill such as to put it out of the reach of any but a very select group.
Allison Powell in her thoughtful comments on my blogpost talks (in the context of “Open Hardware”) about those who are in a position through pre-existing conditions of wealth, technical knowledge and power to “appropriate” the outcome of “(hardware) Openness” for their own private corporate purposes.
Parminder Jeet Singh in his own comments contrasts Open Data with Public Data—a terminology and conceptual shift with which I am coming to agree—where Public Data is data which is not only “open” but also is designed and structured so as to be usable by the broad “public” (“the people”).
Originally in the context of the Digital Divide I articulated notions around what I called “effective use” that is the factors that need to be in place for “access” to be translated into “use” by those at the grassroots level. In an earlier blogpost I transferred these concepts and updated them into an “Open Data/Open Knowledge” context and I would modestly suggest that it is through the implementation of a strategy incorporating “effective (data) use” that the full measure and value of Open Data/Open Knowledge can be achieved.
Clearly Michael and I are not communicating and I will have to leave it there. He has clearly got a group of people who understand him and I hope they will also try to understand my position. I will respond to specific points
Posted on July 6, 2011 by Michael Gurstein
>>My somewhat off the cuff comments/reflections on the recent OKCon(ference), the annual event of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) seems to have caused a bit of a stir among certain of the more senior members of tpost where he latter group. The result has been a series of comments on my original blog post and now a blogpost on a separate blog by Peter Murray-Rust an OKF Board Member, taking considerable issue with my comments.
If you make a post which is effectively a blanket critcism of a wide and varied community you can expect that issue is taken. I have replied in unemotional terms outlining what a number of us in the OKF do and why your comments do not relate to these activities.
>>>To start, as I said in a parallel discussion concerning the original post: “It is a measure I think, of the success of a blogpost if it elicits comments which exceed the original in passion, knowledge and intelligence and this one I think, succeeded in spades.”
I do not regard a blanket criticism, couched in picturesque but not useful terms, as a success activity (other than it has prompted me and others to restate the purposes and orientations of the OKF.
>>>A wee bit of biography might be relevant here. I’ve spent much of the last 15 years or so working in and around what has come to be known as Community Informatics (CI)—the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to enable and empower communities. … CI to some extent grew up in the broad context of local, technical, policy, advocacy based responses to the Digital Divide (DD)—broadly understood as the divide between those who have access to ICTs and those do not.
>>>CI however, added a key component to the mix which was that while “access” to ICTs were a “necessary” condition for over-coming the DD, access alone was “insufficient” to make available (and operational) the range of opportunities for economic and social advance on the broadest possible basis of which ICTs are capable and which have so massively transformed (and enabled, enriched and empowered) business and governments. Hence the need for additional steps and interventions/supports to transform “access” into the opportunity for what I call “effective use“.
>>>I see a direct parallel between the issues that I and my colleagues (and many many other people) have been addressing over the last 15 years or so in the context of the DD and what I am now seeing with respect to the Open Data and related movements.
I accept that you campaign for access to the Internet and that access alone is not sufficient.
>>>I most certainly am not against Open Data/Open Government (OD/OG) in the same way as I am not (and as has been the focus of my work for much of the last 15 years) against the broadest possible distribution of access to the Internet and all of the associated ICT tools. However, I do see Open Data as defined above as not being sufficient to effect the positive changes in government, science, democracy itself as is being indicated as the overall goal of the OD/OG movement.
I do not really understand what you and your community’s main message(s) are. You appear to have substituted “Open Data” for “Internet” in your philosophy and concluded that Open Data is not enough. If so your argument is fallacious.
>>>To respond to Egon (and Peter), I did understand that very well about “Open Data”; and it is precisely that of which I am being critical. I am arguing that “Open Data” as presented in this way is sufficient only (as argued in the original post) to provide additional resources to the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than to Robin Hood.
I do not understand how you could have spent 2 days with OKCon and got the impression of Open Data as a holy cow. We are the Open Knowledge Foundation. In academia I am campaigning for Open Scholarship – a many faceted process of which Open Data is only one part.
>>>“Open Data” as articulated above by Willighagen has the form of a private club—open “technically” (and “legally”) to all to join but whose membership requires a degree of education, ressources, technical skill such as to put it out of the reach of any but a very select group.
I cannot understand this at all. There are people on the planet who cannot write or read, but that does not mean that reading and writing should be abandoned until everyone is literate.
