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(I am Christian Landgren, cofounder of the project) You are right, the city believes they have ownership of the data, mainly because they fail to understand th

(I am Christian Landgren, cofounder of the project) You are right, the city believes they have ownership of the data, mainly because they fail to understand that they aren’t showing data in an app, but rather publishing data in an API. In Swedish law, once you have released data from a government, the receiver have the right to do whatever they want with the that data (as long as it isn’t violating any other laws). The city in this case is responsible to check that the data is safe to share publicly and once they have- the data is not theirs. This is regulated in the constitutional law regulating free speech which goes back to year 1766. This means that they can’t really apply the same logic as a private company can when publishing data in their api. A private company can still keep license over what can be done with the data they publish. A city can not do that because of these constitutional laws.

taylodl 5y ago
That's an interesting angle - the government published the data via an API and therefore the data is now public and so as a result these other laws you mention come into play. Fascinating! Please keep us posted as to how this progresses.
- tofflos 5y ago
  The act of publishing has little to do with it. Sweden is open by default and the government has to provide public access to official documents to anyone and everyone - including foreign nationals. > The principle of public access to official documents serves as a guarantee for transparency in the work of the Riksdag, the Government and the public authorities. The principle is set out in the Freedom of the Press Act, which is one of Sweden's fundamental laws, and means that everyone is entitled to access official documents. > Everyone is entitled to contact a public authority and request a copy of an official document. Anyone requesting access to an official document does not need to provide their name or any details of how the document will be used. The government can opt-in to secrecy. > The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act contains provisions on secrecy to protect public interests, for example, national security. It also contains provisions on secrecy to protect individuals’ personal or financial circumstances. Source: https://www.riksdagen.se/en/how-the-riksdag-works/the-riksdag-administration/official-documents https://www.riksdagen.se/en/how-the-riksdag-works/the-riksda...
  - throwaway09223 5y ago
    US law is similar. The federal government cannot hold copyright and absent specific opt-ins for national security and so on, all data is public. States and cities are a bit trickier because of the weird way the constitution interacts with states, but things still tend towards open access.
scoot 5y ago
Hi, congrats on the app. I was curious about one thing in the article - why would the city pay to license the app when it is open source? Do you anticipate that this would be cheaper for them than them paying one of their overpriced contractors to build and publish an "official" version, given how much they spent on a CRUD app?
- edenstrom 5y ago
  Swede here. This is just a guess, but I think it's the illusion of control. Too much negative press about the conflict, and this is their attempt at controlling the narrative and "taking responsibility". We'll see what the future holds.
  - Reimersholme 5y ago
    Also, once you get people hooked on what is basically welfare, of course over time you can also start nudging them in your preferred direction or threaten to stop paying... (Fellow Swede)
- urvader 5y ago
  Thanks! Well we have already made the source code open and free and also encouraged the city to release an app with our source code as base. They weren’t interested in that. They would rather license the app, support and maintenance to us. We have quoted a fixed sum per month for that service and we plan to use that money to reimburse everyone sending PR:s we merge.
  - KajMagnus 5y ago
    > We have quoted a fixed sum per month for that service and we plan to use that money to reimburse everyone sending PR:s we merge How interesting :- ) I wonder how you'll distribute the thanks-for-the-feature (PR) money — e.g. per PR, or per lines (hmm I guess not) or maybe some impact / "severity" system like for bug bounties? (but this time "feature bounties") (From Sweden me too. How nice that you built the app and that apparently things seem to end in a good way :- ) I felt a bit upset when reading the article)
theptip 5y ago
Is there any way to write an app that doesn’t “publish the data” by this definition? It seems like publishing was not their intent, and furthermore they were not legally allowed to “publish” personal data. For example if their system includes an app that lets you see your students grades and disciplinary issues, presumably you would not want that published. Is it simply impossible to build an app with such data in Sweden now as it would be “published”? Edited to add: and just to be clear, I am fully supportive of this use case. Just trying to understand the restrictions better.
- bjourne 5y ago
  There may be some terminology confusion at play. The data may be an "offentlig handling" ("public document"). Christian's argument is that since the data is a "public document" it can be published through his app. That argument is correct at least as long as he has an "utgivningsbevis" ("letter of publishing rights"?). However, it doesn't follow that the way his app is accessing the data is lawful. You may go to a bank and withdraw your savings but you may not break into a bank and physically take your savings. Grades are "public documents" in all schools in Sweden. With other things like disciplinary issues it varies depending on whether the school is run by the government or a private company.
  - urvader 5y ago
    No, the app has no communication to us, we don’t even have a server. This means that from a legal standpoint we aren’t publishing any information. We only help our users to present their own data in a better format (than json).
    - theptip 5y ago
      Sorry, I see now that “they” in my comment was ambiguous. I meant “the government”, not your app that accesses the school APIs. As in, if in Sweden anything that is available from the government in an API is defined to be published, does that mean the government cannot make an API for private information such as sensitive parent/teacher communications? Naively it seems to me that a government API could contain docs that are not published/public docs. But maybe that is so, and the argument here is simply that _in this case_ everything was in fact public, including some personal data that would seem non-public to people familiar with other legal systems.
bjourne 5y ago
But there is no API here. The article makes it clear that you were intercepting client-server communication not meant to be used by third parties in order to write your own client. That it could be used as an API doesn't matter since the intent wasn't to create an API. I could do the same thing and write an app for, say, the tax agency by scraping its website but it would be a legal gray area.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- titusjohnson 5y ago
  There is clearly an API in play here. The article mentions it numerous times. The client app has to use an API to get its data, that's a downside of deploying a SPA. You need to make an API for it to get data from. If you don't want to make an API that exposes raw data just write a SSR app. If you want to deploy a SPA, well, you have to deploy an API as well and you need to plan around the fact that when you throw an API out into the wild and authorize people to use it (by handing out auth tokens), well, people are gonna use it.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    It might technically look like an API - but it could still not count as an API legally (for the constitutional trick) if the interface was not intended to be public. If you want to stretch the terms, everything on and off the web that does communication is basically an API - it's just that some of those APIs use JSON to encode their data and make it really easy to access... and some of them bury it in mountains of HTML - but if the data is there the data is there. There really isn't a functional difference between a scraper that goes from TEXT => DATA and a json decoder that goes from TEXT => DATA except how easy it is to write and maintain it. One outcome of this fight might be that government organizations are directed to use more proprietary communication methods which would be a poor outcome for everyone involved.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Privately documented APIs are still APIs.
908B64B197 5y ago
> You are right, the city believes they have ownership of the data, mainly because they fail to understand that they aren’t showing data in an app, but rather publishing data in an API. Christian, it's not about the data and has never been. The data is a legal tool they are using. The municipal administration is trying to save face. It's layers and layers of non-technical bureaucrats who have to justify their salaries. A few talented software engineers running in circles around some multi-million dollar contract they gave to a large offshored operations with probably close to a hundred individual programmers doesn't look good for them at all.
Zaephyr 5y ago
Well done! Both for the app and seeing the fight through. All of us would be lucky to have people as dedicated as you and your team in our cities.

