I received a link to a wiki called Jurispedia which seems to be a global version of the Open Law Project. The wiki runs on MediaWiki software (the same software that powers Wikipedia and the OLP wiki). What is interesting about Jurispedia (besides its global approach) is the fact that is is based on an implementation at academic institutions. In other words, a university will join the initiative and make contributions to the project (at least, this is the case if I understand it correctly). According to Jurispedia:
The project is open for cooperation with other partners. Any other teams of researchers or Faculties of Law in the whole world can freely join us. Participation in JurisPedia requires only human implication on the shared law.
What is also interesting is that the content on the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike 2.0 license (the current version of this license can be found here). The OLP wiki is currently licensed under a GPL FDL Free Doc license because it is published on Wikia. As I understand this license, it is the equivalent of a Creative Commons Attribution license which is fine with me. Ideally the content published through the OLP must be as close to the public domain as it can get, if not in the public domain. Crediting authors of parts of the overall work is a good idea because there is acknowledgement of their valuable contributions.
There is some merit to a NonCommercial license because I do envisage the OLP charging a nominal license fee for commercial application of the content as a way to keep the OLP self-sustaining but this is a discussion point at the moment.
I am working on developing the OLP under the auspices of a like-minded NGO and will hopefully have something to report pretty soon. This has been a bit slow going but I think the OLP is moving in the right direction. I hope to see the OLP begin to develop a considerable amount of South African legal content before the end of 2007 and take its place alongside the likes of Jurispedia as one of the larger initiatives to bring the law to the people who are subject to it, at least in South Africa.
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jurispedia, creative commons, update, open law project, olp, wiki, gpl fdl
