UK National Archives updates Open Government Licence

The British National Archives has published a revised version (v.2.0) of its Open Government Licence. This licence covers the use and re-use of the majority of government and other public sector information.

The Archive's news item identifies two particular changes to the licence since version 1: a new section headed "Non-endorsement" specifies that re-used information cannot be presented as if the new version of the information has any official status or endorsement from the department from where it originated. Secondly, an OGL symbol has been developed as an easy way to identify information that can be used under the terms of the licence.

On its blog, the Open Knowledge Foundation welcomes the addition of the text "The OGLv2.0 is Open Definition compliant" to the National Archives' new version of the licence. The licence had conformed with the definition previously, but that conformance was not mentioned in the original version of the licence. The OKF notes that now "the licence is now officially conformant with the Open Definition." That definition seeks to precisely define the terms "open", "open data" and "open content" in the context of data and content in order to ensure "interoperability between different pools of open material."

(ehe)