taylodl 5y ago

That's an interesting angle - the government published the data via an API and therefore the data is now public and so as a result these other laws you mention come into play. Fascinating! Please keep us posted as to how this progresses.

tofflos 5y ago
The act of publishing has little to do with it. Sweden is open by default and the government has to provide public access to official documents to anyone and everyone - including foreign nationals. > The principle of public access to official documents serves as a guarantee for transparency in the work of the Riksdag, the Government and the public authorities. The principle is set out in the Freedom of the Press Act, which is one of Sweden's fundamental laws, and means that everyone is entitled to access official documents. > Everyone is entitled to contact a public authority and request a copy of an official document. Anyone requesting access to an official document does not need to provide their name or any details of how the document will be used. The government can opt-in to secrecy. > The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act contains provisions on secrecy to protect public interests, for example, national security. It also contains provisions on secrecy to protect individuals’ personal or financial circumstances. Source: https://www.riksdagen.se/en/how-the-riksdag-works/the-riksdag-administration/official-documents https://www.riksdagen.se/en/how-the-riksdag-works/the-riksda...
- throwaway09223 5y ago
  US law is similar. The federal government cannot hold copyright and absent specific opt-ins for national security and so on, all data is public. States and cities are a bit trickier because of the weird way the constitution interacts with states, but things still tend towards open access.

scoot 5y ago

Hi, congrats on the app. I was curious about one thing in the article - why would the city pay to license the app when it is open source? Do you anticipate that this would be cheaper for them than them paying one of their overpriced contractors to build and publish an "official" version, given how much they spent on a CRUD app?

