Intro/What Is Open Knowledge

What is open knowledge?
In a nutshell 'open knowledge' is any content or data that anyone is free to use and reuse for any purpose.

What kind of knowledge?
All kinds! We particularly focus on:


 * Information from public bodies - e.g. statistics, spending data or library catalogues
 * Publications and data from publicly funded research - e.g. information about chemical compounds
 * Public domain cultural works - e.g. literary or artistic works which have entered the public domain
 * Content or data that has been voluntarily released under license which permits anyone to reuse it

What does 'open' mean?
The 'open' in open knowledge is meant in the same way as the 'open' in 'open source software' and refers predominantly to reusability.

There are all kinds of barriers to reusing information. For example:


 * Legal restrictions. By default copyright laws and other related laws mean that content and data cannot be freely reused without asking permission.
 * Technological restrictions. How can technological formats restrict reuse? Think of copying and pasting data from a photograph of a handwritten document into a spreadsheet. Or creating a graph from a pile of paper.

So by 'open' we basically mean 'reusable without restriction'. But the 'Reusable Without Restriction' Knowledge Foundation is a bit of a clunky name.

What is the Open Knowledge Foundation?
The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2004, and dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its forms.

What do we do?
We do two main things:

1. We build communities - from running working groups who are interested in a particular topic or theme (science, linguistics, archaeology, transport, ...) or who live in a given city, region or country (from Cambridge, Cape Town or Copenhagen to Brazil, Finland, or Italy).

2. We run projects - from OpenSpending.org which maps public spending around the world, to TheDataHub.org a hub for getting, using and sharing open data.

How do we operate?
The OKFN is run by mixture of community builders and tool makers. We have a lean executive board, which keeps our books in order, and an experienced advisory board, which provides invaluable input on our direction and strategy.

We are a broad, community driven organisation, and this is reflected in our activities. We do lots of different things. If you're interested in any of our projects, we welcome your participation. If you have an idea for a project you'd like to do, an event you'd like to run, or anything else that you think we'd be interested in, do drop us a line!

Where do we operate?
We are a distributed network - with projects and contact points in dozens of countries around the world.

We are predominantly a virtual organisation - with several regional hubs. As an organisation we live and breathe email, blog posts, IRC, Skype and Twitter. We have spaces in London and Berlin - and several local chapters which meet up on a regular basis.

Useful links

 * Introduction - Open Data Manual