[geo-discuss] We have to communicate now about Inspire

[Jo Walsh]

dear Benjamin,
On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 03:23:38PM +0100, Benjamin Henrion wrote:
> We have to communicate now about Inspire.

INSPIRE is a big topic. What have we specifically to communicate
about? Having done this much groundwork, if there were a useful action
we could perform at this stage, i would like to be able to make it.

To what extent have you been able to keep track of the progress of
INSPIRE through COREPER - is it all veiled? Can we know when the third
reading amendments will have to be made public by?

One option we have is to send *yet another* letter to MEPs, a lot like
the one sent to the ENVI Committee which had the appendix with voting
suggestions and rationales for support of pro-openness amendments. 
Given we have done a lot of preparation for this, it probably wouldn't
be *too* much work. But is it worth doing again? Are MEPs going to be
pretty much committed to party lines and know where they are? 

Then a lot depends on whether the clause reinstating paragraph (b) of
article N guaranteeing the public's right to view data holdings free
of cost, makes it into third reading or not. If it does not then we
get back to "is a toothless INSPIRE better than no INSPIRE" and a lot
of people seem to think it is, that the establishment of common
standards for and open availability of metadata will achieve a lot and
at least INSPIRE is a chance to rule that into place. And we get back
to "the chance of outright rejection is so phenomenally unlikely and
we don't have the time energy for that". 

It would be nice to make some final gesture though, wouldn't it. 

> Everything will be decided on the 21 november, in 19 days.

I saw Charles Arthur's recent blog entry mentioning this too:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2006/11/01/free_our_data_november_21_looks_like_a_key_date.html#more

cheers,


jo