(I’ve taken the liberty of shifting the continuation of this most interesting discussion (below) and particularly my response to Peter Murray-Rust’s comments to a new blogpost.)
I spent the last couple of days at a fascinating (and frightening) event in Berlin—OKCon—a convention for the (in this case mostly European) uber-geeks who are in the process of recreating governments and potentially governance itself in Western Europe (and beyond).
The ideal that these nerdy revolutionaries are pursuing is not, as with previous generations—justice, freedom, democracy—rather it is “openness” as in Open Data, Open Information, Open Government. Precisely what is meant by “openness” is never (at least certainly not in the context of this conference) really defined in a form that an outsider could grapple with (and perhaps critique). Rather it was a pervasive and animating good intention—a grail to be pursued by warriors off on a joust with various governmental dragons. Their armaments in this instance (and to an outsider many of them are magical indeed) are technical skills and zeal sufficient to slay any bureaucrat or resistant politician’s rationalizations and resistances to being “open”—i.e. not turning their information treasure chests into universally accessible nodes in a seamless global datascape.
If I seem a bit skeptical/cynical – less than true believing – its not because I don’t believe in this goal of “openness” (who could be churlish enough to support things that are closed—closed systems, closed doors, closed minds—you get the picture), its just that 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.
To start at the beginning… the “open data/open government” movement begins from a profoundly political perspective that government is largely ineffective and inefficient (and possibly corrupt) and that it hides that ineffectiveness and inefficiency (and possible corruption) from public scrutiny through lack of transparency in its operations and particularly in denying to the public access to information (data) about its operations. And further that this access once available would give citizens the means to hold bureaucrats (and their political masters) accountable for their actions. In doing so it would give these self-same citizens a platform on which to undertake (or at least collaborate with) these bureaucrats in certain key and significant activities—planning, analyzing, budgeting that sort of thing. Moreover through the implementation of processes of crowdsourcing this would also provide the bureaucrats with the overwhelming benefits of having access to and input from the knowledge and wisdom of the broader interested public.
Put in somewhat different terms but with essentially the same meaning—it’s the taxpayer’s money and they have the right to participate in overseeing how it is spent. Having “open” access to government’s data/information gives citizens the tools to exercise that right.
And (it is argued), solutions are available for putting into the hands of these citizens the means/technical tools for sifting and sorting and making critical analyses of government activities if only the key could be turned and government data was “accessible” (“open”).
Through partially technical and partially political processes of persuasion, lobbying, arm twisting and ultimately policy development and intervention, governments everywhere are in the process of redeveloping internal technical systems so as to make at least some of their information available –opening this to the folks such as those attending this conference to work on and design means to make useful and accessible.—and the conference heard from enthusiastic young people who are effecting these changes in various parts of Europe, the US, Brazil and so on.
A lot of the conference took place in specialized workshops where the technical details on how to link various sets of this newly available data together with other sets, how to structure this data so that it could serve various purposes and perhaps most importantly how to design the architecture and ontology (ultimately the management policies and procedures) of the data itself within government so that it is “born open” rather than only liberated after the fact with this latter process making the usefulness of the data in the larger world of open and universally accessible data much much greater.
Again, so far so good… But as I sat through the first day of the conference and as the time came for my own presentation I suddenly realized that there was a dog, and a very large and important dog that wasn’t barking… During that first day and with only one or two exceptions on the second what I didn’t hear even indirectly was a discussion of who the ultimate users would be of this data (the beneficiaries of this ”openness”) and what ultimate uses this open data was being designed towards.
Some might wonder why I think that this non-barking dog is of such significance—why does it matter who the user is—what is important is that they/we have access to the data and the best approach is to effect a design that “anyone” can use i.e. for a universal user—the argument being that what is being built is not a vehicle but a platform and it doesn’t matter who the drivers are as long as everyone can use the highway.
So, in the absence of any articulated expression of who the (assumed) user is let’s speculate a bit about who this phantom figure might (or might not) be. Given that in instances like these one tends, in the absence of other influences, to default to the known and familiar. Thus here one can almost certainly assume that the user is expected to be more or less like the folks in this room–young and bright, speaking English well, very well educated, overwhelmingly male, few or no minorities of colour or race, with firm middle class backgrounds, very very technically skilled and with the set of values and assumptions that go with the above i.e. strongly individualistic, slightly competitive, and not suffering fools (or the non-technical) easily.
My assumption then is that the anticipated user for this “open data” and for the kind of measures (policies, procedures, programs) which are being lobbied for and designed into government policy and practice looks very much like these folks at this conference–which scares me a very great deal…especially when combined with the VERY fragmentary evidence that is coming out on who is actually using this “open data” (which corresponds quite closely to my assumption) and what benefits are being realized as a result of its use.
Perhaps the most significant example to date of a national “openness” policy is the Government of India’s Right to Information law which by any standard is one of the strongest pieces of legislation supporting “open” government anywhere in the world. But it turns out that there were flaws (and it appears quite fatal flaws) in the legislation/program that are now coming to light—the most significant of those flaws being a lack of enforcement mechanisms and perhaps most importantly the lack of a strategy for widespread broad based implementation focused on the end user.
What has happened in India is that by making the (quite false) assumption that the end users i.e. citizens would have the means to use this law to realize their right to information without additional support or intervention India has created a circumstance where citizens themselves need to engage in an often quite unequal struggle to access and use the information and the result has been a rash of murders of those wishing to use the information to expose corruption, self-dealing and misuse of pubic funds.
The legislation did not provide mechanisms for enforcement and thus individuals and groups had to take it upon themselves to attempt to gain access to desired information through individual action. Thus rather than having legislation that focused on the potential end user in their Indian multitudes it simply provided for a notional “access” and left the rest to the individual citizen with these results:
First Right to Information Murder
Another Right to Information Activist Murdered in India
Three Right to Information (RTI) activists were murdered in this country in three months
But why should this matter to these enthusiastic young people five thousand miles away from village India. Well if we take a look at one of the very few detailed studies of the end users (Escher) of an “open data” project (and a project that has been reproduced in a number of other national jurisdictions) that of the TheyWorkForYou.com online citizen democracy tool we begin to see a pattern:
The overall demographics of these users extend the traditional biases in political participation: In the “TheyWorkForYou.org audience people above the age of 54 tend to be over-represented, while those younger than 45 are under-represented in comparison to the Internet population. In terms of demographics there is a strong male bias and a strong overrepresentation of people with a university degree that also translates into strong participation from high income groups…One in five users (21%) of the site has not been politically active within the last year,” This means, if I am understanding this that 79% of the users of this site (and the related expense information) have been politically active within the last year!