edenstrom 5y ago
Swede here. This is just a guess, but I think it's the illusion of control. Too much negative press about the conflict, and this is their attempt at controlling the narrative and "taking responsibility". We'll see what the future holds.
- Reimersholme 5y ago
  Also, once you get people hooked on what is basically welfare, of course over time you can also start nudging them in your preferred direction or threaten to stop paying... (Fellow Swede)
urvader 5y ago
Thanks! Well we have already made the source code open and free and also encouraged the city to release an app with our source code as base. They weren’t interested in that. They would rather license the app, support and maintenance to us. We have quoted a fixed sum per month for that service and we plan to use that money to reimburse everyone sending PR:s we merge.
- KajMagnus 5y ago
  > We have quoted a fixed sum per month for that service and we plan to use that money to reimburse everyone sending PR:s we merge How interesting :- ) I wonder how you'll distribute the thanks-for-the-feature (PR) money — e.g. per PR, or per lines (hmm I guess not) or maybe some impact / "severity" system like for bug bounties? (but this time "feature bounties") (From Sweden me too. How nice that you built the app and that apparently things seem to end in a good way :- ) I felt a bit upset when reading the article)

theptip 5y ago

Is there any way to write an app that doesn’t “publish the data” by this definition? It seems like publishing was not their intent, and furthermore they were not legally allowed to “publish” personal data. For example if their system includes an app that lets you see your students grades and disciplinary issues, presumably you would not want that published. Is it simply impossible to build an app with such data in Sweden now as it would be “published”? Edited to add: and just to be clear, I am fully supportive of this use case. Just trying to understand the restrictions better.

bjourne 5y ago
There may be some terminology confusion at play. The data may be an "offentlig handling" ("public document"). Christian's argument is that since the data is a "public document" it can be published through his app. That argument is correct at least as long as he has an "utgivningsbevis" ("letter of publishing rights"?). However, it doesn't follow that the way his app is accessing the data is lawful. You may go to a bank and withdraw your savings but you may not break into a bank and physically take your savings. Grades are "public documents" in all schools in Sweden. With other things like disciplinary issues it varies depending on whether the school is run by the government or a private company.
- urvader 5y ago
  No, the app has no communication to us, we don’t even have a server. This means that from a legal standpoint we aren’t publishing any information. We only help our users to present their own data in a better format (than json).
  - theptip 5y ago
    Sorry, I see now that “they” in my comment was ambiguous. I meant “the government”, not your app that accesses the school APIs. As in, if in Sweden anything that is available from the government in an API is defined to be published, does that mean the government cannot make an API for private information such as sensitive parent/teacher communications? Naively it seems to me that a government API could contain docs that are not published/public docs. But maybe that is so, and the argument here is simply that _in this case_ everything was in fact public, including some personal data that would seem non-public to people familiar with other legal systems.

bjourne 5y ago

But there is no API here. The article makes it clear that you were intercepting client-server communication not meant to be used by third parties in order to write your own client. That it could be used as an API doesn't matter since the intent wasn't to create an API. I could do the same thing and write an app for, say, the tax agency by scraping its website but it would be a legal gray area.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
titusjohnson 5y ago
There is clearly an API in play here. The article mentions it numerous times. The client app has to use an API to get its data, that's a downside of deploying a SPA. You need to make an API for it to get data from. If you don't want to make an API that exposes raw data just write a SSR app. If you want to deploy a SPA, well, you have to deploy an API as well and you need to plan around the fact that when you throw an API out into the wild and authorize people to use it (by handing out auth tokens), well, people are gonna use it.
- munk-a 5y ago
  It might technically look like an API - but it could still not count as an API legally (for the constitutional trick) if the interface was not intended to be public. If you want to stretch the terms, everything on and off the web that does communication is basically an API - it's just that some of those APIs use JSON to encode their data and make it really easy to access... and some of them bury it in mountains of HTML - but if the data is there the data is there. There really isn't a functional difference between a scraper that goes from TEXT => DATA and a json decoder that goes from TEXT => DATA except how easy it is to write and maintain it. One outcome of this fight might be that government organizations are directed to use more proprietary communication methods which would be a poor outcome for everyone involved.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Privately documented APIs are still APIs.

908B64B197 5y ago

> You are right, the city believes they have ownership of the data, mainly because they fail to understand that they aren’t showing data in an app, but rather publishing data in an API. Christian, it's not about the data and has never been. The data is a legal tool they are using. The municipal administration is trying to save face. It's layers and layers of non-technical bureaucrats who have to justify their salaries. A few talented software engineers running in circles around some multi-million dollar contract they gave to a large offshored operations with probably close to a hundred individual programmers doesn't look good for them at all.

Zaephyr 5y ago

Well done! Both for the app and seeing the fight through. All of us would be lucky to have people as dedicated as you and your team in our cities.