>>>Allison Powell in her thoughtful comments on my blogpost talks (in the context of “Open Hardware”) about those who are in a position through pre-existing conditions of wealth, technical knowledge and power to “appropriate” the outcome of “(hardware) Openness” for their own private corporate purposes.
>>>Parminder Jeet Singh in his own comments contrasts Open Data with Public Data—a terminology and conceptual shift with which I am coming to agree—where Public Data is data which is not only “open” but also is designed and structured so as to be usable by the broad “public” (“the people”).
I do not know where you got the impreesion that the OKF creates some ivory tower repository of information. The OKF is deeply committed to getting data/knowledge to as many on the planet as possible. Yes, the Internet is often and prerequisite but that is the reality of the world.
>>>Originally in the context of the Digital Divide I articulated notions around what I called “effective use” that is the factors that need to be in place for “access” to be translated into “use” by those at the grassroots level. In an earlier blogpost I transferred these concepts and updated them into an “Open Data/Open Knowledge” context and I would modestly suggest that it is through the implementation of a strategy incorporating “effective (data) use” that the full measure and value of Open Data/Open Knowledge can be achieved.
The OKF is already doing this – it writes software that anyone with access to the Internet can use trivially. It sounds as if your community is concerned with creating specific labels which may or may not be valuaable.
I reiterate that much of our work is nothing to do with the digital divide. You appear to suggesst that “opening data” is dangerous because someone might control and miususe. It’s far worse if it all remains closed. Would you rather that the genome race had been won by a commercial company which now controlled access to research and dictated what could and could not be done? Opening the genome does not make misappropropriation and control easier, it acts in large (but not sufficient) part to prevent it.
I shall not make criticisms of your community as I do not understand what you are trying to do and do not see its relevance. But if the OKF and ipso facto I are attacked, we defend ourselves.
I HAVE RESPONDED TO PETER’S REPLY (ABOVE) WITH MY COMMENTS (IN CAPS) AS BELOW. I HAVE ALSO TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF COPYING ALL OF THIS TO MY OWN BLOG AT http://wp.me/pJQl5-7h.
PM-R: Clearly Michael and I are not communicating and I will have to leave it there. He has clearly got a group of people who understand him and I hope they will also try to understand my position. I will respond to specific points
MG: YES, I DON’T THINK WE ARE COMMUNICATING AND I TOO WILL CLOSE HERE AFTER I COMMENT ON PETER’S COMMENTS.
Posted on July 6, 2011 by Michael Gurstein
>>My somewhat off the cuff comments/reflections on the recent OKCon(ference), the annual event of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) seems to have caused a bit of a stir among certain of the more senior members of tpost where he latter group. The result has been a series of comments on my original blog post and now a blogpost on a separate blog by Peter Murray-Rust an OKF Board Member, taking considerable issue with my comments.
PM-R: If you make a post which is effectively a blanket critcism of a wide and varied community you can expect that issue is taken. I have replied in unemotional terms outlining what a number of us in the OKF do and why your comments do not relate to these activities.
MG: I DON’T THINK THAT MY REFLECTIONS WERE A “BLANKET CRITICISM” OF THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY, THEY CERTAINLY WEREN’T MEANT AS SUCH AND WHILE PROBABLY NOT A FULLY PAID UP MEMBER OF THAT COMMUNITY I WOULD CERTAINLY CONSIDER MYSELF A SYMPATHETIC BUT NOT UNCRITICAL, FELLOW TRAVELER.
THE FIRST LINES IN THE BLOGPOST OF MINE IN WHICH I FIRST ADDRESS THESE BROAD ISSUES STATES “I’m personally a very strong supporter of “Open Access” (OA) . I feel that information should be freely accessible and particularly information that has been produced with public funding” http://wp.me/pJQl5-1
>>>To start, as I said in a parallel discussion concerning the original post: “It is a measure I think, of the success of a blogpost if it elicits comments which exceed the original in passion, knowledge and intelligence and this one I think, succeeded in spades.”
PM-R: I do not regard a blanket criticism, couched in picturesque but not useful terms, as a success activity (other than it has prompted me and others to restate the purposes and orientations of the OKF.
MG: AS I SAID I DON’T BELIEVE MY COMMENTS WERE A “BLANKET CRITICISM”. OF THE 30 OR SO COMMENTS ON THE ORIGINAL BLOGPOST (INCLUDING SEVERAL OTHERS WHO WERE AT OKCon 2011) ONLY YOURS AND YOUR FELLOW OKF BOARD MEMBER JORDAN HATCHER TOOK THEM AS SUCH. AS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTED MOST OTHER COMMENTS AGREED WITH MY OVERALL COMMENTS, SOME QUITE ENTHUSIASTICALLY (AND DARE I SAY QUITE CONSTRUCTIVELY…
…
>>>I see a direct parallel between the issues that I and my colleagues (and many many other people) have been addressing over the last 15 years or so in the context of the DD and what I am now seeing with respect to the Open Data and related movements.
