[geo-discuss] going forward: what should be done?

[Rufus Pollock]

Welcome to all those who have just joined following the forum last 
night. As a follow up to the discussions last night I'd like to raise a 
couple of items:

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1. Legal openness: what legal access do people want to geo data.
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Giles talked extensively about the possibility of a something along the 
lines of a Creative-Commons non-commercial licence. There was also a 
discussion of the use of share-alike terms as a way of addressing the 
problem of sustaining the quality of data as well as preventing the 
proliferation of interests all with their own slice of rights.

Note: that while attention is generally focused on the OS, as we saw 
last night, there are lots of other groups who have geo-data of interest 
whose data could become more open

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2. Social and technological openness
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How could all groups, be it projects creating or using geodata, ensure 
easier access to geo-data (for example by agreeing on common protocols 
for exchange). I'd also like to know if local government have any plans 
to either make available for bulk download in standard formats or to 
provide a programmatic interface to their data much of which currently 
seems only to be available to the public via human-only web-intefaces.

Regards,

Rufus