National Archives announced today UK government licensing policy extended to make more public sector information available:
Building on the success of the Open Government Licence, The National Archives has extended the scope of its licensing policy, encouraging and enabling even easier re-use of a wider range of public sector information.
The UK Government Licensing Framework (UKGLF), the policy and legal framework for the re-use of public sector information, now offers a growing portfolio of licences and guidance to meet the diverse needs and requirements of both public sector information providers and re-user communities.
On the surface this is move is to to be welcomed. Providing, amongst other things, licensing choices and guidance for re-using information free of charge for non-commercial purposes – the Non-Commercial Government Licence; guidance to licensing where charges apply and for the licensing of software and source code.
All this is available from the UK Government Licensing Framework area of the National Archives site, along with FAQs and other useful supporting information, including machine readable licenses.
As the press release says, the extensions are building on the success of the Open Government License(OGL) and are designed to cover what the OGL can not.
So the [data publishers] thought process should be to try to publish under the OGL and then, only if ownership/licensing/cost of production provide an overwhelming case to be more restrictive, utilise these extensions and/or guidance.
My concern, having listened to many questions at conferences from what I would characterise as government conservative traditionalists, is that many will start at the charge-for/non-commercial use end of this licensing spectrum because of the fear/danger of opening up data too openly. I do hope my concerns are unfounded and that the use of these extensions will be the exception, with the OGL being the de facto licence of choice for all public sector data.
This post was also published on the Talis Consulting Blog