So this attempt to enhance democratic participation has ended up providing an additional opportunity for those who already, because of their income, education, and overall conventional characteristics of higher status (age, gender etc.) have the means to communicate with and influence politicians. The additional information and an additional communications channel thus has the effect of reinforcing patterns of opportunity that are already there rather than widening the base of participation and influence.
Similarly with the case that I quoted in an earlier post which examined the outcome of a program to digitize land records in Bangalore and which had the quite perverse and unanticipated effect of providing a means for the wealthier land owners to extend their holdings and thus their wealth at the expense of the poor because they had the knowledge in how to use the information newly made available as well as the resources to hire the professionals to help them interpret the information in the way which was most immediately useful.
Thus it matters very much who the (anticipated) user is since what is being put in place are the frameworks for the data environment of the future and these will include for the most part some assumptions about who the ultimate user is or will be and whether or not a new “data divide” will emerge written more deeply into the fabric of the Information Society than even the earlier “digital (access) divide”.
In each of these instances, by NOT paying attention to (and thus intervening to redefine) who the ultimate users of the “open data/information” would be, the effect has been to reinforce or even extend existing structures of power and influence rather than to have this newly open data be the basis for more inclusive and democratic participation. In the absence of making explicit the model of the ultimate user and thus designing appropriate processes of opening the data and making it available for the widest (and least implicitly discriminatory) range of users, the result will be as we have seen which is a user who is already in a position to make use of the information because of prior existing skills, knowledge, power, or status.
For these processes to NOT have these outcomes the data designer must base his work on an implicit model of a user who is NOT technically skilled, who is NOT financially well off, who does NOT have the characteristics of colour, gender or class which automatically gives them influence and power.
I’ve dealt with the matter of how to ensure opportunities for a broader base of effective use (and users) elsewhere but in this context as a recommendation to the folks espousing and doing Open Data could I suggest that there be a formal commitment to devote 10% of project (and programme) resources including time and funds to ensuring Open Data use by groups and individuals who are not technically skilled, are not middle income and above, who are not currently active in the political process but who might ultimately make the most beneficial use of the resources now being made available.
For anyone interested in my thoughts on the “hot to’s” of this I can refer them to the earlier blog post an edited version of which appeared in a recent issue of First Monday.
(Anyone re-reading this post may notice that I’ve removed my reference to “World of Warcraft warriors”. In light of the recent terrible events in Norway and the association of the perpetrator with WoW I think any suggested link of the extremely well-intentioned activities of the OGD activists with WoW, even in jest, is I think very inappropriate and highly misleading!)
Gurstein's Community Informatics 
Nicolas Kayser-Bril
July 4, 2011
Excellent post, thanks for this much-needed critical voice!
I absolutely agree that the end-user is often overlooked. As you mention, the audience for open-whatever projects is often very limited. But I also get the feeling that the discourse of ‘opendata will make democracy more vibrant and will get every citizen involved’ has been replaced by a much more pragmatic stance. The only ones now abusing this argument are politicians.
I believe that to open government data will make governance easier. It will allow the politically active to make better arguments, better analyses and, in the end, better decisions. There’s nothing in there that will significantly empower disenfranchised citizens. That said, openness will allow the would-be politically active to get involved much more easily (e.g. someone in a remote town can mash up data and write a policy paper).
I also believe that a culture of openness can spread throughout the administration. The day you’ll be able to e-mail your city hall and ask the specifics of why your building permit was refused when your neighbor’s was granted, I think we’ll have achieved a lot. Less sexy than bubble charts, but much more effective.
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
I think you are largely correct Nicolaus but the risk here is of a deepening divide between the data “haves” and data “have nots” deepening other social and economic divides.
Jordan
July 8, 2011
Where I think you are wrong is that this gap has always existed. sure people are able to use open information to better themselves at the expense of their neighbor but they do that already by having connections with people in power and access to information that is closed to all but the most privileged.
I don’t see any analysis that openness makes things worse just that it doesn’t make things perfect.
Michael Gurstein
July 8, 2011
Jordan, I don’t know that I’m arguing for the “perfect”. However, I am arguing for the “good”–I think that with a relatively modest diversion of attention, technical skill and resources Open Data could be much more broadly beneficial.
In doing this it would help to avoid what I tried to demonstrate with my examples–the (unanticipated but fully predictable) consequences of NOT paying attention to issues concerning the users and the public i.e. how and in what form data is made available and usable. Particularly I would include ways in which this inattention not only does not contribute to the “good” but actually reinforces what we would all (I’m assuming) agree are social “bads” as indicated in the examples that I presented–the transfer of property and wealth from the poor to the rich, the providing of additional means of political influence to those who already have the most political influence, the murder of people at the grassroots attempting to exercise their rights, and so on. These cases are perhaps extremes but they were chosen deliberately to illustrate my general point which is that Open Data is a necessary but not sufficient condition for contributing to the general good.
zainab1979
July 12, 2011
I have yet to read the other comments and comment threads to this post, but this is one thought I must express in response to Nicolas’s comment and to add to some of the issues that Michael has raised in this post.
Nicolas, you mentioned in your comment “The day you’ll be able to e-mail your city hall and ask the specifics of why your building permit was refused when your neighbor’s was granted, I think we’ll have achieved a lot.”
