CKAN: apt-get for the Debian of Data

Componentization – or the atomization of a given resource into ‘packages’ – has greatly contributed towards the ease with which software developers are able to re-use and build upon each other’s work. We argue that this kind of approach is becoming significantly more important in knowledge development. This talk will discuss the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) – a registry for open data, from sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata. CKAN has recently been used in the UK Government’s beta for a ‘data.gov.uk’ site.

• Daniel Dietrich
• Rufus Pollock