The Govrnment of Canada has released the second version of its Open Government Licence.  It’s remarkably simple compared to most end user license agreements (EULA) I’ve ever seen.

A few key parts of the license

The Information Provider grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information, including for commercial purposes.

You are free to: Copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the Information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose.

You must, where you do any of the above: acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.

This licence does not grant you any right to use: personal Information, the names, crests, logos, or other official symbols of the Information Provider; and Information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks.

The Information is licensed “as is”, and the Information Provider excludes all representations, warranties, obligations, and liabilities, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law.  The Information Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions in the Information, and will not under any circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage caused by its use or otherwise arising in connection with this licence or the Information, even if specifically advised of the possibility of such loss, injury or damage.

Governing Law: This licence is governed by the laws of the province of Ontario and the applicable laws of Canada.

It’s interesting that Alberta’s new open government licence is very similar to the federal government licence.  Apparenlty work has been going to move towards a federal provincial consensus on open government licences to ensure that there is legal interoperability between data sets released by different governments in Canada.