Open Definition

Open Definition
Name	Open Definition
Established	2005
Owner	Open Knowledge Foundation

Open Definition The Open Definition is a concise set of criteria that specifies what "open" means for software, data, cultural works, standards, licenses, and related digital assets, promoting reuse, redistribution, and modification across jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, United States, European Union, India, and Brazil. It aligns with international initiatives like the Creative Commons movement, the Free Software Foundation campaigns, and the World Wide Web Consortium's work on interoperability, and informs policies at organizations including the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission, and national libraries such as the British Library.

Definition and Principles

The definition articulates core principles—free access, permission to reuse, redistributability, and clarity of licensing—that interact with legal instruments like the Berne Convention, the WIPO treaties, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Open Government Partnership commitments. It emphasizes machine-readable licensing compatible with standards from the Internet Engineering Task Force, the International Organization for Standardization, and the Open Source Initiative taxonomy, while referencing case law from courts such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the High Court of Australia when adjudicating licensing disputes.

History and Development

The Definition originated under stewardship of the Open Knowledge Foundation and evolved through collaborative drafts debated at conferences including SIGMOD, WWW Conference, FOSDEM, OSCON, and policy gatherings like the G8 and G20 summits. Contributors ranged from individuals associated with Linux Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, and academic groups at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and University of Cambridge. Iterations reflected influences from landmark projects such as GNU Project, Wikipedia, DBpedia, OpenStreetMap, and major open data portals like data.gov, data.gov.uk, and European Data Portal.

Scope and Applications

The Definition applies to datasets, databases, software, multimedia, and documentation used by municipalities like New York City, London, São Paulo, and Bangalore; research initiatives at National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, and Wellcome Trust; and corporations engaged in open practices such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services. It guides licensing choices for repositories like GitHub, GitLab, Zenodo, Dryad, and Figshare and informs standards for archives including the Library of Congress, the National Library of Australia, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Compatibility with Licenses and Standards

Compatibility assessments reference licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative and widely used legal instruments like Creative Commons Attribution, Creative Commons Zero, GNU General Public License, MIT License, Apache License 2.0, and Eclipse Public License. The Definition addresses interoperability with technical standards from the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Archive's metadata practices, the Open Geospatial Consortium specifications, and protocols such as HTTP, SPARQL, and RDF. It intersects with legal frameworks like the General Data Protection Regulation and trade agreements negotiated at the World Trade Organization when considering privacy, export control, and data localization constraints.

Impact and Adoption

Adopters include governments in the United Kingdom and Canada, supranational bodies such as the European Commission and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, research funders like the National Science Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, and corporations participating in ecosystems led by Linux Foundation projects and Apache Software Foundation initiatives. The Definition has influenced major open data releases such as those from the World Bank Open Data initiative, scientific infrastructures like CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, and global knowledge platforms including Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.

Criticisms and Challenges

Critiques reference tensions with intellectual property regimes shaped by the Berne Convention, enforcement issues highlighted in disputes involving organizations like The Authors Guild and cases adjudicated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and practical barriers experienced by low-resource regions represented at forums like the Internet Governance Forum and OECD workshops. Challenges include reconciling open norms with privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation, addressing commercial concerns raised by corporations including Apple and Netflix, and ensuring sustainability of infrastructure relied upon by projects such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and Apache Hadoop.

Category:Open knowledge