[geo-discuss] Responding to the consultation on opening Ordnance Survey's data

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

This message bounced the other day, I hope it gets through this time.
In the meantime, I've seen the Ernest Marples site which allows you to 
quickly submit a response to the consultation on Ordnance Survey data 
re-use policy:

http://osconsult.ernestmarples.com/

I saw Vanessa Lawrence, Director of Ordnance Survey, give a frank and 
clear talk about the consultation on access to national mapping data in 
the UK, at the Digimap 10th birthday event in Edinburgh last Wednesday.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/ordnancesurveyconsultation

"Be heard clearer, earlier" was one of the points in Vanessa's talk.
Organisations are sweating over collective responses, from industry
associations, interest groups. Compromise responses leave limited room
for expression.

"There is nothing to stop you from sitting down on a Sunday evening and
framing your views"... "this is your chance to say what you have been
thinking all along." The consultation homepage itself makes it clear
that the questions are just a guideline, and that responses can be
broader than a reaction to Options 1, 2, and 3 outlined in the document.

I started drafting an "Open Response to the OS consultation".
This is an attempt to set out the case for open licensing all OS data,
and the reasoning behind a sustainability model for it, as succinctly as
can be managed. Would ideally like to publish this under the banner of
OSGeo-UK and OKFN. Hoping for feedback on the idea, but more than that,
edits on the draft document:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ATJnv_t9ROmXZGN0Yjk3ampfMjBmM2ZqZnpkMg&hl=en

Looking to be finishing this in the second week of February,


jo
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