Key Takeaways from the RightsCon workshop

Open Definition
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Let’s use this topic to provide feedback and add any comments or thoughts to the summary we at OKFN made of the workshop with Latin American communities at RightsCon Costa Rica.

Full version in the Blog.

Check the full session documentation and read all the comments – in Spanish – here.

Key Takeaways

  • Inclusive Language – Leave behind legal jargon (or make an effort to translate it into simpler and more inclusive words that could be understood by everyone everywhere).
  • Broader Agreement – The consensus around the Open Definition should be broader, even if the definition itself doesn’t change that much.
  • Ethics / Use Purpose – There’s a tension between protecting the commons without restricting them. Participants really stressed the meaning of “application to any purpose”
  • AI – There’s a big concern with artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. While machine readability needs to be guaranteed, there is also a need to better define what is meant by “computer”, and if there are cases in which this requirement might not be valid.
  • Clarification – Deepen the focus on attribution, remuneration, and non-discrimination, assessing each word’s meaning for the actual times, diverse cultures and languages.
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Important topics.

This very sentence is arguably a contradiction in terms. The commons ought to be governed by those who live them, otherwise they’re something else.

All too often we see externally imposed “protection” which defeats the purpose of something and is therefore not “protection” at all (copyright being the prime example), and vice-versa for “restrictions”.

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