I have been thinking a great deal these days on putting out, as in opening up, information about government processes and delivery of services and why and how such opening up can be problematic when viewed in absolute terms. In a research that a colleague and I conducted last year, we found that even when ICTs are implemented to deliver documents such as ration cards, it turns out that there are numerous processes, ways and means by which different groups of people actually obtain ration cards. I have elaborated on the details of ration cards in this blog post – http://kafila.org/2011/06/17/of-fakes-duplicates-and-originals-%E2%80%93-the-tale-of-ration-cards-and-the-trail-of-transparency-in-governance/
It appears that ration cards and documents such as building permits, property titles, ownership deeds, electricity bills, etc are issued through multiple processes, jurisdictions, legal and administrative rationalities. This means that even though laws, rules and regulations lay down a single process by which these crucial documents must be applied for and issued, in reality, different government agencies in different jurisdictions invariably issue these documents through minor and major changes in the processes, rules and regulations. Also, most importantly, there are multiple legal and administrative rationalities that underlie decisions to issue or not issue these documents and to allow for minor changes/’deviations’ from the ‘original’ watertight rules and regulations. Additionally, the legitimacy and validity of these documents is contingent on the ruling planning and governance regimes, meaning that governments, administrators and bureaucrats can likely introduce new standards, regulations, ceilings and conditionalities which can possibly make these documents null and void and require the holders to get them renewed/re-issued.
Now, what these variations, uncertainties and fluidities do is that they introduce the element of ‘legal pluralism’ in a supposedly integrated, tight-knit, organized and systematic governance and bureaucratic structure/system. Legal pluralism means that there are multiple legal rationalities, rules and processes by which a single service/document/welfare is disbursed, used and/or practiced. This logic of legal pluralism runs counter to planning and to the rationale underlying the introduction of ICTs for delivering services and documents because legal pluralism defies the notion of one law, one rule, one system. At this point, I must reiterate very strongly that legal pluralism is not intentional. It happens as a matter of everyday practices and subtle, minor changes in systems and practices, over time.
Legal pluralism also presents challenges to the practice and projects of ‘Open Data’ because it leads us to question the very notion of ‘openness’ that underlies advocacy for Open Data. This is because when you decide to open data about processes and services and reach the stage where you can send an email to your City Hall and ask why a building permit was issued to your neighbour and not to you, you are essentially bringing the autonomy of bureaucrats and agents within both the state and society under the vigil and whip of one, singular system. Whereas, in real life, we need different avenues for service delivery and claiming the state’s resources for different socio-economic groups of people. By making both these points, I am not saying that we have to privilege the autonomy of bureaucrats over advocacy for open access to open data. What I am instead trying to suggest is that we need to observe and analyze the processes of governing and governance much more closely and see how certain kinds of advocacy – even when the advocacy is politically and ethically correct – can impinge on the autonomy and freedoms of certain individuals and groups within the state and society and can (suddenly) render them vulnerable and/or marginal at the hands of planners, senior bureaucrats, political party high commands and other powerful actors in society.
So, in addition to Michael’s concerns about who will be the users of open data and questions surrounding effective use, we also need to think in terms of whether ‘openness’ is an absolute standard and what effects ‘openness’ can have for those groups in society who find it very difficult to obtain documents such as permits, licenses, titles, etc through the ‘legal’ and ‘regulatory’ avenues. It is also worthwhile pondering whether our advocacy, which appears blinkered and partial to me, for open data to be published on the internet overlooks other practices of information circulation where the process of circulating information gives numerous meanings and dimensions to information such that the information can then be interpreted/mobilized/appropriated by different socio-economic groups in society, variously, to their advantages (thereby compelling us to look at politics through the lenses of diversity, multiplicity and messiness) …
Michael Gurstein
July 12, 2011
These are very important findings Zainab and push forward our understanding into the processes involved in actually implementing these systems. What you are saying is that what Open Data advocates might see as a “bug” in the system is in fact a necessary and even a desirable “feature”. I’m wondering whether there might be cultural elements in what you have found (reflecting India’s vast diversity for example) or whether such a development is a necessary concomitant of a sleek and precision designed (somewhat “abstract”) system encountering a rather messy and chaotic world of practice?
timgdavies
July 4, 2011
Hello Michael,
Many thanks for this post, and great to meet you in person at #OKCon. As you outline, the need for a more user-centred perspective in open data programmes is definitely pressing.
I’ll try and write some longer reflections on OKCon later on, but on the long train journey back from Berlin I did chance to spend time reading chapters from ‘Access to Knowledge in an Age of Information (free download)’ which deals with the tensions present in the broader A2K movement, many of which I think present useful lessons for an open data movement, and analysis for making sense of the ‘odd coalition’ of libertarian, liberal and left-wing ideas that is found in these techno-social movements.
My sense is that different parts of the open data odd coalition need different support/challenge to understand the user and the impacts of data – and to work out both how to wield the power of data data responsibly; and to ensure it is distributed equitably (*and to recognise where data is only a small component of the power to make change, and if we believe in it’s redistribution, we have to do more than data). Sometimes that will involve providing direct user-centred design models and getting data-developers more directly in touch with real user needs (or making sure data-developers are the people with most need); other times it will involve a struggle to challenge notions of ‘open’ that see ‘formal openness’ as the goal, ignoring (or failing to see) the un-level playing field on which straightforward removal of any IP or copyright/moral rights might play out*. (*Parallels with the ‘free trade’ debate and the need for disadvantaged communities to have temporary restrictions to rebalance inequality may be relevant here).
The other key question that reading the A2K text raised for me was how does OKCon see itself fitting into an A2K movement. Whilst labelled ‘Open Knowledge Conference’ – the thread you talk of (and the one I felt was most prominent throughout OKCon) was the open data thread – yet somehow this seems to not connect directly into an A2K discourse… or maybe I was missing that..
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
Excellent comments Tim! And very good linking this discussion into the larger A2K discussions and particularly the more fully developed analyses and critiques in that area. I want to explore in a later post what I think are some of the underlying political assumptions that I see in at least certain elements of Open Data.
Miguel Vieira
July 7, 2011
Hi Michael — very nice meeting you during the conference. Just a short comment on the political assumptions issue:
During the OKCon there was a very interesting debate between Rufus Pollock, OKF co-founder, and Mayo Fuster Morrell (Free Culture Forum), after her presentation — which was a comparison of OKF’s and FCF’s definitions of open/free knowledge and web-services. (I’m not sure if it was recorded, but if it shows up on OKF’s video archive — http://vimeo.com/okf — I’d recommend checking it out.)
