Debriefing the Open Definition workshop at MozFest | Open Knowledge Foundation blog, March 30, 2023

"One week ago at MozFest, we began the process of rethinking and updating the Open Definition for today’s challenges and contexts. ...Key Takeaways: Diversity – It was recognised that the original Open Definition process was mostly carried out by people with a fairly high-level profile, but little diversified.  Governance – It is necessary to design a new governance model for the Open Definition to seek an even greater consensus than before. There is a need to actively and radically include people from other origins, races, genders, classes, etc., and in a way that everyone feels a constituent part of the process. Misuse – One of the biggest problems when it comes to open content today is the misuse and abuse of the word open, used to describe technologies and contexts that actually do not satisfy any of the criteria defined by the Open Definition. Participants mentioned the need for mechanisms for reporting misuses, or how the definition could have a more supervisory/validating role. Ethics – There was a discussion about the term “for any purpose” which, according to the current definition, is an essential part of what makes content open. Some arguments revolved around the concepts of “responsible use” (like in Responsible AI Licences), or “do no evil”. Universality – There were also debates about the universality of the concept. Some argued that there should be a single generalised definition, while others pointed out the need to make the definition always dynamic and context-related. Language – Many pointed out that the Open Definition should abandon jargon, legal, economic and technical vocabularies to adopt a more accessible and easy-to-understand language, especially for those who are not familiar with the concept.

Considering the above, we at the Open Knowledge Foundation are happy to announce that: We are absorbing the feedback and organising ourselves to take the first formal step: proposing a governance model to guide discussions in the coming months. We are reactivating the official Open Definition discussion forum, where the past conversations took place. Anyone who would like to contribute is welcome to join. We are slowly revamping and editing the Open Definition website (open to contributions via GitHub) and preparing it for the upcoming discussions...."