Montreal Ouvert recently organised a meeting between city officials and Intellectual Property expert David Fewer on the various open-data formats and which ones the city of Montreal could adopt.

Unfortunately, many lawyers still fear open data and have a natural reflex to protect their clients (city) by putting in place complex licences. However, this approach limits developers’ ability to use the data and thus stunts the growth of the open data initiative. We hope Montreal will learn from the mistakes of other cities and institute a progressive open-data licence. For more information, see our Next Montreal article “Une licence peut tuer l’innovation”.

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) was established at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law in the fall of 2003. It is the first legal clinic of its kind in Canada. In 2007, technology innovator and entrepreneur Dr. Robert Glushko and his wife, Professor Pamela Samuelson, made a large donation to CIPPIC, allowing the clinic to continue its student-centered research and advocacy on technology-related policy and law reform.