Re: Potential Home for LOD Data Sets - is it Open?

Sorry, but you probably knew this was coming...

The esw page starts by saying:
"The Open Data Movement aims at making data freely available to everyone."
This is the context for the LOD activity.

Personally I am quite happy with an LD world and a LOD world, but I think
that some people have a deep commitment to the Open.
At the very least, we should be quite clear about whether we are talking LOD
or LD.
So the recent postings suggesting the questions and answers for an FAQ (well
done guys!) need to be (more?) careful about the Open. This is especially
true because the data providers will have very genuine concerns about the
work Open when we talk LOD.
I wonder if it would be better, for these purposes to drop the Open most of
the time, and just talk LD?

But to get back to the Amazon world.
It looks to me like it is being proposed as a LOD facility.
I think it is a wonderful thing to do, but it is hard for me to consider it
Open in any real sense.
If I was to grab lots of linked data and then start to offer it to the
community, but say to you that you needed to rent some server space from me
in order to use it, I think there would be a lot of complaints that I should
not be using the word Open at all.
The Amazon situation, as far as I can see, is no different.
And I would say that the idea they are being "generous" in letting people
host data is simply part of a hard-nosed business model, where they will
draw people into their (paid-for) world, which is fine, but hardly Open.

So I am very happy for this activity to be badged as Linked Data, and I hope
it is very successful.
But from my point of view, please don't call anything part of the LOD world
unless it offers me free access over http.
I am happy to be told I am alone in these concerns, or have misunderstood
the terms of use of the Amazon cloud, and if so will then modify my
perceptions accordingly.

Best
Hugh

Received on Saturday, 6 December 2008 21:12:05 UTC