Rufus claimed — in response to Mayo’s critique that OKF’s definitions didn’t deal with governance systems — that their definitions were not backed by any ideological agenda, but rather based on a pragmatic strategy. In one sense, this reflects the very practical focus and engagement that OKF seems to have with their projects (something I find laudable). But at the same time, this supposed political neutrality of open data is pretty much an illusion, and more so when we consider the issues you point to here; also, it obscures some possible shortcomings / drawbacks of the movement’s proposals.
Just to back your point here, the movement’s focus on raw data (“we want raw data now”, as Tim Berners-Lee said) implies that any use of it will *always* be restricted by non-trivial technical barriers of entry (and the triviality of these restrictions is inversely proportional to how privileged is the citizen who wants to use the data). So in some cases, the situation might be even worse than when — as it often happens today — some data is available, but not in a raw format.
I can understand OKF members feeling typecast by your slightly caricatural characterization of the people involved, but I hope they can go beyond that and take your comments as constructive input.
Michael Gurstein
July 10, 2011
Good meeting you too Miguel and thanks for these comments which hopefully move my own observations forward in the constructive manner that you suggest.
zainab1979
July 12, 2011
Excellent and very insightful remarks Tim! I think my earlier comment, which I wrote without reading your responses, somewhat veers around the issue you have raised i.e., “other times it will involve a struggle to challenge notions of ‘open’ that see ‘formal openness’ as the goal”. I think it will be instructive for us to think through the notion of ‘openness’ if we are to make open data, its use and its potential more meaningful and yet diverse and broad enough for different socio-economic groups to be enter the playing field.
Tariq
July 4, 2011
Hi Dr. Mic,
Thanks for another nice writeup.
just want to share examples from my locality.
1): In my village in Pakistan there is no public access point of internet while the Govt. accepts only online tax return forms. Hence to submit an online tax return is not an easy job for a computer graduate too just because of complex software system.
2): The loan application forms from Banks and Govt. institutions (for agriculture, and small business) are avaliable online only.
thats why i agree with you that the projects need a more holistic approach.
tariq
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
Tks Tariq. We have similar examples in Canada where in some provinces the forms to apply for social welfare are only available online!
zainab1979
July 12, 2011
Dear Tariq and Michael,
In Bangalore and the peripheries, what we found was that an ecosystem of brokers and middlemen (which included elected representatives, party workers, government servants, kiosk operators, among others) emerged over time to assist people in making applications for critical documents through the ICT system. This ecosystem, within a short period of time, introduced variations and multiplicities in the process, thereby rendering the ICT/kiosk system, in certain aspects and stages of service delivery, trivial to the political processes of claiming, petitioning and negotiating. Might be useful, in the case of Pak (don’t know of the Canada context) to see how brokers/middlemen now emerge to aid/assist people (even when such aid and assistance can be truly or presumably ‘exploitative’/’monopolistic’) in making online and offline applications.
Michael Gurstein
July 12, 2011
Very interesting observation Zainab. I think that is what I call in the “effective use” model “advocacy” (level 6) although advocacy with a commercial intent. The need for some sort of intermediary between even the most apparently “transparent” system and at least some members of the public (the poorest, least educated, etc>0 is something that “public” data advocates need to recognize and “open” data advocates need to understand (and build into their designs).
flick harrisonflick harrison
July 12, 2011
My eyes were widened a bit in Pakistan when I went to renew my visa at the immigration department…. for several blocks around the office, lining both sides of the street, there were guys set up on little carpets with typewriters.
They were providing not just typing but reading + writing service for folks who couldn’t do it themselves. I remember the literacy rate (1998) was 2%, but only if you defined literacy as the ability to read and write your own name!
So on the one hand systemic barriers can be super-high, but then again middle-men have sensitive noses for opportunity.
In the Canada context I was mentioning, it’s the professional information middle-men themselves (journalists) who have been getting stonewalled in their quests for information. Our current prime minister actually demands veto / clearance power over even the background information that government scientists provide, in one crazy case, a scientist couldn’t discuss an ancient ice age (guess why):
http://oilsandstruth.org/ottawa-tightens-muzzle-climate-change-tar-sands
Funny enough, these attempts to censor scientists were revealed through access-to-information requests… ha ha.
Alison Powell
July 4, 2011
Thanks for this Mike – as I was busy talking about Open Hardware I didn’t get a good sense of the Open Data stream at OKCon, so this reflection is very helpful.
Like Tim I’ve been thinking recently about some of the issues with ‘openness’ as an unspoken and uncritiqued goal. In hardware of course the limitations are very clear – an ‘open’ design can be easily pirated and taken out of the commons, and a corporation can easily become an end-user. So in a sense the open hardware discussion has really had to directly deal with these issues. It has resulted in a more pragmatic stance: I got a sense in our working group that there was much more interest in using open hardware to mean ‘developed with public funding, or in the public interest, and thus available for re-use’ rather than the evangelical open-source software advocacy that I encountered before. This pragmatism is good, because it is a way of getting past the very narrow cultures that one can easily observe at events like OKCon.
The push factors on those other cultures and communities have been well understood in work on internet and broadband – now it’s important to expand the discussion.
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
Excellent set of observations Alison and thanks for extending the discussion into “open hardware” in such a useful way!
timgdavies
July 4, 2011
Hey Alison,
This is a really useful observation indeed. I’d been finding similar process of accommodation in readings on A2K: trying to respond to fears about appropriation or exploitation of knowledge by more powerful actors. I wish I’d be in more of the open hardware strand to engage with this more!
Tim
Stefano
July 4, 2011
Great post Mike! (as usual)
Another aspect which makes a clarification of “who the user is” very important is the fact that, in most cases, the transition from “closed” to “open” data sets in public administration will not be instantaneous. It will rather be a more or less legthy process, with some costs. So whatever path is taken and priorities set, someone (some “user” of open data) will likely benefit first, and someone later, or possibly … never. In other words, besides all the considerations you make and that I share, we are talking about a transformation process which is not socially-politically neutral. One more reason to make clear who is expected to benefit, how, and when.
Stefano
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
Tks Stefano and yes, there will be a defined (and budgeted) process and that is where interventions towards “democratic data” can be made.
Bill
July 4, 2011
Michael, seriously: those who are more politically active are more likely to read news about politics, watch televised debates, go to political information online, vote, etc, and of course, use governmental data. This is absolutely no reason to reduce access to any of these political resources.
