CKAN Software Distribution

AKA: CKAN.
Context:
- It is stewarded by the Open Knowledge Institute.
- It can be used to create a CKAN-powered Data Hub.
Example(s):
- CKAN v1.
- …
Counter-Example(s):
- …
See: Linked Open Data Project.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CKAN
- The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) is a web-based system for the storage and distribution of data, such as spreadsheets and the contents of databases supported by the Open Knowledge Foundation. It is inspired by the package management capabilities common to open source operating systems like Linux, and is intended to be the “apt-get of Debian for data".
  The system is used both as a public platform on thedatahub.org and in various government data catalogues, such as the UK's data.gov.uk

http://ckan.org/
- CKAN is the open-source data portal software. CKAN makes it easy to publish, share and find data. It provides a powerful database for cataloging and storing datasets, with an intuitive web front-end and API. The core functionality can be flexibly extended with the features you need – from social integration and comments, to Google Analytics, to integrated data storage.

http://ckan.org/faq/
- How is is CKAN different from other data hub software?
  1. CKAN is open source software, so it is both free and highly flexible, letting you avoid long-term lock-in and adapt the code freely when needed. CKAN has run the Data Hub since 2007, is popular and actively developed.
  2. Any CKAN-powered data hub is part of the wider CKAN data hub network. You can choose to share your public data with other CKAN sites, so it reaches the largest possible audience.

http://ckan.org/faq/
- QUOTE: How is CKAN different from other data hub software?
  CKAN is open source software, so it is free and highly flexible, letting you avoid long-term lock-in and adapt the code freely if needed. It also stands out for its rich features for publishers and data users, such as data harvesting, faceted search, and machine interfaces to data and metadata, and federation, letting you share your public data with other CKAN sites.

(Laitio, 2011) ⇒ Joonas Laitio. (2011). “Semantic Web Data Quality Control." Master's Thesis. Department of Media Technology, Aalto University.
- QUOTE: For publishing one's open datasets and providing a distributed collaboration environment to modify them, the most common approach is to use CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network). CKAN provides a way to publish and edit structured data, while maintaining a searchable index for the data stored within. Pertaining to the Semantic Web, the open datasets of CKAN are also available in RDF format. However, this does not bring any more semantics into the data. As CKAN uses simple tagging instead of concept ontologies, the data relations inherit many of the problems the Semantic Web is trying to solve such as ambiguous or unclear tags and lack of multilingual support. There are a number of commercial alternatives to CKAN that also suffer from this lack of semantics, such as Infochimps and Socrata.