The Open Knowledge Definition
Producing Open Knowledge?
Put the Open Knowledge Link Button on Your Site
The Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) sets out principles to define the 'open' in open knowledge. The term knowledge is used broadly and it includes all forms of data, content such as music, films or books as well any other type of information.
In the simplest form the definition can be summed up in the statement that "A piece of knowledge is open if you are free to use, reuse, and redistribute it". For details read the latest version of the full definition (with explanatory annotations). The history page includes a changelog and links to all previous versions.
To find out more about the project, its background and motivations visit the about page.
The open knowledge definition is itself developed in an open manner and anyone can participate. In particular there is the development version of the definition to which you can add your comments.
The idea of openness and its specific expression here owe a huge debt to Free and Open Source software groups, as well as the Open Access movement. In particular much of the definition draws directly from the Open Source Definition.
Read the Open Knowledge Definition 1.0 in Català | Dansk | Deutsch | Ellinika | Español | Euskara | Italiano | Polszczyzna | Srpski
If you would like to help out with translating the OKD into a language not on the list above, please get in touch on our discuss list!
News
2008-11-14: Greek translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Ioannis Doukas, King's College London/University of Athens.
2008-10-08: The Computus Engine is using an Open Knowledge web button.
2008-08-09: The Kids Open Dictionary Builder is using the Open Knowledge web button.
2008-08-04: Mike Linksvayer joins the opendefinition.org Advisory Council.
2008-06-03: Italian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Primavera De Filippi, Andrea Glorioso and Juan Carlos De Martin at the NEXA Center for Internet & Society, Politecnico di Torino.
2008-06-02: Debategraph is using the Open Knowledge web button.
2008-05-26: The Potto Project is using the Open Content web button.
2008-04-03: The omdb is using the Open Content web button (see their copyright page).
2008-04-01: MusicBrainz are using the Open Knowledge web button.
2008-03-11: Basque translation of the Definition courtesy of Gotzon Egia.
2008-03-03: Spanish and Catalan translations of the Definition courtesy of Ignasi Labastida i Juan.
2008-02-29: Polish translation of the Definition courtesy of Jarosław LIpszyc
2008-02-28: Danish translation of the Definition courtesy of Peter Froberg
2008-02-11: New Advisory Council for managing http://opendefinition.org and its associated material.
2007-12-17: Science Commons announce Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data which is compatible with the Open Knowledge/Data Definition.
2007-12-12: Prelinger Archives at archive.org are using the Open Knowledge web button.
2007-11-09: Languages of the World (Multilingual RDF Descriptions) using the Open Data web button.
2007-10-17: New Popular Edition Maps are using the Open Data web button
2007-09-10: DBTune is using the Open Knowledge web button
2007-09-01: Quotations Book are using the Open Content web button (see their disclaimer page)
2007-08-31: GovTrack is using the Open Knowledge web button
2007-08-25: AMEE are using the Open Knowledge and Open Data web buttons (see their blog and their wiki).
2007-07-18: DBpedia is using the Open Data web button (see their resource pages, e.g. Berlin).
2007-06-25: Geocoder US is using the Open Knowledge web button.
2007-05-02: Crystal Eye (Open Crystallography Data) using the Open Data web buttons (see e.g. this page which provides summary data on C12H8ClF).
2007-04-09: Planning Alerts using an Open Knowledge web button.
2007-03-22: Open Access News using an Open Knowledge web button
2007-02-23: The Public Whip using the new Open Knowledge web button
2007-02-06: Open Knowledge and Open Data 'web buttons' available on the buttons page
2007-01-22: Update front page with 'distilled' version of the definition
2006-09-27: Serbian Translation courtesy of Vedran Vucic and the GNULinux Centar
2006-09-10: German translation of the Definition courtesy of Christian Hauschke
2006-09-06: v1.0 released
2006-07-20: New site goes live.
2006-06: Beta version in circulation.
2006-05: Contact with Freedom Defined project
2006-01: Definition has own project page on Open Knowledge Foundation website at: http://www.okfn.org/okd/
2005-10: v0.2 of the definition produced and circulated for comments
2005-08: Draft version of the definition produced and circulated for comments