Bill
Michael Gurstein
July 4, 2011
Bill, I certainly wasn’t suggesting that information be restricted; rather the opposite, that provisions should be put in place to ensure that the opportunity to access and use the information is made available to the broadest possible groups and individuals. If you take a look at http://www.chis.ucla.edu/pdf/chis_making_impact.pdf which should be near and dear to you, it gives an idea of what can be done when data is accompanied by provisions for effective use–interpretation, training, advocacy.
Mike
Laura Madison
July 4, 2011
Your post has very much helped me sort out what i was trying to say, verbalize and otherwise SHOUT (but stumbling badly) about “branches or beneficiaries” of open or even crowdsourced data. I want to thank you for this post, most excellent!
Laura Madison
Parminder Jeet Singh
July 5, 2011
Mike, Thanks for an excellent commentary. I think that the basic problem we face is a move away from a discourse rooted in vocabulary of democracy to that of a techno-utopia which, perhaps not just coincidently, serves the powerful well (maybe here some few adjustments in the elite level are involved – new elites versus old ones, with a huge overlap no doubt). In that vein I may say that even thinking of ‘user’ is not enough to nuance the application of the concept of openness. Both the terms – ‘open’ and ‘user’ – belong to this techno-utopic unreal realm. The corresponding democratic terms are ‘equal’ and ‘people’ or ‘public’. While these latter terms are also much contested, socio-political contestation is native to their use and application, unlike the technically neat terms, ‘open’ and ‘user’. The techie doesnt like the fuziness of such contestations, while the deliberately pro-powerful neo-lib finds it dangerous to his scheme of power relationships. And it in this that the two groups have a grand alliance, if unsuspected by many techies, which is the the main force propelling technical developments in the digital realm today.
As Mike says, open is of course much better than closed, but what ‘open’ is still not is as important an issue to delve upon, and to do so in a systematic manner – not just as a, well we do understand but…., kind of apology.
It is for this reason that my organization, IT for Change, increasingly recommends the use of the term ‘public ICTs’ instead of ‘open ICTs’, while at the same time systematically engaging with the new contestations and new democratic claims regarding the term ‘public’. We are right now finalising a chapter on ‘Open but not public: Membership in the Information Society as a club good’ for a book on ‘open development’ by IDRC, Canada.
Our free and open source software work is done by the ‘Public Software Centre’ whereby public software is not just any software whose source code is open but such software that serves public interest, and which is a public responsibility to make available to all, and enable equal engagement of all with. (Very interestingly, Alison Powell in a posting above seeks to define open hardware as ‘‘developed with public funding, or in the public interest, and thus available for re-use’. This comes so close to how we see ‘public ICTs’, and we are glad some thinking in this direction is taking shape.)
We do understand that by simply redefining something, not much will change. However it does set us up to look at the right issues and seek to answer the right questions, in a systematic, mainstream manner, and not just as an apology of the main thrust of thinking and actions. This is what is required to be done in taking forward the critiques that we see emerging to the simplistic notion of ‘open data’.
In this regard, one may ask, why is it a ‘open data’ movement and not a ‘public data’ movement?
Parminder,
IT for Change
Michael Gurstein
July 5, 2011
Parminder, I like your suggested shift from “open” (data/knowledge etc.) to “public” very much. It makes quite clear I think, the underlying political nature of the conceptualizations involved. It isn’t that “open” and “public” are antagonistic to each other but it puts brackets around the “unconscious” extension in “open data” from a technical concept to one which consciously or no has political/policy ramifications.. Thus “public data” is to my mind necessarily “open data” but “open data” may or may not be “public” depending for example, on how the “user” is defined.
xdxd_vs_xdxd
July 5, 2011
hi Michael, interesting points!
together with a series of collectives and research groups we are having lots to do with information visualization. Which is really connected to all the themes of open data. What we’re seeing more and more of, is enormous players starting to use open data as many global companies used ecology and sustainability a while ago: from greenwashing to infowashing or something like that?
there is this trend by which companies and organizations publish info and also interactive experiences working on that info: on health, on energy, on wars and casualties. millions of visits, hundreds of millions of clicks and thousands of online-minutes later, there are two main outputs for this: the companies have a very detailed profile on who/how/when/where looked at the information, and some sort of effect on the reputation of the organization.
It is nothing new, obviously, but it’s worth noticing.
One more thing which is worth noticing is the aesthetics and general appeal of these visualizations (and of the processes by which information is released): very specific/specialized communities and interest groups are forming, which are really homogeneous in both language, imaginaries and visions.
I am currently working with a publishing house that is called FakePress Publishing. We work on our own scenarios on what can be described as the “next-steps of publishing”, and we deal a lot with information access, usability and desirability, also dealing with ubiquitous technologies and the ways in which digital information can add informative and active layers to the “ordinary” world, on cities, architectures, products, bodies.
We have a very deep interest in access and inclusion, and in the ways in which we can “use” anthropology to create (or, most important, to enable) opportunities and possibilities for all.
This is something we feel should be addressed with real emphasis and power: the fact that a large part of the planet is being left out of a lot of these processes. Or, better, “not being designed for”.
The only solutions which we are finding are in somewhat extreme practices in education.
For example we brought augmented reality to the Bororo population in Mato Grosso in Brazil, and we started from an idea for a innovative anthropological publication, only to end up in joining the now ubiquitous-tech-savy Bororo in creating a QRCode-based protest in Brasilia.
If i was forced to write a recipe it would sound something like: bring a scenario, explain how it works, help them out to work their own languages and visions on it, support them into enacting it.
This works beautifully for open data and related themes: if specific efforts are made towards inclusion and access, it will give rewards, as more people will have knowledge and skills and they will be able to invent their opportunities and to enact them autonomously.
Thanks for the wonderful insights!
Michael Gurstein
July 5, 2011
And thank you for a fascinating set of examples from areas quite far from my direct experience. Thanks again.
Mike
Brian Harris
July 5, 2011
Michael,
I say this tongue in cheek, but it strikes me that your post is a long way of saying “la plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose” (the more things change, the more things stay the same). Read in this way, I’m not sure asking “open access” projects to tithe 10% of their resources will really solve the problem. Because really; I think the problem you are describing is much more basic. How to help people develop the intellectual skills necessary to be able to benefit from access to open (or public) data. As you point out this is a kaleidoscopic skill set that requires rigorous thinking and a wide range of technical skills.
