What is 'Open Data'
Quick Summary
Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license.[1][2][3]
The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements such as open-source software, hardware, open content, open specifications, open education, open educational resources, open government, open knowledge, open access, open science, and the open web. The growth of the open data movement is paralleled by a rise in intellectual property rights.[4] The philosophy behind open data has been long established (for example in the Mertonian tradition of science), but the term "open data" itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov, Data.gov.uk and Data.gov.in.
Open data can be linked data - referred to as linked open data.
One of the most important forms of open data is open government data (OGD), which is a form of open data created by ruling government institutions. Open government data's importance is born from it being a part of citizens' everyday lives, down to the most routine/mundane tasks that are seemingly far removed from government.
The abbreviation FAIR/O data is sometimes used to indicate that the dataset or database in question complies with the principles of FAIR data and carries an explicit data‑capable open license.
The issue with Open Data Today
Open-Data is usually provided via systems like ckan (although not exclusively) and generally provide information in spreadsheet like formats such as CSV or as a data-service via json - Yet, these formats do not easily provide provonance or historical versions of the same information and the ability to manage the permissions of the file is not built into the readily employed file download formats (CSVs); so, there is potential for the information in the file to be changed. Then the other issue is that the structure of the files haven't been defined using RDF SemWebOntologies so, it is more difficult or more expensive (time/energy) to create software that can make use of this information with other datasets.
PermissiveCommons uplifts Open-Data towards OpenDatav3.0PermissiveCommons.