Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

[Edit to Add: I found it joined 2019, left recently. Leaving comment here. Will delete once posted. Link announcing here departure: https://blog.okfn.org/2020/07/09/catherine-stihler-to-leave-open-knowledge-foundation-to-lead-creative-commons/ ]

Ok, who can help me out here. A Ms Catherine Stihler is listed as CEO of Open Knowledge Foundation [1] [2] but I can't find any mention of her on the OKFN 'Peoples Page' and using their UK registered company number of 05133759 Companies House can't spot any mention of the name [3] nor date of appointment to role of CEO. If someone could find out when they joined, would be interested to see where I missed it in the Companies House filings.

To be clear: I Was/Am curious about the post and the org behind it so I 'Ducked' as the name Catherine Stihler showed up in links 1 & 2.

[1] https://www.nps.edu/web/nsa/-/ceo-of-open-knowledge-foundation-catherine-stihler-open-futures-brexit-and-beyond

[2] https://blog.okfn.org/2020/03/13/open-knowledge-ai-and-algorithms/

[3] https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05133759

Obama, together with the Fed, pulled the US back from the brink of financial disaster in 2008. If the banks and AIG hadn't been bailed out, we'd be in a great depression now. Luckily we learned something since 1930 (although people like you didn't, apparently).

Obama pulled us out of Iraq and Afghanistan more or less on schedule. And he kept us from getting sucked into Libya and Syria, except for extremely minor aid like the 2011 no-fly zone, and arming the rebels in Syria.

Obama has used executive orders to promote policies like reducing allowed federal standards for carcinogens, promoting open data standards, and much else. http://blog.okfn.org/2013/05/10/government-data-open-and-machine-readable-by-default-announces-president-obama/

This is a long-running battle. Those with long memories may remember the skirmish 15 years ago, when a small group of developer-activists set up a website that allowed free access to postcode data (ernestmarples.com, named after the inventor of the modern British postcode system).

Needless to say, it was rapidly shut down following threats of legal action by Royal Mail.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/05/ernest-marples-royal-mail-postcodes-legal-threat

https://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/05/ernest-marples-uk-postcode-site-has-been-taken-down/

In addition to the (currently down) http://www.publicdomainworks.net/stats/year/2011 link provided by 2mur this blog entry also talks about what entered the public domain this year: http://blog.okfn.org/2010/10/18/which-works-enter-the-public-domain-in-2011/

Also, my interpretation of the original post is that it's not a mere lamentation but also a reminder to question the current state of copyright and public domain legislation. Who benefits? Who loses? To what degree? And why? And it does so with concrete examples.

The article has a link to

https://blog.okfn.org/2012/10/08/do-bad-things-happen-when-works-enter-the-public-domain/ (Do Bad things happen when works enter the public domain?)

There are answer is no, but they’re ignoring the fact that when works enter the public domain they will invariably spawn horror movies “based” on the work. Pooh: Blood and Honey is the warning sign we all ignored to our detriment and now we’ll all have to watch the slasher version of T. S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” in 2026.

I hope you’re happy.

GitHub was just the logical progression from okfn:

https://blog.okfn.org/2022/03/03/microsoft-to-support-open-data-day-2022/

Today, we are pleased to announce that Microsoft will once again be supporting Open Data Day by providing mini-grants to organisations to help them run events, the call will launch on Open Data Day 2022.

They also supported "Open Data Day 2021". Sounds like a nice trojan horse to influence EU legislation through purported activists.