But I have greater reasons for optimism. The open data movement is still quite young. Take your example from land records in Bangalore. Yes rich landowners took advantage of this information (and wasn’t it open before, land records in America are, but difficult to get to) to get richer. See, e.g., the more things stay the same… But those threatened by these actions might be able to use the same information top their advantage, now that they have a direct and immediate motivation to learn how to do so.
One last note… the conference you describe reminds me of the CFP:III (Third Computers Freedom and Privacy conference) in 1993. It was hackers, activists, spooks, visionaries and people excited about this new thing called the internet. I’m glad to see that the energy, enthusiasm and vision is going global.
Brian
Jordan Hatcher
July 5, 2011
You wrote:
“Precisely what is meant by “openness” is never (at least certainly not in the context of this conference) really defined in a form that an outsider could grapple with (and perhaps critique).”
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.
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
The open definition is about your legal rights in relation to that data, and hence your ability to build those tools. Even with physical access, if there is no “legal access” such as via an open license, the data is worthless to many organisations. Much of the open government data work out there is simply asking governments to publish the data and publish it under an open license as defined by the open definition. No one thinks of it as a panacea.
The open definition is, and I think you’ll agree, a crucial first step. It’s not the only step, but without it, the tools to bridge the “data divide” can’t be built.
Michael Gurstein
July 5, 2011
Thanks for the clarifications Jordan… The overall thrust of the post was to suggest that more attention be paid to the anticipated/desired outcomes of the “openness” activities and while I’m certain with you that open data will contribute to bridging digital divides of various kinds my concern was rather with the possible development of a (data) divide between those who are in a position to benefit from Open Data and those who are not. And suggesting that measures be put in place now to ensure that these problems don’t occur down the road when they will be much more difficult and costly to correct.
As an example, the California Health Interview Survey data http://www.chis.ucla.edu/pdf/chis_making_impact.pdf could be used to help pharmaceutical companies identify target markets or it could be used to help community groups to figure out why they seem to have such a high incidence of asthma among their young people. The drug companies have big budgets to figure out how they can use the data, CHIS very correctly provided analytical support and training to communities to figure out how they could make the data useful for them.
Peter Murray-Rust
July 5, 2011
There is an assumption in your article that the OKF (on whose Advisory Board I am) sees Openness as a luxury:
“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”.
Your article did not reflect that the OKF is active in many fields – “From sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata”. In all of these Openness matters. I am a scientist and like very many other scientists care very strongly that the record of science is made Openly available. It is arrogant to take the view that “scientists (or medics) know best” and that it is unnecessary (or even misguided) to make science available to “the general public”. Scientific data is critical in making decisions – from climate to medicine.
We are therefore producing tools, protocols and principles to support the publication of the scientific record for everyone. We have produced the Panton Principles which outline how scientific data can be made Open. (http://pantonprinciples.org/ ) .These have been adopted by publishers such as Biomed Central (a large Open Access publisher of – mainly – biomedical science). If we can achieve the adoption of Panton throughout science and mediciine it will have enormous benefits on releasing scientific data. This data can be used to confirm (or falsify) scientific publications, and can be re-used in information-driven scientific discoveries.
The OKF is active in many fields. For science read bibliography, spending, culture, geodata, climate, etc. We are not primarily idealists – we are helping to make Knowledge Open in response to the demand and the already tangible benefits
Michael Gurstein
July 5, 2011
Thanks for your comments Peter… First let me say that I was presenting quite specifically my reactions to the overall enjoyable and informative OKCon(ference) and I was most definitely not attributing anything to OKF of which I quite frankly know almost nothing. I’m delighted that a body such as the OKF exists and overall I’m strongly but not uncritically in favour of “open”ness in all the spheres that you point to in your note. I’ve commented on “open access in science” in an earlier blogpost http://wp.me/pJQl5-1x so I won’t deal with that part of your comment here.
However, since you’ve raised the question 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.
Jo Walsh
July 5, 2011
Interesting. Wouldn’t be surprised that some people are responding to the critique of OKCon with a defense of the Open Knowledge Foundation, as OKCon is OKF’s annual conference which it has been organising in some form since 2005.
As Jordan noted above, one of the first projects of OKF was opendefinition.org which attempts to set out clearly, using the OSI open source definition as a basis, exactly what it means to say that data is open – and when it isn’t open (with non-commercial restrictions, for example). A reference point to help avoid vague and aspirational uses of “openness”.
As Peter points out, “open data” in this sense stretches far beyond *government* data – OKF projects include editions of Shakespeare, surveys of works entering the public domain, open data for science – for this reason, Parminder, a re-brand to “public data” wouldn’t be a good fit.
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. There was a parallel effort to contribute to and evangelise OpenStreetmap. I had a few snippets in that A2K book cited by @timdavies which were written at around that time.
That talks a bit about WSFII, which was the 2005 conference organised by many of the same folk who started OKCon the following year. And WSFII did consciously make an effort to engage people working in village India, in the community wireless movement, in local currencies. There were some OSI funds to support peoples’ travel from Mumbai and Bangalore, but OKCon has been on a smaller self-funded scale since (up until the most recent one, definitely a step change).
An increased focus on the end user – who benefits, where is the impact? – would be welcome; bear in mind that the struggle thus far has been getting the data at all. There are some newer OKF projects – wheredoesmymoneygo.org , Open Spending and Spending Stories – attempting to give data analytics a more “mainstream” appeal. See also another project being presented at OKCon, Chris Taggart’s Open Corporates, seeded with data scraped from the Companies Houses of the world – again, to emphasise that this is about much more than government data.
As a middle-aged woman who has been involved with OKCon since the beginning, the branding of the whole scene as “World of Warcraft warriors… overwhelmingly male… strongly individualistic, slightly competitive” seems unnecessary, not to mention faintly irritating. The mass ad hominem parts of your argument can’t help but detract from the useful core (about end user focus – Nat Torkington has made similar points in the past, using a free software analogy – another domain that would benefit from a ‘tithe’ for documentation and public engagement.)
I hear people talking about a war, but think we’ve lost the moment we take up arms.
