[geo-discuss] A call for open access to geodata

Fri May 6 18:51:35 UTC 2005

Great to see this Jo. Comments below.

Regards,

Rufus

Jo Walsh wrote:
> I see these five points as the core of a 'manifesto' on open access to
> state-collected geodata, and would appreciate critique or embellishment.

I think it might be worth clearing seperating 'wants' from 'reasons'. 
Perhaps put the wants up front in a list and then have reasoning in 
seperate section. For example distilled from below we'd have:

Core:
   1. All government geodata (including OS) licenced for non-commerical 
use (see Giles' excellent draft
   2. All open geodata projects sharing a common or compatible licensing 
policy along the lines of sharealike license.
   3. Common, open, protocols and formats for data interchange

Extra:
   4. Full commons: All government geodata licenced under a share-alike 
licence.

Then after that i'd put all this material from WhyOpenGeodata (which i 
think is excellent).

> 
> * Access to public sector information should be a right.
> 
> For public sector information to be exploited, it needs to be 
> as widely available as possible. EU FOI laws heavily emphasise
> geographic data; 75% of the information generated by government
> has a spatial component.   
> 
> * With open geodata we can analyse public information better. 
> 
> Geographic data underpins civic services such as http://writetothem.com/ 
> and http://theyworkforyou.com/ . In the US, grassroots electoral
> mapping and campaign planning tools such as http://advokit.net/ 
> depend on freely available geodata. 
> 
> * Freely available data generates more economic activity.
> 
> Opening the data leads to increased competitiveness in the service 
> market, particularly in the mobile arena, and encourages innovation.

would also add the bigger pie aspect. OS already claims that 'their' 
data enables some huge amount of economic activity (£100 billion was it 
...?). If that is so we can say something like: opening up geodata and 
reducing the cost of access would only need to generate an extra 1% of 
commercial revenue over that currently being produced for any loss in 
direct sales to be made up for in tax revenue.

> * The 'Commons' licensing model is a strong public good.
> 
> An "Attribution-Sharealike" license would require the user to
> redistribute updates to the data; a middle way between commercial 
> ipventures and state funding can be found, without resorting to 
> unitive data usage charges. 

typo. punitive is a bit strong. suggest: without necessitating data 
charges that many potential uses and users.

> * The 'cost-recovery' user-pays model is a social failure.
> 
> Over 50% of UK national mapping data sales are to government 
> or government-funded organisations; a false economy of over 60M. 
> Ordinary citizens and not-for-profit organisations can't afford
> the current expensive data licenses, and are reduced to supplication.

Might add that a 'commons' model might also save money on the production 
side as well ....

> 
> [0] Directive 2003/98/EC on the exploitation of public sector information:
> 
> "Public sector information is an important primary material
> for digital content... Broad cross-border geographical 
> coverage will also be essential in this context."
> 
> 
> 
> -jo
> 
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