[License-discuss] OPEN Government Data Act signed into law in US

[Gil Yehuda]

Sean,

In trying to parse the legal definition in the sections you mentioned I
poked around to see if there is a data equivalent to the OSD (
https://opensource.org/osd-annotated) or FSF's four freedoms to determine
if the legal text matches it. I came across a few things that seemed to fit
the bill, such as http://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/ content I assume is
in https://cdla.io/ and imagine there may be content about this data.gov
(which is down with the US government).

Is there a de facto definition for "open" data that is as generally
accepted as the one used for open source?

Also can you elaborate on concerns you have about the text you shared?

*Gil Yehuda: *I help with external technology engagement


On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 5:43 PM Christopher Sean Morrison via
License-discuss <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

>
> Relevant to the recent discussions about Government Open Source issues,
> the US federal government just signed the Open, Public, Electronic, and
> Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act into law as part of HR4174
> (Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act).  More details at
> https://www.datacoalition.org/open-government-data-act/ and the actual
> law can be read at
> https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174/text (see
> Title II)
>
> For anyone that hasn’t been watching closely, this has been in the works
> for about 3-4 years now, survived the change of administration and was
> signed into law yesterday.  It’s related to efforts like code.gov,
> code.mil, and a handful of executive directives that have been blazing a
> path towards more Open Source and Open Data from the U.S. federal
> government.
>
> Some of the more salacious bits relevant to this group and open source
> licensing are the definitions in section 202:
>
> “(20) the term ‘open Government data asset’ means a public data asset that
> is—
>
> “(A) machine-readable;
> “(B) available (or could be made available) in an open format;
> “(C) not encumbered by restrictions, other than intellectual property
> rights, including under titles 17 and 35, that would impede the use or
> reuse of such asset; and
> “(D) based on an underlying open standard that is maintained by a
> standards organization;
>
> “(21) the term ‘open license’ means a legal guarantee that a data asset is
> made available—
>
> “(A) at no cost to the public; and
> “(B) with no restrictions on copying, publishing, distributing,
> transmitting, citing, or adapting such asset;
>
> “(22) the term ‘public data asset’ means a data asset, or part thereof,
> maintained by the Federal Government that has been, or may be, released to
> the public, including any data asset, or part thereof, subject to
> disclosure under section 552 of title 5;
>
> ---
> Cheers!
> Sean
>
>
>
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