Michael Gurstein
July 5, 2011
Thanks for your comments, Jo and for the historical links. I think that the Open Data/Open Government movement matters a very great deal. Where I live, on the Canadian West Coast the governments of Vancouver and Edmonton have both adopted Open Data policies, the Provincial Government of British Columbia has a special office dealing with Open Data and we don’t even need to speak of developments in neighboring Washington State and Oregon. There seems to be an OD/OG conference of some sort every month or so around here. I’ve attended one or two and been struck by the culture and attendees who are very similar to those at OKCon. I mention all of this because while on the one hand OD/OG has something of the air of a quest (and at least here many of those involved seem to have strong gamer associations) on the other hand the public discussions are (albeit unconsciously) getting closer and closer to some of the fundamental policy structures of government and strategies of governance. And quite honestly to my mind the two don’t mix very well.
If we are introducing new structures for transparency, for accountability, for inclusion in policy making–all of which I very strongly support–then a culture which ignores the nuanced issues of gender and ethnic balance, of social inclusion, of the risks of corporate capture has to be recognized and responded to because the more successful the “movement” becomes the more it will have an impact on how governments interact with citizens and thus on citizen’s lives. Torkington’s piece is interesting and to an extent parallel but what he doesn’t address is that at its root OD/OG is as much about policy and impact as it is about tech and to my mind a conference that is as significant (as you point out) as OKCon should be addressing this in a fairly serious way. To the significant credit of the organizers of the event I think that is why they invited me to participate and present and I’m hoping that my comments if, in part, a bit too caustic would at least have the effect of putting these issues more firmly on the agenda for the next round of discussions on these matters both at OKCon and beyond.
Andy Turner
July 5, 2011
This reminds me of the Groundtruth and Truth about Groundtruth (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9671.1997.tb00002.x/abstract) debate from the late 1990 GIS era. If things had turned out differently, my friend and mentor Stan Openshaw may have added a very critical rant to this. I don’t have the capacity to argue so much, but I do appreciate all your considerations. You might be interested in what John Holloway was talking about in Leeds recently (http://reallyopenuniversity.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/john-holloway%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98crack-capitalism%E2%80%99-at-university-of-leeds/#comment-604), but then again, you might not find it relevant at all. I will link to this from there too. We live in interesting times. May peace be with you 🙂
Peter Murray-Rust
July 6, 2011
Michael,
I have blogged what I intend to be an objective account of why I and others value and support the OKF.
http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/07/06/why-openness-matters-to-me-and-to-you-the-architecture-of-access-to-scientific-knowledge/ . Please read it.
It seems that your concerns were with OKCon2011 rather than OKF – you and I must have been to very different sessions. Yes, I see us in a digital war but the “enemy” is apathy (especially for me among academics), monopolistic organizations of all kinds (and in science governments are also trying to challenges thes), restrictive practices, overuse of legal and quasilegal restraints (patents, copyright, …). Yes, we are building the technology to challenge this, but only because the technology is self-evidently a better way of doing things. I and colleagues are building a digital repository for computational chemistry (Quixote at http://quixote.ch.cam.ac.uk/content/compchem/spectra-dspace/to-2200_2299/index.html). Have a look at it – it represents an approach to archive for everyone the scientific information which is thrown away from > 1 billion USD research every year. Twiddle the molecules.
At least glance at our article on Open Bibliography http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/238406 which is aimed to provide bibliographic records for everyone – books, articles, collections. If your organization uses bibliography (records of books, articles, references, etc.) then this is for you.
I hope you will see that you and the OKF have a lot in common.
Michael Gurstein
July 6, 2011
Peter, I’ve taken the liberty of shifting the discussion and particularly my response to your comments to a new blogpost @ https://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/open-data-2-effective-data-use/ (tiny URL http://wp.me/pJQl5-7h).
Robin Rice
July 6, 2011
Interesting polemic that is clearly getting a lot of attention. I see the open definition has been dealt with, was wondering why the author attended the conference if he wasn’t familiar with it. The kernel of truth beneath the brough-ha-ha is insightful: how can/will the data be used, and are they enhancing democratic processes or just “reinforcing patterns of opportunity that are already there”? Or, if information is power, whom are we empowering with open data and why?
What I sometimes wonder, in choosing which data to build applications around are open data advocates leaning towards populist topics rather than more potentially transformative ones? Does this explain the much greater interest from journalists than social scientists so far? Should we concerned about the (apparent) absence of statisticians in these efforts at simplifying data for purposes of visualisation? The hackfests seem to be quite open to newcomers and novices and are free, so maybe that’s a tick for the plea to tithe resources for the have-nots.
Too bad the post was written in a way that put the community off; the challenge to keep your ‘eyes on the prize’ of social justice and fairness is a good one, and to work even more with community groups, etc. I was reminded this morning of the open data community’s boasts about how quickly they mapped the terrain of Haiti after the earthquake for NGO’s to provide emergency services, when Action Aid sent my sponsored child’s letter and informed me that 1.6 million people are still living in temporary shelters. But that apparently is largely due to the government not ceding land to build permanent structures on, so that may not be a fair juxtaposition. Still sobering though.
Michael Gurstein
July 6, 2011
Robin, you may wish to take a look at some of my additional comments http://wp.me/pJQl5-7h responding to the responses from the OKF. I attended because I was invited and I’ve been following these issues though at a distance for some time but from what in this context is a somewhat parallel though divergent perspective http://wp.me/pJQl5-1x.
Monty Cantsin
July 6, 2011
The ruling elite want to maintain their position. They don’t want to undermine themselves. So they will authorise the release of information when they are forced to or when it suits them. Government data that is useable only by a minority of relatively wealthy and educated individuals is mostly ok. The example of landowners in India was played out in Scotland a few hundred years ago with the land registry and laws that served to enclose common spaces and disempower crofters and others who weren’t in a position to travel to Edinburgh to inspect the “open” books.
Another reason government data is released is because it creates the illusion of transparency and accountability. You can be sure that only enough data to create this illusion and no more will be released without a fight, and it will be well chosen. It is telling that the government departments in charge of these efforts are the public information or propaganda departments and not, for example, the infrastructure ones.
