Korea Open Government License (KOGL)

Hi all,

I have already sent the message below to the Open Definition mailing list, but for more engaging discussions, I also post it here.

I am submitting a license to be reviewed for conformance against the Open Definition. The license I am asking to review is the Korea Open Government License (KOGL), and you can find “Use Terms Guide for KOGL” at (in PDF): http://bit.ly/KOGL-EN

The information required by the license approval process is as follows:

  1. The Rationale for the New License
    The KOGL has been developed by the South Korean government (more precisely by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) to allow citizens’ free use of public works without individual permission, promoting and facilitating the use and the reuse of public works.

  2. A Non-reusable License
    Similar to the other conformant open government licenses, the KOGL can also be used only by government institutions, local governments, and public institutions in the Republic of Korea.

  3. Comparison to the Conformant and Non-conformant CC Licenses
    Since the KOGL has been modeled after the Creative Commons (CC) licenses, there are four different types of licenses in the KOGL, and they are similar to CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, and CC-BY-NC-ND licenses, respectively. But, the KOGL Type 1, which is similar to CC-BY, is the only one recommened by the government to use. All the other types are not conformant the Open Definition, so they can be listed in the Non-Conformant Licenses page.

  4. The Benefits of the KOGL
    Even though the KOGL is non-resuable, it’s supported by the law – Official Information Disclosure Act – in the Republic of Korea so that a lot of government institutions, local governments, and public institutions in Korea are encouraged to release their works under the KOGL. This move will be beneficial to Korean citizens, and this will further promote the importance of openness in Korea, contributing to the global OPEN community.

  5. Compatibility with the CC-BY License
    As I noted before, the KOGL Type 1 is based on the Creative Commons Attribution license. However, the KOGL Type 1 has some explicit restrictions on prohibited use of information protected by other laws. For example, even if the work is released under the KOGL Type 1, personal and credit information, and military secrets can not be used or re-used by others. I think those restrictions make the KOGL Type 1 a subset of the CC-BY license.

  6. The KOGL Website
    As far as I know, there is no public drafting process for the license, but after the government announced the KOGL, the new Website (http://www.kogl.or.kr/ in Korean) introducing the KOGL opened. You can find some Q&A boards on the site.

I hope the KOGL Type 1 would be classified as conformant with the Open Definition. Since information related to the KOGL is mainly in Korean, it could be a little bit hard to review, but should there be anything I can help, please let me know.

Thank you for your time.

Best wishes,
James

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I see this matches the CC licenses quite closely. From my review (not super thorough), I agree that the type 1 is conformant while the other licenses that are comparable to CC NC and ND are non-conformant.

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KOGL Type 1 was submitted and discussed briefly by @jgkim and me at lists.okfn.org Mailing Lists … extract of the thread pertinent to conformance:

As I noted before, the KOGL Type 1 is based on the Creative Commons Attribution license. However, the KOGL Type 1 has some explicit restructions on prohibited use of information protected by other laws. For example, even though the work is released under the KOGL Type 1, personal and credit information, and military secrets can not be used or re-used by others. I think those restrictions make the KOGL Type 1 a subset of the CC-BY license.

The exclusion of certain information prohibited by other law seems
superfluous (the other laws already exist). This was extensively
discussed regarding previous OGLs; at a glance the KOGL Type 1 includes
even more exclusions than those previous OGLs. Example:
Feedback on Canada's proposed Open Government Licence Agreement - Open Definition - Defining Open in Open Data, Open Content and Open Knowledge
I don’t have an opinion at the moment as to KOGL Type 1’s conformance,
just flagging this for others to look closely at this item.

It can seem superfluous, but I think it is just intended to let you know that certain data cannot be released by the law. This issue can be debatable, but this article does not completely exclude, for example, “personal data” from sharing. It says it only excludes "Personal information that is protected by” related laws, such as Personal Information Protection Act, Promotion for Information Network Use and Information Protection Act, etc.

I understand the intention, but it puts a big burden on the user to
figure out whether information that seems to be licensed is actually
licensed, because if it happens to be under any of the exclusions, the
license doesn’t apply. This seems rather discouraging as the publisher
(government) not the potential user is likely to have the expertise to
make such a determination.

In terms of Redirecting… there’s a point at which
exclusions make it unclear whether the license actually does “permit (or
allow) the following” (2.1) and conversely whether any particular work
is actually available under an open license (1.1).

Again, I’m just flagging this as an issue for discussion, I am not sure
how problematic the KOGL Type 1 implementation is.

The link in the topic post above now obtains a 404.

The actual license is on the 2nd tab at 공공누리 | 공공누리 유형안내 autotranslation pasted below:

Condition of use of the free public first type

In accordance with the above users are free to enjoy free public
regardless of whether the commercial use of public work if you comply
with the terms set out in the following

Terms and deformation can be used to create derivative works.

Source indication duty

  1. If users take advantage of public works, must display the source or copyright holder as follows. Ex) “Use of public works in accordance with the public enjoying OOO (name of the public authority).”
  2. If it is possible to provide a hyperlink to a website on the source line has to be provided on the link.
  3. The user is not an indication that third parties mistaken as to
    handageona public institutions sponsoring the users particular the
    public authorities and users Relations

Do not.

Information to be used is limited

The following information is included in public works, even if the use
is restricted in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.

  1. Personal Information Protection Act, Promotion of Information and
    Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection of Privacy
    Act on the Protection, etc.
  2. Credit Information Protection Act, etc. on the Use and Protection of Credit Information
  3. military secrets laws to protect military secrets, etc.
  4. The trademarks, design rights, patents and information in this
    information or any third party copyrights and other rights which are the
    subject of
  5. other information to be used is limited by the other laws

Disclaimer of public institutions

  1. The public authority does not guarantee the accuracy or ongoing public offer of work.
  2. The public authority is a public institution and its employees for
    any damage or disadvantage that may occur by the user is using the
    public asset is not responsible.

The effect of violating the license terms

The user license is automatically terminate if you violate any of the
terms of the licensing of public Nouri, a user must discontinue use
immediately and Public Works.

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