PM-R: I accept that you campaign for access to the Internet and that access alone is not sufficient.
>>>I most certainly am not against Open Data/Open Government (OD/OG) in the same way as I am not (and as has been the focus of my work for much of the last 15 years) against the broadest possible distribution of access to the Internet and all of the associated ICT tools. However, I do see Open Data as defined above as not being sufficient to effect the positive changes in government, science, democracy itself as is being indicated as the overall goal of the OD/OG movement.
PM-R: I do not really understand what you and your community’s main message(s) are. You appear to have substituted “Open Data” for “Internet” in your philosophy and concluded that Open Data is not enough. If so your argument is fallacious.
>>>To respond to Egon (and Peter), I did understand that very well about “Open Data”; and it is precisely that of which I am being critical. I am arguing that “Open Data” as presented in this way is sufficient only (as argued in the original post) to provide additional resources to the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than to Robin Hood.
PM-R: I do not understand how you could have spent 2 days with OKCon and got the impression of Open Data as a holy cow. We are the Open Knowledge Foundation. In academia I am campaigning for Open Scholarship – a many faceted process of which Open Data is only one part.
MG: I DON’T THINK I SUGGESTED THAT OPEN DATA WAS A “HOLY COW”, I DID HOWEVER COMMENT AS I DID MANY MANY YEARS AGO AS AN MIS CONSULTANT THAT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE ACTUAL AND ANTICIPATED USER WAS CRUCIAL TO THE SUCCESS OF ANY PROJECT IN DIGITAL DESIGN. IN THAT I SEE NO DIFFERENCE WITH OPEN DATA DESIGN. AND AGAIN I WOULD BE (AND HAVE BEEN) A STRONG (BUT NOT UNCRITICAL) COLLABORATOR ON ANY AND EVERY CAMPAIGN FOR OPEN SCHOLARSHIP.
>>>“Open Data” as articulated above by Willighagen has the form of a private club—open “technically” (and “legally”) to all to join but whose membership requires a degree of education, ressources, technical skill such as to put it out of the reach of any but a very select group.
PM-R: I cannot understand this at all. There are people on the planet who cannot write or read, but that does not mean that reading and writing should be abandoned until everyone is literate.
MG: AND HERE IS THE NUB OF OUR LACK OF COMMUNICATION. I NEITHER SAID NOR MEANT (NOR CAN I SEE HOW YOU EXTRAPOLATED THIS FROM WHAT I DID SAY) THAT BECAUSE OPEN DATA WAS NOT CURRENTLY USABLE BY ALL THAT THE ACTIVITY IN SUPPORT OF OPEN DATA SHOULD BE CURTAILED. RATHER I SAID EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE–THAT THE ACTIVITY SHOULD BE EXTENDED SO THAT THOSE FOR WHOM THE USE OF OPEN DATA IS CURRENTLY NOT POSSIBLE MAY (AT LEAST IN PART) BE PROVIDED FOR THROUGH A VARIETY OF IDENTIFIABLE MEASURES WHICH WOULD ASSIST THE BROADEST POSSIBLE PUBLIC IN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THAT DATA/INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE. (I DON’T WANT TO ABOLISH THE CLUB, I WANT TO MAKE IT SUCH THAT ALL WHO WISH TO CAN BE MEMBERS.)
>>>Allison Powell in her thoughtful comments on my blogpost talks (in the context of “Open Hardware”) about those who are in a position through pre-existing conditions of wealth, technical knowledge and power to “appropriate” the outcome of “(hardware) Openness” for their own private corporate purposes.
>>>Parminder Jeet Singh in his own comments contrasts Open Data with Public Data—a terminology and conceptual shift with which I am coming to agree—where Public Data is data which is not only “open” but also is designed and structured so as to be usable by the broad “public” (“the people”).
PM-R: I do not know where you got the impreesion that the OKF creates some ivory tower repository of information. The OKF is deeply committed to getting data/knowledge to as many on the planet as possible. Yes, the Internet is often and prerequisite but that is the reality of the world.