Is it good that we seem to have a surge in open government data? Of course. Some information is better than none, and sometimes they make mistakes and data that they would rather not see the light of day makes it into the public sphere. But you can be sure that as a rule these releases are calculated and is quite purposefully being done to further the interests of those who already have power and clout and not out of some sort of altruism or belief in democracy.
flick harrisonflick harrison
July 6, 2011
Great article Michael.
This is especially interesting given our context in Canada, where “Access to Information” is one of the most contentious types of “open data” policies. It sounds like the Open Data folks you met want broad policy change, but in addition to your worries about such policies often serving the wrong stakeholders, there are serious roadblocks to enforcing policies that serve anyone else.
When government has so many levers to replace watchdogs, claim executive privilege, stall requests, etc etc, it’s clear that straight-up policy changes don’t mean Open Data at all.
http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/accesstoinfo-07-04-2011
Canada’s ATI laws determine what kinds of information the government must reveal and what it may keep private when receiving a formal ATI request, for example:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/tbsf-fsct/350-57-eng.asp
The ATI regime can be undermined by entrenched elites, event in flagrant violation of the law, when interests are at stake. Civil servants who attempt to act according to the law risk personal and career consequences, while the government which flouts the rules not only rigs a hog-tied oversight regime but faces an electorate which either doesn’t know or care about the violations.
The re-election of the Conservatives with a strengthened majority acts as a de facto cancellation of Access to Information law. This was supported by a corporate media that let stories die rather than snap with their sharp teeth at the fleeing buttocks of information.
The Conservatives in fact eliminated a database of all ATI requests that fit the very definition of Open Data; a proactive collation that saved both researchers and civil servants time and money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_of_Access_to_Information_Requests_System
They seemed to face no serious repercussions from this.
-Flick
Michael Gurstein
July 6, 2011
Thanks Flick…
Your linking of the discussion to the Canadian Access to Information law is very interesting and I think appropriate, and usefully shifts the emphasis from the tech to the policy (where I think it should in large part be…
Mike
laban78
July 11, 2011
Hello Michael,
This feels great to read and I would definitely agree with each word that you wrote.
Central and west African countries still wonder on how to implement democracy (at least they are trying hard). People die for any reason that you would believe that in our days nobody should be dying for like malaria, worms and foremost for trying to get their heads around government businesses. Knowledge belongs to a little few that runs everything that runs. If you still haven’t got what digital divide was meaning just go to Tchad or Central African Republic or Congo (Brazzaville) or Gabon or Cameroon (purposefully from least to the better), and you will really feel like being one of the chosen ones (144k in the Bible). You are just from another world and the people that you will be relating with (in knowledge terms) will be all from that class (uber geeks?). An OK world sounds really ludicrous around there (Worrying picture I suppose).
But there is still hope for we don’t really need to to discover the fire again, we could just catch up …
The question raised here tells as well that there is still a choice to make, while your account of the OKco2011 suggests that resources are about to be leverage towards Open Knowledge Government (OKGov).
I do believe (I don’t know if I would qualify as an open data warrior) that OKgovs are in their infancy and everything is still possible, among what you have really succeeding to empower the powerless and to surprise the other guy with one hand in the pot of honey.
Laban
Michael Gurstein
July 11, 2011
Thanks for your comments Laban. I think the issues as you mention, are particularly acute in places where access itself is a problem and limits the opportunity to access data, however much “open” it might be.
John Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
July 14, 2011
Let us stop this blatant new form of sexism/ageism/racist-ism: nerds have every right to deliver new tools. ‘Openness’ is a measure of usefulness applicable to the new tools we are striving for it is definitely not an ideal for society but does have the potential to contribute to furtherance of the ones mentioned.
It is all of us in society that decides what is justice freedom, democracy. Thereafter it is also we who decide what the tools are that we need TO HELP US MOVE FROM WHERE WE ARE TO WHERE WANT TO BE.
Ludditism will not contribute to solving the very real problems of (yet again) the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots’.
I am a deep believer in our ability to solve problems, to use ICT wisely, to be purposeful humans. That does not means any of us knows the answers for certain, but we sure need to keep on trying to find them. It is a cheap jibe to blame those who are trying for not solving at one go all the deep problems we all inherit. I will dialogue with anyone who is willing to listen about FuturICT and also SMART SOCIETY.
Oh and I enjoy the friendly jousting that goes on, as Churchill memorably said jaw-jaw is better than war-war. The right information tools will aid this. You cannot achieve dialogue unless you OPEN your mouth and do not CLOSE off your mind, and it needs also open ears.
Keep the stuff coming, but let us try to convert it into results?
Thai Flowers
December 18, 2011
Finally someone on this post who isn’t an intelligent moron. Just because average Joe can’t use a technology doesn’t make it bad. With software, esp. open software, only the truly geeky know how to use the technology at first, but as time goes by interfaces are built to make use easier for both the average user and the original geeks.
With as much interest people have in open government projects I expect user friendly interfaces to the data to begin as soon as the underlying engine and policies are in place.
Shying away from progress just because your average person won’t immediately be able to use your technology is stupid, every advancement in computers would never have happened under that twisted logic.
Also, to address the earlier point about different states having different processes for the same services being an obstacle for establishing open-data policies. This is reminiscent of problems in computer science and could be solved with an “interface and implementation” design (if thats the right name). That is all implementations (processes) that aim to achieve a certain goal must have a common interface; in this case a universal way to report data to information gathering services. If all the different methodologies to, for example get a permit, are at some point recorded in software then this type of organization would be effortless. The implementation can be ignored “globally,” the data is delivered transparently and if properly designed the details of the action can be viewed at will.
These are just tentative thoughts at 2:00 in the morning so I hope that at least make a little sense and the gist of them is understandable and doesn’t sound too rude or stupid.
Jacky Hood
July 22, 2011
Although Robin Hood was actually restoring property to its rightful owners, most people consider this legend to be about stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Not only is it wrong to steal but the recipients are degraded and they do not move into the economic mainstream. The ‘teach a man to fish’ axiom and the more-modern CK Prahalad “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” are far better approaches to poverty.
In the world of open intellectual property, I was shocked to hear a group of artists at the 2009 OpenEd conference in Vancouver saying “It it is not free, steal it.”
We need to find a better role model than the bandit Robin Hood and his band of Merry Thugs.