Paris: 9 June 2010

The Paris City Council passed a resolution on the provision of government data on the 8th June 2010.

• Document 2010 DAJ 18: Diffusion par la ville de Paris des données publiques en sa possession (draft memorandum on the resolution) outlines the details. The text of the memorandum notes the following resolution articles (approximate English translation) (French text online).

“Article 1: The principle of public data release from the city of Paris is approved.

Article 2: The Mayor of Paris implements the gradual dissemination of these data and in particular:

It prepares licensing types adapted to each category of data and their purposes.

it takes into account issues of ownership of data generated by service contracts with the principal object or accessory collection, storage, treatment or generation of data and eventual recovery and the technical implementation of these operations.

it means the person responsible for the reuse of public data from the city of Paris to create a directory of important information that can reuse by the public.”

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The response of the French Open Data community is that Paris had an opportunity with the open data resolution to take important steps toward open data principles and practices, but concerns and questions remain, in particular related to licensing terms. The French Open Data players attempted to actively influence the drafting of the resolution to ensure that it was based on genuine open data principles and continue lobbying for an amendment to the resolution.

The story, explanations and the details are aptly described on the Regards Citoyens’ Blog posting entitled: “L’OpenData, c’est bien plus que de la communication politique!” (Open Data is more than political communication!).

• Videos Online of the Paris City Council Discussions (published by Regards Citoyens)

The theme of the response to the Paris resolution is reflected in this tweet by Regards Citoyens alerting their followers to the blog posting.

• Tweet (French): Réaction sur notre blog à la délibération #HalfOpenData du Conseil de #Paris http://bit.ly/dfYo38 #OpenData
• Tweet (English translation): Reaction on our blog about the deliberation #HalfOpenData de #Paris http://bit.ly/dfYo38 #OpenData)

At the start, Regards Citoyens makes this point on their blog post.

“Open Data must follow certain rules to be really a source of social, political and economic innovation. To bring out innovative uses, the issue of free licenses is a key point.”

In this excerpt from the Regards Citoyens blog, the context is explained and their concerns expressed (approximate English translation) (Complete French Text online).

“It is first with enthusiasm and then rather disappointed that we learned last Friday the will of the City of Paris related to opening up public data. The first step was through a political deliberation (DAJ 18) related to the agenda of the Council of Paris earlier this week. Under the rubric of the Open Data and resting in his account of foreign initiatives, the ICT project manager of the City Council, Jean-Louis Missika, actually took the highly priced direction advocated by APIE: a direction opposite to the principles of operation of open data.

The text originally proposed was to prepare the creation of new licenses without any mention of free access, re-use and redistribution of data. The perfect scheme created a complex machine that would require citizens and businesses to pay for a second time for the data produced and financed by public services. Indeed, the draft decision referred to "license-types" which are strongly reminiscent of APIE and "ownership of data in the context of public service delegations, which would provide the opportunity for companies delegating public services to finally close evaluation sites such as Citizen statistics Velib'.

Official Open Data initiatives have always required strong political stances with the release of data as a vector of social and economic innovation. Here, the executive in Paris fell back behind a fantastic legal complexity to avoid deciding a political position.

As we do occasionally in ways such as supporting the LiberTIC Nantes Association or by enhancing the constructive developments of the Fischer Family initiative, we decided to participate in the promotion of performing in Paris in Open Data seamlessly into a citizen lobbying around this deliberation. Objective: to change the position of the Paris executive in Paris. We started with Twitter by relaying the program of debates and exchanging publicly with various actors such as Wikimedia, or even with the executive in Paris, with the opportunity for a new account com 'title OpenDataParis. We have also proposed an amendment to supplement the gaps in the text and have been sent it to various political channels.

Elected officials have begun to move and the executive has decided to bring a new amendment. This amendment reproduces some of our proposals, while adding a clause on non-commercial which is an obvious impediment to possible progress. Speakers from all parties have signed up to express doubts and provide an opportunity for consensus. The political conditions were met for a positive decision to be taken in favor of Open Data. But the City Council has preferred to play the shadows in adopting this limited version that allows them to postpone the decision until later. Political communication has started well, however these debates: open a Twitter account, announced a platform for dissemination of data APUR for October 2010 ...

Jean-Louis Missika spoke in his speech a "historic site": History will not debate the timid. But we will continue our open dialogue with the Parisian services and those of other cities in the hope that Open Data is not restricted to a mere political gimmick, so it is a significant tool for social innovation and economic development. Examples English, Italian, Canadian or American and European studies show that opportunity. With a bit of political courage, France and Paris can still take the train and move in open and innovative ways towards the information society.”

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Read More Responses to the Paris Resolution

• Paris: un pas vers l’opendata (Owni.fr)
• Données ouvertes : un principe philosophique, un enjeu politique (Carnetpublic.net)
• CAP21 Paris - La Ville de Paris invente l'entr'ouverture des données publiques (CAP21.net)

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