[geo-discuss] INSPIRE vote in committee today: update

Wed Mar 22 17:43:17 UTC 2006

On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 05:08:00PM +0000, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> We did get a recording which Benjamin going to post up last night when 
> he got home but I guess he was delayed. I have now posted it:
> == Audio recording of the session ==
>   * [http://www.publicgeodata.org/files/envi_committee_20060321_1.mp3 
> chunk 1] -- rapporteur speaking
>   * [http://www.publicgeodata.org/files/envi_committee_20060321_2.mp3 
> chunk 2]

> As you will already know the good news is that everything passed. The 
> bad news is that there will undoubtedly now be lots of behind the scenes 
> bargaining between the parliament and the council in which the council 
> will push to get its stuff back in. Thus we must now focus on lobbying 
> our national governments to make them understand the benefits of freer 
> access to public geodata and to ensure they take a better line on this 
> in the coming months.

I hear from Chris C that The INSPIRE conference in Gavle, Sweden is
going to be a hotspot of lobbying activity; eurogeographics will be
there, as will many national NMA representatives.
http://www.direktportalen.com/dynaweb/gavlekongress/index.asp?page=2748&child=2732

[[ I understand 150 people are going to Gavle nearly all of the ENVI
committee people will be present either the MEP or their researcher.  
Perhaps we need to send them questions to be answered at Gavle - 
a simple check list and then ask them to publish the view of the checklist 
or send it back.]]

It would be incredible if we could get someone there, but the
registration page suggests that slots for "observers from organisations
interested in INSPIRE" are fully booked now, one would have to go as
press or as a guest of a participant. 

Recently i had some conversation with John Leonard, who is chairing a panel
there on [[ How will the INSPIRE Directive influence different sectors
in society? How can we use a common infrastructure for spatial
information ]] and want to offer him questions from the open source /
open geodata perspective, to which he seems very receptive. 
http://publicgeodata.org/Questions_For_Gavle <- to be filled in. 

I want to work on an exegesis of what went through and why it's
important, that will be useful from the national perspective,
something that has a core that can be translated, and start building
back up the http://publicgeodata.org/NationalMappingAgencies page
which i defocused on (this info is lifted from the 2003 state of play
PDFs at http://inspire.jrc.it/ , and perhaps it's of dubitable use
until people can connect those listings to the responsible departments in
each country... 

Thanks so much again for your amazing burst of last-minute direct
lobbying activity. I really wish i could have been there for it. 

jo