MG: I’M DELIGHTED TO HEAR THIS AND I’M SURE THAT ON THIS BASIS WAYS CAN BE FOUND TO COLLABORATE IN DESIGNING MEASURES FOR getting data/knowledge to as many on the planet as possible HOPEFULLY WITH THE ADDITIONAL ELMENT OF INCLUDING MEASURES TO MAKE THE DATA/KNOWLEDGE USEFUL AND USABLE BY AS MANY AS POSSIBLE.
>>>Originally in the context of the Digital Divide I articulated notions around what I called “effective use” that is the factors that need to be in place for “access” to be translated into “use” by those at the grassroots level. In an earlier blogpost I transferred these concepts and updated them into an “Open Data/Open Knowledge” context and I would modestly suggest that it is through the implementation of a strategy incorporating “effective (data) use” that the full measure and value of Open Data/Open Knowledge can be achieved.
PM-R: The OKF is already doing this – it writes software that anyone with access to the Internet can use trivially. It sounds as if your community is concerned with creating specific labels which may or may not be valuaable.
MG: TO PUT THIS AS GENTLY AS POSSIBLE “software that anyone with access to the Internet can use trivially” MAY FOR MANY (THOSE LACKING COMPUTERS, ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, THE KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO USE EVEN “TRIVIALLY” COMPLICATED SOFTWARE AND SO ON) BE AN IMMEDIATELY AND NON-TRIVIAL INSURMOUNTABLE BARRIER. BUT THEY TOO HAVE CHILDREN IN SCHOOL, MAKE USE OF MEDICAL CARE. PAY TAXES AND SO ON AND THEY TOO MIGHT BENEFIT FROM BEING ABLE TO USE THE DATA CURRENTLY BEING MADE OPEN, OFTEN THROUGH THE INTERVENTION OF MEMBERS OF YOUR COMMUNITY.
THE CHALLENGE, AND IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT SOLELY (OR PERHAPS EVEN LARGELY) THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE OPEN DATA MOVEMENT, IS TO ENSURE THAT THE DATA IS USABLE BY THIS BROADER GROUP. AND INSOFAR AS THE OPEN DATA MOVEMENT/OKF HAS A ROLE AND INFLUENCE IN THESE DEVELOPMENTS I THINK THEY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO RECOGNIZE THESE NEEDS FOR THE BROADEST POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY FOR USE, AND TO, WHEREVER POSSIBLE, RESPOND TO THEM.
PM-R: I reiterate that much of our work is nothing to do with the digital divide. You appear to suggesst that “opening data” is dangerous because someone might control and misuse. It’s far worse if it all remains closed. Would you rather that the genome race had been won by a commercial company which now controlled access to research and dictated what could and could not be done? Opening the genome does not make misappropropriation and control easier, it acts in large (but not sufficient) part to prevent it.
MG: I DID NOT SUGGEST THAT OPEN DATA HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AS SUCH. NOR, AND I THINK THAT THIS IS A SOMEWHAT IRRESPONSIBLE MISATTRIBUTION, DID I ANYWHERE SAY OR IMPLY that “opening data” is dangerous because someone might control and misuse AS I’M SURE YOU KNOW, IF YOU HAVE READ ANYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT MY POSITION IS THAT OPENING DATA IS NECESSARY AND DESIRABLE, BUT IN THE ABSENCE OF MEASURES TO ENSURE ITS WIDEST POSSIBLE AVAILABILITY AND USABILITY, MISUSE IS ALMOST CERTAINLY INEVITABLE AND PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF OPEN DATA/OPEN KNOWLEDGE WHICH ARE ACHIEVABLE ARE NOT FULLY REALIZED.
PM-R: I shall not make criticisms of your community as I do not understand what you are trying to do and do not see its relevance. But if the OKF and ipso facto I are attacked, we defend ourselves.
RATHER THAN TO DEFEND YOURSELF AGAINST FRIENDLY, IF PERHAPS AWKWARDLY EXPRESSED COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS (AND YES COLLEGIAL CRITICISMS) IT MIGHT BE BETTER TO FIND WAYS OF MAKING COMMON CAUSE IN SUPPORT OF THAT WIDE AREA OF COMMON GOALS IN THE AREA OF ACCESS TO AND USE OF OPEN DATA/INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE WHERE THE BARRIERS (AND ENEMIES) ARE MANY AND THE COMMITTED ALLIES FEW
Pingback: “Open” – “Necessary” but not “Sufficient” – Ethnos Project Crisis Zone
Pingback: “Open”–“Necessary” but not “Sufficient” – Ethnos Project Crisis Zone